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The Intellectuals and the Powers: Some Perspectives for Comparative Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Edward Shils
Edward Shils
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

In religion, in art, in all spheres of culture and politics, the mass of mankind in all hitherto known societies have not, except for transitory interludes, been preoccupied with the attainment of an immediate contact with the ultimate principles implicit in their beliefs and standards. The directly gratifying ends of particular actions, the exigencies of situations, considerations of individual and familial advantage, concrete moral maxims, concrete prescriptions and prohibitions, preponderate in the conduct of the majority of persons in most societies, large and small. The systemic coherence and the deeper and more general ground of beliefs and standards only intermittently hold their attention and touch on their passions. Ordinary life in every society is characterized by an unequal intensity of attachment to ultimate values, be they cognitive, moral, or aesthetic, and an unequal intensity of the need for coherence. Ordinary life shuns rigorous definition and consistent adherence to traditional or rational rules, and it has no need for continuous contact with the sacred. Ordinary life is slovenly, full of compromise and improvisation; it goes on in the “here and now”.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , October 1958 , pp. 5 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1964

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References

1 The demand for intellectual services can sometimes exceed the supply of qualified persons; it will always exceed the supply of truly creative individuals. More frequently, however, modern societies have experienced an excess of the supply of technically qualified persons over the demand for their services.

17 Naturally this sentiment is not equally shared by all intellectuals. Not all are equally involved in these “vital facts” - and therefore not all have the same feeling of the dignity of their activities. Intellectuals vary greatly in their sensitivity to their traditions -just as do the laity with respect to their traditions - but even in those who are relatively insensitive, there remains a considerable unconscious assimilation of many elements of these central traditions.