Therefore, he concludes, immeasurable damage is done by intellectuals who pontificate, but avoid the consequences of the tripe they pass off as wisdom from on high.
Sowell narrowly defines an "intellectual" as someone whose "work begins and ends with ideas," such as folks like himself, holding forth from ivory towers, and folks like yours truly, sounding off from the cozy confines of newspaper editorial offices.
He is a great intellect, an uncompromisingly courageous defender of truth and correct on all other points of which I'm aware. But I flinch at his definition. It's a wide net to include thinkers like himself and hacks like this writer. Our intellectual capacities are vastly dissimilar.
Nevertheless, in assessing the similar roles of academic intellectuals and news-hound know-it-alls, he's right on point. Academicians, the opinion-spewing media and other self-professed great thinkers are alike in that they produce ideas, rather than create products or services.
Sowell doesn't include among his definition of "intellectuals" people who, if measured by sheer brainpower would seem to qualify for the designation, such as doctors whose intellectual contribution is delivered in the operating room, engineers whose work product is bridges or researchers who develop vaccines. These intellectual types contribute more than ideas. They produce real things for which they can be held accountable if the patient dies, the bridge collapses or the vaccine kills rather than immunizes.
But intellectuals, in Sowell's sense of the word, are rarely if ever held accountable for the fruits of their labor, no matter how rotten. Forty years ago, environmentalist Paul Ehrlich infamously predicted worldwide food shortages and mass starvation. Instead, as Sowell noted, obesity is epidemic and there are "unsalable agricultural surpluses," yet Ehrlich continued to receive popular acclaim, honors and grants from prestigious academic institutions.
Isn't there a certain irony that the Obamunists are populated with an overwhelming number of intellectuals wo have never produced a damn thing in their lives?
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