Les Intellectuels!

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Apr 01, 2005

Father Richard Neuhaus's Public Square column from the March First Things is now on-line, and contains several excellent items. First, check out this quotation from William James in Neuhaus's appraisal of Christian Smith's The Secular Revolution:

William James foresaw the new circumstance in a speech to a college audience in 1907: "We alumni and alumnae of the colleges are the only permanent presence [in America] that corresponds to the aristocracy in older countries. We have continuous traditions, as they have; our motto, too, is noblesse oblige; and, unlike them, we stand for ideal interests solely, for we have no corporate selfishness and wield no powers of corruption. We ought to have our own class-consciousness. Les Intellectuels! What prouder club name could there be than this one?"

Ever wonder how it was that federal judges came to think as they do?