The Betrayal of Intellectuals

Author: Band
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: This book addresses the tendency of people after World War I to abandon the "eternal principles" for the sake of serving political parties and their false gods, re-evaluating this inclination from a condemnatory perspective. The author condemns those who abandon eternal truths, primarily the right-wing, especially fascists. He claims that intellectuals should first be loyal to truth rather than to parties. He attempts to distinguish between serving a cause and serving a party, and refuses various forms of totalitarianism, as these ideologies would destroy the independence and autonomy of intellectuals' lives. This book is the representative work of French philosopher Julien Benda and a world-renowned classic dedicated to the study of the intellectual problem. The book consists of four chapters, focusing on three major issues: "The Age of Politics," "The Nature of Political Passion," and "The Betrayal of the Intellectuals." In terms of length, compared to the massive works of contemporaries, Benda's book can only be considered an essay. Yet, in this small book, Benda vividly presents the psychological history of Western intellectuals from the mid-19th century to the eve of World War I.