Julien Benda’s Treason of Intellectuals Revisited.
Deja Vu All Over Again.
Another violent act in Ukraine (or former Ukraine, if you want to be geographically precise). Another set of mutual accusations. Another set of self-righteous posturing, followed by the appeals to international courts. Now the plane is taken out out the skies; now people are burned alive in Odessa; now the soldiers are killed/not killed by Russians on the island near Odessa; now the murdered civilians left behind, and finally — just a few days ago — the Ukrainian POW incinerated by the air strike on Donetsk. Kiev blames Moscow, Moscow blames Kiev.
I might have my own opinion about each of those cases, based on my knowledge of language, culture, sources, history and so on; but before I articulate it, I stress again and again, to my highly intelligent interlocutors in the US or Europe, that it is a war, and in the confrontations of such intensity, it is important to wait and see the data and investigate further, since everything is so heavily politicized.
And what do I hear in response? Why wait? It is Russians. It is Russians that interfered in American Democracy, It is Russians who installed Trump, it is Russians who are behind every outrage that occurs in Ukraine. Furthermore, just doubting these obvious facts, is an act of stupidity and immorality, and I should be ashamed of myself. That's exactly what I hear, explicitly, or a bit less so, from professors, bankers, lawyers, journalists, writers, teachers, politicians, and other people of consequence. Not the hicks who watch TV, no! Real educated people.
Why this certainty? Why this refusal to entertain a doubt, let alone to acknowledge that every side of the conflict consists of people, prone to venality, greed, stupidity, or cruelty.
And I don't mean that these accusations and self-righteousness comes only from "westerners." Plenty of my Russian speaking friends, friends from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev or Odessa, have suddenly turned into bloodthirsty monsters, who post admiring pictures of sexy Ukrainian sharp shooters, who praise new weapons coming from the US for its ability to kill, who cheerfully report British Intelligence news about thousands of Russian soldiers decimated by HIMARS or Javelins.
Frankly, I see only one explanation, old fashion as it sounds. Treason of Intellectuals. Or to use the more precise terminology of Julien Benda, Trahison Des Clercs; "clercs" being the ecclesiastical officials, monks, scribes and so on.
These are the people, who, according to Benda, are supposed to warn the masses not to surrender to their violent passions, and not to entertain their violent prejudices, but who now have decided to add fuel to the fire and provide masses with more and more arguments in support of their violent passions: ethnic, racial, class, sexual, or what have you.
The concept of "clercs" is important as it points to the "ecclesiastical" roots of modern intellectuals. Doesn't matter what religious denomination we are talking about, all major religions presuppose the acceptance of God and the Universe, both of which are too complex for our minds to comprehend.
Spelling out what Benda was suggesting (and he was a secular French Jew, not some religious fanatic of whatever denomination), we can say, intellectuals began to fuel human passions rather than pointing to divine love and brotherhood, because they lost their sense of "incomprehensible" universe, their sense of world's complexity, their recognition that in the affairs of this world, "we see through the glass darkly."
Out of the blue, the world began to be inhabited by certainties. Marxist certainties, bourgeois certainties, racist certainties, antisemitic certainties. All of the sudden intellectual began to know who is a friend and who is a foe.
Russian intelligentsia, for example, had always been certain about the enemy -- the Russian State, and it continued with this certainty to this day. Same applies to liberal western intellectuals, who are damn certain about their "wokism" and its values, to the counter-culture with its corporate imperialism, or to some leftovers of British Empire, with their "white man burden."
The fundamental issue of religion, the embrace of "un-knowable" Universe and equally inscrutable will of God, is gone.
Of course, I hear the objections, coming from intellectuals, who'll claim that it is religion, which is the source of certainties, and not the other way around. Well, maybe for some ignorant masses yes, but not for Newton, Milton or Blake, not for Dostoevsky or Einstein, not for the endless amount of mystics and visionaries.
In the long run, ignorant masses and liberal intellectuals are the same, preferring the certainty of ideology (including religious ideology) to the mystery of faith.
And that's why -- in my view -- today's intellectuals are as willing to gobble up the certainties of BBC and NYT, as their cultural counterparts, consume the certainties of The Sun or The Fox News.
