Lives of the Mind: The Use and Abuse of Intelligence from Hegel to Wodehouse

by Roger Kimball

“In the faculty of writing nonsense,” the English critic Walter Bagehot once observed, “stupidity is no match for genius.” In Lives of the Mind , Roger Kimball, one of the best of our cultural critics, offers a lively and penetrating study of genius―and pseudo-genius―at work and investigates the use and abuse of intelligence. When does a love of ideas become a dangerous infatuation? What antidotes are there for the silliness of unanchored intellect? Drawing on figures as various as Plutarch and Hegel, Kierkegaard and P. G. Wodehouse, Elias Canetti and Anthony Trollope, Bagehot and Wittgenstein and Sybille Bedford, Mr. Kimball provides a sharply observed tour of Western intellectual and artistic aspiration. He shows what happens when intellect trumps common sense, and how an affirmation of shared values and ordinary reality can rescue us from the temptations of the higher stupidity. Part cautionary tale, part literary celebration, Lives of the Mind is a witty, deeply engaging guide for the perplexed. The New York Times Book Review has called Mr. Kimball “a scathing critic but one whose tirades are usually justified....His intellectual rigor is refreshing.” And Gertrude Himmelfarb has “His essays reflect a steadiness of mind, a coherence, conviction, and passion that make him one of the most candid and perceptive critics of American culture.”

Genres: Philosophy, Essays, Cultural, Literature, Biography

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2002

About the author

American art critic and social commentator. He was educated at Cheverus High School, a Jesuit institution in South Portland, Maine, and then at Bennington College, where he received his BA in philosophy and classical Greek, and at Yale University. He first gained prominence in the early 1990s with the publication of his book, Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Higher Education.

Additionally, he is editor and publisher of The New Criterion magazine and the publisher of Encounter Books. He currently serves on the board of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the board of Transaction Publishers and as a Visitor of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college based in Savannah, Georgia. He also served on the Board of Visitors of St. John's College (Annapolis and Santa Fe). His latest book, The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia, was published by St. Augustine's Press in June of 2012.

Reviews

[Evan Beacom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good bit of criticism in the form of an essay on each of...20? 25? writers, most in the last two centuries. Engages the ideas of each thinker pretty lightly. I liked the essay on Descartes best, Kierkegaard was interesting too. Overall the pace was a bit slow and the sources a bit dated.

[JoséMaría BlancoWhite · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of entertaining and never boring essays on very different kinds of philosophers and literary figures. One thing they all have in common: their mighty intellects. However, as the subtitle indicates, they have either used or abused those intellects. The obvious case for the latter being Hegel; in lesser degrees most of the others; and finally, the former being a few who have made good use of their God-given talent, like Wodehouse of Trollope, never mind that not everybody has been appreciative of the fact.

Mr. Kimball makes use of recently published books on those authors to recall those culturally relevant figures, in their worldly aspects as well as their social and academic repercussions. We get quite good analyses of personages like Hegel, Bertrand Russell, Kierkegaard, P.G. Wodehouse, David Stove, Schopenhauer, Tocqueville, Walter Bagehot... I liked some essays better than others; I didn't dislike any. But a few really were worth reads since I didn't know a thing about them and I became quite intrigued now, for instance, the case of David Stove or Bagehot or Trollope. If their lives do not appeal too much to the modern reader, at least Mr. Kimball does excellently well by getting us hooked on the nature of their work, quite worthy of the minds they had.

As for the negative side of the authors studied here, their abuse of intelligence, would suffice to quote the words of Bertrand Russell:

“I think he [Wittgenstein] has genius. In discussion with him I put out all my force and only just equaled his. With all my other pupils I should squash them flat if I did so.”

A game, it was. I game of intellects; a competition of show-offs. Buffoons who made mockery of their clever minds by putting them to use only to win acclaim, reputation, a name. Proverbs 1:7 speaks to them when it calls them fools who despise wisdom and instruction. Why? because they have no fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.

[May Ling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this reading 3 stars because of my expectations. I bought this book for the subtitle "The use and abuse of intelligence" thinking that it would talk further about logical fallacies through history and how they were resolved. While the book lead up to the title "Lives of the Mind", it doesn't really do much in the way of weaving the thread of logical fallacy and it's evolution.

First, I could not give it lower than 3 stars because the book is obviously well researched. Each chapter had excellent information on the personal and professional lives of the various philosophers.

However, it didn't do a fantastic job of weaving the themes of the "abuse of intellect" through time. There were a few pointed exceptions. The chapter on Kierkegard, is a bit more to the point, as is the chapter on Toqueville.

If the book had been without the subtitle, I think I would have rated it differently as my expectations would have been different. Then again, if the subtitle had not been there, I wouldn't have purchased the book.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The thoughts of a fearless and incisive critic of modern culture who evaluates the lives of several remarkable thinkers in a literate and humanistic manner. You should read this book in addition to your research into the ideas and lives of these intellectuals.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide range of essays on key figures from Santayana to Toqueville to Wodehouse.
All of Kimball books are worthwhile.