The Decline of the Intellectual

by Thomas Steven Molnar, Unknown Author

In perhaps his most famous book, The Decline of the Intellectual, Thomas Molnar launches into a fundamental critique of the intellectual class. He sees it as a group that had lost its way, collapsing a sense of vision into political activism, social engineering, and culture manipulation, and abandoning the writing, philosophizing, and scholarship that had occupied their predecessors. Universities began to produce factory-like, faceless citizens, as the job market became the arbiter of education and culture. Today's professors are recruited from this group of job seekers, and hence, have a shared indifference toward learning. Molnar likens present-day intellectuals to the earlier Marxists who elaborated their Utopian model in the Communist party. The campus intellectuals' objective is to transform the university into a replica and a laboratory of the ideal society. Colleges and universities thus become sources of propaganda of various political, financial, cultural, and ideological trends, not only among students, but professors as well. The thirty years separating editions have done nothing to weaken such a critical appraisal. In his new introduction, Molnar writes that the decline of intellectuals has extended outside of the campus to the arts, the public discourse, and the robotization caused by technology. On the initial publication of this work, Frank S. Meyer wrote in Modern Age, "Thomas Molnar's book is not only true; it is intellectually exciting and it will remain a necessary handbook for anyone interested in the decisive problem of the 20th century." The Decline of the Intellectual is essential reading for sociologists, political scientists, educators, and university officials. It is the basis of present-day critiques of the academic world.

Genres: Philosophy

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Thomas Steven Molnar (Hungarian: Molnár Tamás) was a Catholic philosopher, historian and political theorist.

Molnar completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Brussels in Belgium and received his Ph.D. in philosophy and history from Columbia University in New York City.

He was visiting professor of philosophy of religion at the University of Budapest. As author of over forty books in French and English he published on a variety of subjects including religion, politics, and education. He emigrated to the United States, where he taught for many years at Brooklyn College. Molnar said he was inspired by Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind . Like Kirk, he wrote a good deal for the magazine National Review. In addition, Kirk and Molnar were founding board members of Una Voce America.

Molnar admired Charles Maurras and wrote that French failure to honor Maurras' conservative values was a component of the "agony of France".

He died at the age of 89 on Tuesday 20 July 2010.

Among the awards Molnar received was the Széchenyi Prize, from the President of the Republic of Hungary.

Reviews

[Michael David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had intended to finish this book before New Year arrived, because it is highly unusual for me to take months in reading one book (except if the book is medical in nature). I no longer remember when I started reading this book, but I must have had a streak of masochism during that time.

The book is difficult to read. It's not difficult in the sense that it utilizes complex literary techniques to deliver its points, but it is difficult because it is extremely dense. Thomas Molnar wrote a comprehensive survey of the major types of intellectuals situated across history, from the reactionary to the Marxist. In the later part of the book, he posits arguments as to why the intellectual had declined in vogue: the social engineer, from what I understood, replaces him because the social engineer is more efficient and timely. Ideals nowadays are perverted and downgraded, because pragmatism is more expedient and relevant in this world, and the social engineer fits this world more than the intellectual.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

It's impossible for me to summarize this book because it tackles so much in its 350 pages (which actually belie its length, since there are copious footnotes throughout the text). I'll just end by saying it's a great panorama of the evolution of the idea as to what an intellectual is. It's definitely for people seeking cerebral dissection of philosophies as well as ethics: I only completed the book in between card games with my family members. It's an exhausting and enervating treatise, but nevertheless a rewarding one.

It's not a fun read, however. (I did like Molnar's contrast between Malraux and Camus.)