The Liberal Intelligentsia Have No Use for Merit

The intelligentsia have changed the high achievements and rewards of some members of society from an inspiration to others into a source of resentment and grievance for others.  The intelligentsia encourage people who are contributing nothing to the world to complain, and even organize protests, because others are not doing enough for them.  They have rationalized the breaking of laws by those who choose to picture themselves as underdogs fighting an oppressive “system,” even when these are college students from affluent homes, being subsidized by their parents and/or the taxpayers.  Intellectuals have, both in America and in France, verbally turned military heroes who put their lives on the line for their country into victims of war, people whom one might pity but never want to emulate.

They have put the people whose work creates the goods and services that sustain a rising standard of living on the same plane as people who refuse to work, but who are depicted as nevertheless entitled to their “fair share” of what others have created — this entitlement being regardless of whether the recipients observe even common decency, much less the laws.

Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Society, p.541-542