Step Away from Anti-intellectualism

Today Nicholas Kristof wrote a great piece today in his column at The New York Times exalting Obama as a true intellectual, the first we've had in the white house since Kennedy. He calls last week's victory in the presidential race "a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life." Of course, I agree, but it's Kristof's definition of what exactly makes an intellectual that interests me most:

"An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and — President Bush, lend me your ears — that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity."

The key is the distinction he makes between an intellectual's (presumably, Obama's) appreciation of uncertainties and contraditions, and the rigidity and "moral clarity" of so many of our anti-intellectual leaders (here, President Bush, but also John McCain and most of our recent presidents.) It's important to note that this distinction is not a Democrat-Republican distinction, or a conservative-liberal distinction, or even a conservative-progressive distinction. This is a distinction between those who see a clear, morally correct way of ruling and those who accept that they don't know it all, but are willing to try all options in pursuit of the most appropriate way of ruling for the time being. It's idealism vs. pragmatism.

In this moment, with the state of the economy and the military conflicts in the middle east, and the changing balance of power due to globalization, we need a pragmatist more than ever. No one knows what will happen in the next four years; we need someone who will be willing to look at the state of our nation objectively and explore solutions that may be unprecedented or unconventional, solutions that just may work.