Conversations with Eric Hoffer; 2; The Role of the Intellectual

we present the second in a series of six conversations between eric holder and james daley is eric holder his first a working man and then a writer history books the true believer the passionate state of mind in the ordeal of change the products of a lifetime of omnivorous reading and intimate association with the common man as a longshoreman of migrant labor and they were caught for volleys of california and a minor and the sierra nevada's though is a man with virtually no formal schooling he is considered one of the more original and powerful contemporary social thinkers and writers and while his trenchant writings of brought him international distinction he takes greatest pride from the fact that he works with his hands four days a week on the san francisco waterfront something he has done since

nineteen forty three mr hall for our last conversation we talked about the changeling ordeal changed the changes that are taking place in asia and africa and these changes in the underdeveloped countries are largely led by intellectuals and yet in your book the ordeal a change you've said that the asian african intellectual fears american americanization it's just a bit before we assemble about intellectual to make it a few remarks first thought it might in the majority is not based on firsthand experience of the men that have it as intellectual well i mean i i i don't know them but i always say the reserve myerson never knew anything about a word linda manana de zwart it was like to write what we're going to do it and they make some argues that what i say about intellectuals is not about american political

types in this country yesterday the day the debate the masses on the ruling is a factor in these haunted and i think the american intellectual an app store an awful lot of my just something funny happened to these year as an intellectual delegation was sent down two word latin america and they came back and reported that many of the labor leaders in latin america wouldn't believe that they were bona fide a long shot because they didn't look like a sure winner that as it was as if it to individuals went out a lot latin america nobody would believe that i think people they don't look like at what what distinguishes the actions of looks a little like four european as well hidden in this gate in newark education to see the educated person he's actually convinced that he

belongs to an elite to class it involves the common see and you will be surprised yesterday at what point at fordham asks the ease in indy european intellectual in the book that i quote the first that he had hoped is iran was tremendously i bought from a bit high and in haiti already you can see and hostility towards the united states he ate he called the united states a prison the freedom and he was afraid of the tyranny of the last more than any is fairly open debate and this is actually an unnatural attitude i think that you know i have to try to figure out the internet or it will be all the way

to the national front writing was invented to begin with for a practical purpose as people could provoke a city and writing wasn't invented the novel purity egypt was invented in the warehouse and behead first described was a craft as the year leave warehouses around the temples around the royal palace had all kinds of craft and what authors and readers and viewers and carpenters and it was also a scratch in practice the apple for it but from the very beginning to say they believe there was this right away the distinction between the sky and they autographed level of trust and produce something less tangible described did not produce anything that would prove he's useful it's only was doing it just to do so from the very beginning the scribe we did not have at the original self evident sense of

an enormous things one of this that in all the pictures that we have of describing those european states describe that helps side with us help identify themselves with wit with a people are what you always in the picture in the european pictures of egypt as he described with his spirals and his fiscal spending mr tsai the overseer which is what one of them facing pickled meat would be good what did the words were so he was identified with power identified with the ruling class with working class in order words becoming described was an overweight which common people who join the elite before you know you're becoming a woman or you have to distinguish yourself in a commonly now when you join the league of course writing was apparently

giving you obviously get your music uniform you have to spend a lifetime you know aaron learned to write and as a boondoggle beginning june the intellectual the only way to make the apple writing difficult source to preserve these risks ex convicts you anywhere you want a critical means a an obstacle race you know if you were you had to run off a chorus in order to reach the war had become it becomes right now in turkey every civilization when olaf is the described was an orderly and bid leaving now describe as this is basically being vilified if it isn't so a member of the end it was ascribed and the brits and the cake who actually fashion

all those innovations we know they set the tone before legally ideals and the aspirations all of describe grew out of commerce he read the book you could actually end it in order to preserve his elite news you say he made writing more complex but there came a time when writing became the time and there would be a monopoly of describe the trade stock trader the trade delegations simplified out the weather was and again for the purpose of bookkeeping and if you read the history of the development and for it at its best that such and such an almost exterior things that should have such a tremendous difference in his city now the freighter woody with the director of this despite the thing is a preview of occupation state afterwards army of the profits it has made a tremendous

role you know in an intimate as a freedom and it may be confusion the diffusion of literacy see everywhere even you use that he would like to trace the confusion of literacy in europe to see that because of the professors it wasn't a little supermarket operator officially it was in the soonest and the general vinegar being needed a literate soldiers to fight the war of course to me all through history than the way there and in my mind i had it so that each one of them tried to break each other's monopoly they played applied to break the monopoly of the scribes writing by simplifying writing and described like to break the parade of robbery which is by preaching the division the division of rich old old and all the movement to off off

day thinking to walk away from the house i didn't know it gets to the question why india so the initial invasion of africa it is afraid of america we just wanted to help me i am really impressive vision all been less innovation and excess you're up to the end of the middle ages described in a new book two was a member of it because after all the people who were very loyal to the coach andy i don't know whether you remember when it was the height of their arab uprising in england they are because of insecurity and and the ruling class in the courts of money and a lot of it just might be able to read was it hard to be clarity the

rally was bigger and fifty three broke actually bittersweet openly gay characters monopoly on the set education in you and do you have a hole in class of people who would read and write a novel it's intellectuals who had no automatic since also from listeners and also supporting that wasn't enough if it belonged to that only three and it was this change these diffusion of literacy test which is at the base of the reforming the base off they revolted against because the church is and the ipod touch at the lectern he is the one who has been using the you know all the revolutions that we know and did it why isn't even in the vanguard

which it was he worked at the greater society in which is he would be a member of the elite and in which he's so things for us would be self evident this is just what's happening everywhere of course in russia and china and all the biblical you heard an awful lot like we'll find half a dozen books a revolt of the masses symbol of the masses i could see a revolt of the masses but what i can see he's a revolt of being in the volatile and at that even if you're against the prevailing disposition as it is the prevailing orders and wanting to return to his golden age of long ladle describe that describe was at the side all it was yearwood what and as i said the masters never really had a chance to do anything on the armed un action was going on world elephant masses become aware and get the chance and the

only last election and says it's something absolutely no but hasn't intellectually has in his revolutionary bent always identified himself with a massive power without its temporary alliance it's a temporary alliances that a real alliance no way on orders a tremendous antagonism between the intellectual and artistic director once the process as a unit that's liberalism that wrong it and this week he wants chili he resents the fact that those devices should have should do anything on the arm he resents and the social order and knowing which aired leadership reasons almost surreal to me the organization because of affiliation or even to unionize by its ability to function when rudolf an exceptionally this is if you build something that needs an exceptionally that

right there the new album right and buy these debts he's a very vigorous aside especially when you consider during the eisenhower inspiration we hardly had a hit and he get busy and get people who have what wasn't battle for reducing the leader but they re election day thinks it blasphemous you today four for the masses you got to act on the isle and he was actually he was sent is that it is an affluent thick as society a society which devices that he actually thinks that affluence for optimize is what actors for obscene kind of political beliefs but the masses are corrupted by heart what is we identify with a struggle for power he's an ally is i don't think you use you wriggle twist or

you'll see that there was an alliance between the intellectual and businessman wonderful that mr cressy be an electrolyte himself without a stick or c when he faults the church and he allies of also without a stalker see the fight is the middle class and now he allies himself with the eu is with the operational said that reporters are in the ex colonial countries and his allies within isis was just one instance at the end of course the intellectual being given out for its he cannot proceed power the way of this is that this was our really a joke which was our the way it as an order a statement it has to justify and he wants to ruin it has the feeling that he in it and acquiring power in

the power he's actually a disservice when the schools offered a fight for liberty or for repealing do preston soul and you can see beginning in that there's a tremendous difference between the left to what he's doing and intellectually as seas now you can see him in russian intellectuals aren't sure that rejection the communist society was absolutely electric horse and you'd say right away ending commission president living in unicorns russia and leaving the leak with a big yes but in kabul is frustrating to better is an important person everything he says everything he does is of utmost importance and this is what they can get it through says he wants a society in which his importance of self evident and you know sometimes i have a i have an impression that you could get it to the recording

or he recorded like my crush your alternatives it seems to me that what's happening there is this that you muster its ground oh fossils it you get into with a gigantic screen they were disillusioned into a sikh and you know all that in a class whatever the teacher mr rosser says goals and everybody hangs on on his wards and this is the kind of society that they even if you really wants he doesn't want to decide and gingrich as he wants it audience wants some previous battles and he wants to use now or so they sent everybody else cautions morning and the vulnerability is that some writer for the us in fifteen days worth of that now in this country as kennedy or a big commerce without warning what that would save souls one because

eddie nobody really pays attention to what our intelligence say they are not at all bored and factoring in shaping our lives of sorts of shaping our lives and you can see the city why the european intellectual and intellectual in in the indies and the vocal loops on the spread of americanization as a threat it is a threat not only to his that it was in for a spot to his very existence look what happened and at the industry and i called up one hit an american kid in new management company to wear what i'll say to improve the system really you know the result was that about the ninety percent of intellectuals employed in that including this will fire see because i'm guessing the beauty like twenty eight candidate needs

eric the role of leadership of supervision say diseases is a role that fits he uses the trouble what he wants to see and now when would you can hear the de escalation between a supervisor and personnel and working for some of the free societies do you have is it in its lowest you the number of supervisors law was in the united states the us economy square all were there you have half of the population stabilize in order and everywhere where the word audrey has a reading from the rival india beastie boys from land is this increase in the bureaucracy that city and it's a little like that that if you don't leave jobs with his graduates of universities see it would have an evolution as

usual anyone any social stability you have to increase the rockers old song all through history if you want that to keep the intellectual satisfied that the associate him with a hierarchy off the robotic heart sick and going through this music of course it spells innovations if you have such a high proportion of supervisory and david protective force it social stability is absolutely necessary then you have to put that as the intellectual is largely the source for creativity in this is i guess and yet you argue that when the intellectual gains power but creativity delicious absolutely you know it is a very calm affectionate that is really pointed out here you have a university that's a us government run and writes that civil war that the trustees of ramadan

would you say that the greatest the best writers come out of university know we've seen the greatest poets come up and you'll receive no great musician the greatest they didn't know a lot of interest because of this scientists it is anything but and the conclusion is it is all because almost inescapable that the university is a lot of there every idea of the year the ford created for producing great books great music great at me and the reason is of course on the topic of experience because i don't know how they were simpler theories around it seems unlikely that a creative person and all of all of our economic misfortune of oakland residents they have that i have to say that's the least create the people who know the magic city and now you have to know something about people who want to be treated and can be no

mother proclivities so on and one thing a prickly because he's in the fields with good thing to have i think we want to in the field and of course in the case of some you know some evidence of an electric push of global citizens of a sudden headache get a job for a relative's seat and he won oh and a russian literature he effectively destroyed people were really accept it and sizes and in these answer your question the survey yes not like to ask one more tricky because the intellectuals have traditionally been on the forefront of the fight for freedom so once again you argue that they're not holding a free society with the out of our mouths i wasn't like full intellectual and their intellectual lincoln steffens is and then was living off the fat of the land in the nineties all these like it was

all four or forty years or less you're welcome all that he went with a struggle for free speech but when freedom came to the basement not the it's very important with intellectuals who have their freedom and fight for three this is the freedom of the really neat he does not produce event he's looked at these best in a society where is absolutely free that where we actually is that he's left to his own devices that he can do whatever he pleases he does i will see you right in the president and the left that will be he wants to lead to the suspect in the field office of the abnormal whew he wants its it work with his record but you know if

he had a choice between a happily being left alone and the best that you really just because you see the creative process is that they use is that they think that the generals on actually see then it's only when you can't being a sense of what the means that they took it in a chance to be able to act to acquire bitches to run raindrops to open minds and you read the necessities of what happened in the square you have to fly up and then it was more than that an older sons of poets and the philosophers went out on monday they become railroad man became millionaires and there was the end oh what do you need action is inimical to create sort of activity states it it's the lock on the the energy which would be walking through a creativity is

going into action back with a really creative impulse may be a sense is get the secretions you know off their frustration a frustrated designer for imposing harsh criticism experts say with the prosecutor when the people disagree with because i ski and these ids you can see with with all the customers solar at sea lord all of them big the gap in significant act i get by leaving themselves from action or being forced out at sea and big it's all police and the city to see them and worked with an amazing war it was the ap wire humiliating kept the ways we're on one of them

they regularly work it really is is very lively was allowed to become a big brother run around for one reason or another item when it came out so the prince so europe is his forces and who is during the ring for the interviewee to forty years in france and you'll see a tremendous phenomena that aristocrat speaking to write from in this book is lunch or c why the gross louis the fourteenth to a weight action on the aristocracy in that is that crazy that he was getting power and was running the policy was on little sleep but now to please the people with the right people so that is an action an empty creativity

but as i said at a society dominated by intellectuals it is not an ideal new for the production or great art great says literature how that something about something you apportion always says at fighting to do dominate this improvise all the poets and writers and artists and in russia supporters of worship built in so it would indicate if he left the management of literature an arts and local troops to do a comedy or for writers in russia than waddle prescribe as much more than tuition yes i'm going to have to continue this conversation you at our next meeting at that time i'd like to pick up with this point of the intellectuals and carried over to the counterpart the masses and talk about

the masters and the weak and the working man thank you thank you that was the second in a series of six conversations between our call for and james day general manager of kqed this is an ep national television fb