Polish Intellectual

What about the contribution of Polish intellectuals (many of whom were Jewish) in leading the anti-Nazi resistance during WWII. As a result, the Polish intelligentsia was decimated and the leadership of the country in the post-WWII era was taken up by more traditional elements within Polish society, leading to many of the peculiarl social phenomena we see in Polish society today.

Yeah, becoming a priest actually requires a lot of intellectual training — much less becoming bishop, then pope.

I’ve seen this linked to a couple of times around the blogophere today, and I just don’t get it. Does anyone have any guess as to who this guy is talking about? I’m assuming the other “ordinary Pole” was Lech Walesa, but perhaps not. As for the “German intellectuals”…well, Nietzsche, maybe? Marx? Who? I suppose I should be more conversant in the jargon of right-wing triumphalism, but I haven’t read Instapundit in a couple of years.

I imagine Prof. Anti-Intellectual was thinking of supporters of liberation and liberal theology like Hans Kung. I wonder if he’d be able to name another. He’s been scornful in the past about Jurgen Habermas, but Habermas isn’t Catholic, is he?, so doesn’t quite belong on Reynolds’ imaginary “losing team.”

Cardinal Ratzinger is German and an intellectual, but one that I’d bet Reynolds approves of.

Who’s the other “ordinary Pole”?

(What a stupid description of John Paul II, by the way. Whatever else he was, he wasn’t ordinary. The “Vicar of Christ” and the head of the entire Catholic church is sort of by definition not ordinary.)

“The “Vicar of Christ” and the head of the entire Catholic church is sort of by definition not ordinary.)”

Plus there are the gold outfits and the bubble car and the tall hat. But, you know, it’s like that guy – oh, what is his name – who is president of the United States, son of another, grandson of a senator, Andover Yale and Harvard graduate, rich – but he’s just a reg’lar ordinary guy like everbuddy else because – er – because he wears blue jeans on the weekend, or something. It’s a right-wing trope.

The post is here. Given that that is the entire comment and there is no relevant antecedent, it’s impossible to know which Poles and Germans are being compared. Funny, though, that the Tim Blair post is about how the Pope supported “intellectual” and “academic” things. Odd.

I think you’re missing the point, Kieran. Poles are ordinary, simple folk while Germans are fancy-pants intellectuals.

Well, it strikes me as more an offhand (secondhand–no actually thirdhand) comment than anything deeply considered–all the analysis seems a bit over the top. That said, if I had to guess at the meaning–it was that John Paul and Lech Walesa played instrumental roles in ending the cold war while ‘Intellectuals’ in Germany (who might have been expected to take the lead in such a development) did not (rather they were aghast at the dangerous, impolitic, confrontational, simplicity of ‘evil empire’ and ‘tear down this wall’).

In other words, just a very short version of the standard right-wing account of the end of the cold war.

MW: It doesn’t need deep analysis, it’s just standard anti-intellectual jerkishness. Is that what you meant?

If we’re looking for ‘ordinary Poles’ (of a sort) for moral inspiration, then I’ll take Krzysztof Kieslowski, thank you, and anyone who tries to paint me as a liberal elitist can bugger right off.

That two line post notwithstanding, libertarian types like Reynolds really aren’t anti-intellectual.

They just do a very good job of looking so.

And Poland supported our Kickass War, so the circle’s complete.

Perhaps so, although I must point out that the Poles do like eating cheese (and have a number of rather good cheese-based dishes), and if attacked by a superior army, they tend to surrender.

“…if attacked by a superior army, they tend to surrender…”

Bizarre comment. I think Poles, throughout history and including WWII, have shown themselves willing to fight even when a neutral observor would describe that willingness as irrational (given the likelihood that the Poles would lose). Poland was the first country which stood up to Nazi Germany – preferring destruction to dishonor.

Speaking of right wing tropes – don’t you also love the visual impact of the ad on the right, the woman wearing that “celebrate diversity” t-shirt with all the pictures of guns on it? It so fits with all the Pope links, doesn’t it?

The involuntary irony could only have been more striking if the face above the t-shirt had been that of Ali Agca…

I understand the fun of shooting fish in a barrel, but time spent taking Instapundit seriously (even for the sake of taking the piss out of him) is better spent doing almost anything else instead.

I think that’s misguided. Reynolds is not a Republican. He’s been bashing religious conservatives over the Teri Schiavo circus and over bankruptcy reform, to name two recent examples. Bush was roundly criticized by those on the left for the ‘if your not with us you’re against us’ bit–but I see far too much of that on left-leaning blogs. It’s just dumb to turn Reynolds into Crooked Timber’s pet bete noire given that he lines up on the same side on a lot issues that matter.

Has there really been a pattern of Reynolds making ‘anti-intellectual’ statements? Or was this just an isolated ‘gotcha’ opportunity?

I think that’s misguided. Reynolds is not a Republican. He’s been bashing religious conservatives over the Teri Schiavo circus and over bankruptcy reform, to name two recent examples. Bush was roundly criticized by those on the left for the ‘if your not with us you’re against us’ bit—but I see far too much of that on left-leaning blogs. It’s just dumb to turn Reynolds into Crooked Timber’s pet bete noire given that he lines up on the same side on a lot issues that matter.

My point was not that Reynolds is particularly pernicious, but rather that he’s particularly empty. I used to read Instapundit occasionally (admittedly largely out of a desire to know what the other side was thinking), but I found that I was learning next to nothing. So I stopped. Reynolds’ emptiness is punctuated every once in awhile by something humorously stupid (like the post that’s being discussed here), and (less frequently) by the occasional post in which he winds up saying something actually reasonable (you know what they say about stopped clocks).

But I’m entirely with you on not turning him into a bete noire, though perhaps for different reasons. IMO, he’s simply not worth the effort.

(Of course by replying, I’m disobeying my own advice above.)

If you are Mike G. maybe you can explain what the point of your comment was. You’ve baffled everyone because Reynolds seems to get what you’re talking about but a lot of us don’t. Ordinary Poles have two what? Not victories, they only won one – the Cold War. They were soundly defeated in WWII so chalk up 1 for the German intellectuals (Heidegger). The overthrow of the Communist Government in Poland was not a victory over German intellectual thought, but a victory over traditional Russian imperialism.

Scheler, Arendt, von Hildebrand, Stein, were all part of a group of German and Austrian Jewish and Catholic philosophers inspired by another German-Jewish philosopher, Edmund Husserl, people who taught and studied at Heidelberg and Tubingen and Freiburg and elsewhere, interacting with other European intellectuals and artists of varying schools, debating and otherwise. (including pairing up, as the tragic affair between Arendt and Heidegger, who went Darkside.)

They fragmented severely over a couple of things – some academic, there is the Early Husserl and the Later Husserl followers who both call themselves “phenomenologists,” and also IRL over the issue of Patriotism and Duty and looking back at the Just Cause of WWI and daring to question it, and over the coming “traditional moral values” and “law and order” movements.

After the War the survivors went on in various ways, some of which ended up directly influencing me, and the circles of conservative Catholic academics I was brought up in, where anecdotes about Heidegger’s shames and Max Scheler’s eccentricity were well known. The idea that there ever was some sort of monolithic “German Intellectual” to be against, is patently absurd.

What exactly is it that Instapunk does, anyway? Obviously it doesn’t involve anything to do with research, since he doesn’t seem to know the most basic thing about JPII, which is that he wrote a lot of philosophy books even before he was elected pope, and just asking so what was all that about? would give the bare sketches of his associates and academic lineage and degrees and all…

You give the Poles far too much credit. Poland crumpled like a house of cards in WWII, and to this day they have not recovered the lost historical Polish heartland in the East. The great epic Polish poem Pan Tadeusz now reads like an ironic joke, with its opening line: “Lithuania, my Lithuania!”. Ordinary Poles didn’t defeat the German intellectuals, it was the blood of millions of ordinary Russians that bought Poland out of one slavery only to immediately be thrown into another. And now Poland is voluntarily handing its independence over to the latest creation of French & German intellectuals – the European Union.