From Jonah Goldberg at National Review, The Science of Intellectual Tribalism

There’s a long progressive tradition in America to think that intellectuals must be liberal, and therefore intellectualism equals liberalism.

If you believe that intellectualism requires being loyal to a certain political agenda, this all makes some sense. The problem is that decrying the influence of liberal intellectuals is hardly synonymous with rejecting intellectualism itself.

It takes a lot of intellectual firepower and self-confidence to declare that the intellectual emperors have no clothes, so it’s no surprise that neither Gelernter nor Taleb has been accused of being excessively humble. Their brashness can be off-putting to some and threatening to those invested in the monopoly of authority held by certain groups. But that doesn’t make them wrong — or anti-intellectual.

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