Seminar 4: John Carey's The Intellectuals and the Masses

Today’s seminar was about John Carey. As a follow up to my seminar paper, here are the key points that we discussed today:

The worst part about the divide between the intellectuals and the masses, in my opinion, is the fact that society has simply accepted the self-proclamation of superiority by the intellectuals, as Stefano pointed out in his seminar paper. Another idea that interested me was the way that he brought in our current education system in relation to the educational hierarchy which Carey discusses. Are we really receiving a quality education? Are we rivaling the intellectuals in terms of our knowledge of the world?

It was also pointed out that Hitler’s use of propaganda to control the mass, and his targeting of the Germans as a mass, are hypocritical of his populist ideas as outlined in Mein Kampf. Also, the root of the word mass comes from a Roman idea of the masses being incarcerated in hell, and Hitler’s actions can be seen as physically reenacting this idea.

There are many links between the work of Hannah Arendt and John Carey; they both discuss Hitler and Stalin and what should be done about the masses. However, Arendt is far more extreme and is not afraid to say that she thinks there are too many uneducated people and that the intellectual hierarchy must be maintained.

We all agreed that Carey’s mention that the growth of the European population between 1800 and 1914 rose from 180 million to about 460 million was a shock and an eye-opener, showing why the intellectuals may have been so fearful. However, it is definitely not grounds for genocide and we were all very clear on this point; there are other ways to sustain society without killing off the lower levels.

What is also shocking is how normal Hannah Arendt finds the idea of killing people. She talks about it in a way that takes away the idea that the masses are human, which is very distressing as we are all human, we all have thoughts and feelings and should be treated accordingly. Not simply numbered and thrown in a mass grave.

The modernist idea of putting literature out of the reach of the masses can be seen reflected in our education system. Now that more people than ever are getting higher grades in GCSEs and A levels and with more university students, outcries that the educations system is too easy are resounding through our lecture rooms. This is being tackled by raising fees and entrance qualifications, and the job market is joining in by expecting, not only a degree, but a 2:1, and experience, and connections, and references. It is getting harder and harder to get anywhere without an education.

Another interesting point that came up was the fact that in the last chapter of The Intellectuals and the Masses, it seems that there is a huge conspiracy, with all of the great writers, artists and intellectuals teamed up against the rest of humanity. This chapter also makes it seem that many people were interested in mass extermination and that, while we thought that Hitler was an evil man and now a dead evil man and so we could sleep at night safe and sound from any evil genius that may start a mass genocide, in fact there are many people who were thinking along similar lines to him. He was simply the one that tried to put it into action. This brings up ideas of will the holocaust ever happen again? In countries like China where the communist government stifles any kind of outside influence, the chances are higher.

Finally, we discussed Lord Northcliffe and Tabloid Nation with regard to the intellectuals/mass divide. It is pretty clear that Lord Northcliffe was not among the greatest thinkers of our time, but neither was he part of the mass. However, he made a conscious decision to target the masses and write for a mass audience, and even target women when they were condemned by society to be idle housewives. But was this a purely financial concern? Or did he actually care that the masses were informed?