The Role Of Third Parties Is To

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., In A Mordant Protest Written Soon After The [1952] Election, Found The Intellectual "in A Situation He Has Not Known For A Generation." After Twenty Years Of Democratic Rule, During Which The Intellectual Had Been In The Main Understood And Respected, Business Had Come Back Into Power, Bringing With It "the Vulgarization Which Has Been The Almost Invariable Consequence Of Business Supremacy.

In Using The Terms Play And Playfulness, I Do Not Intend To Suggest Any Lack Of Seriousness; Quite The Contrary. Anyone Who Has Watched Children, Or Adults, At Play Will Recognize That There Is No Contradiction Between Play And Seriousness, And That Some Forms Of Play Induce A Measure Of Grave Concentration Not So Readily Called Forth By Work.

Intellect Needs To Be Understood Not As Some Kind Of Claim Against The Other Human Excellences For Which A Fatally High Price Has To Be Paid, But Rather As A Complement To Them Without Which They Cannot Be Fully Consummated.

If There Is Anything More Dangerous To The Life Of The Mind Than Having No Independent Commitment To Ideas, It Is Having An Excess Of Commitment To Some Special And Constricting Idea.

The Intellectual's ... Playfulness, In Its Various Manifestations, Is Likely To Seem To Most Men A Perverse Luxury; In The United States The Play Of The Mind Is Perhaps The Only Form Of Play That Is Not Looked Upon With The Most Tender Indulgence. His Piety Is Likely To Seem Nettlesome, If Not Actually Dangerous. And Neither Quality Is Considered To Contribute Very Much To The Practical Business Of Life.