Pejman Yousefzadeh

Conservative ideas will not be taken seriously until they are set forth by serious men and women. Only someone with gravity, with a moral center, can begin to undo the damage wrought by both parties, whose operatives have excelled at character-assassination rather than governance, at kicking the can down the road rather than rallying the nation to pay the bills for our own poor judgment.

The anti-intellectual stance of leading conservatives, which Jacoby rightly identified, isn’t the problem. It’s the underlying lack of intellect, in the classical sense, what the Greeks called the nous. It’s a lack of understanding, perception, reason, and intuition. Intellect implies thoughtfulness, attention to the fullness of things. It is as far from tribal allegiance and democratic mob rule as one can get, and in their haste to obscure their own academic pedigrees, putative conservative leaders have abandoned intellect as well, in favor of smooth political machinations.