Beware the Life of (or the Neglect of) the Mind
"Distinguished professors, gifted poets, and influential journalists summoned their talents to convince all who would listen that modern tyrants were liberators and that their unconscionable crimes were noble, when seen in the proper perspective. Whoever takes it upon himself to write an honest intellectual history of twentieth-century Europe will need a strong stomach. But he will need something more. He will need to overcome his disgust long enough to ponder the roots of this strange and puzzling phenomenon. What is it about the human mind that made the intellectual defense of tyranny possible in the twentieth century? How did the Western tradition of political thought, which begins with Plato's critique of tyranny in the Republic and his unsuccessful trips to Syracuse, reach the point where it became respectable to argue that tyranny was good, even beautiful? Our historian will need to pose these larger questions, for he will find himself dealing with a general phenomenon, not isolated cases of extravagant behavior. The Heidegger case is only the most dramatic twentieth-century example of how philosophy, the love of wisdom, declined into philotyranny within living memory." --Mark Lilla
In recent years I have read multiple books on the lives of intellectuals and academic scholars. A few of these books I commend to you if these things interest you though honestly they will bore many if not most to tears-ha!) include:
Dr. Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society ,
Dr. Paul Kengor's The Devil and Karl Marx,
Paul Johnson's Intellectuals From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky
Mark Lilla's The Reckless MInd: Intellectuals in Politics
Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy
John Frame's A History of Western Philosophy and Theology
Stephen Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism
MIchael Walsh's The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West
The Great Thinkers Series I have not read all this series but so far have enjoyed but what I have read
Peter Kreeft's The Best Things in Life and Between Heaven and Hell (brilliant pedagogy here and in Gaarder's book above-Very good writing overall and with both I am confident you will learn a lot and appreciate them if you like stories)
(Please note: I read the earlier edition of Lilla's book and do not know what was added in this later one. I also do not commend everything these authors have ever written even in their books though Frame is a Christian, Kengor and Kreeft are both Roman Catholics and Sowell and the late Johnson have been admirably right on many things by God's common grace and general revelation). If you enjoy intellectual history especially in the West the above books are good reads.
Ideas have consequences and intellectuals or those of us prone towards the life of the mind often need to especially take to heart (and not ignore) our Lord's warning that "knowledge puffs up" (1 Cor. 8:1). Commenting on this verses Matthew Henry once said: "Satan hurts some as much by tempting them to be proud of mental powers, as others, by alluring to sensuality. Knowledge which puffs up the possessor, and renders him confident, is as dangerous as self-righteous pride, though what he knows may be right. Without holy affections all human knowledge is worthless."
Indeed! May the Lord protect us and may we quickly repent when we make our minds or study an idol. Rather may we love the Lord with all that we are in a humble way including and especially with our minds! And may those of us tempted the other way to be lazy with our minds and not engage ideas also forsake those sins and seek to love God with our minds more and more!! Soli Deo Gloria.