Intellectuals

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Times’ Weekend Review, Seamus Heaney is asked this question:

During the invasion of Iraq it seemed that the voices of “intellectuals” were silent. Are their voices strong enough?

The voices of intellectuals silent over Iraq?? If only.

Heaney’s reply is nicely judged to avoid actually saying what his views are on Iraq:

What intellectuals have to do is be true to themselves, honest with themselves and with others. We have come to associate the committed intellectual with left-wing causes, and there are shining examples of that all through the last century. Camus, for example. I like what (the writer) Tzvetan Todorov said recently on this subject, asking that intellectuals be “responsible” rather than “committed”. This wasn’t just a play on words but a demand that they should “maintain a consistency between their words and their actions”. But I agree, that still does not absolve them from the need to speak truth to power.