Team Genius

In 1946, Dwight Macdonald published a series of articles in the publication "Politics" on the responsibilities of peoples and, specifically, the responsibility of intellectuals. Macdonald is concerned with the question of war guilt. He asks the question: to what extent were the German or Japanese people responsible for the atrocities committed by their governments? And, quite properly, he turns the question back to us: to what extent are the British or American people responsible for the vicious terror bombings of civilians, perfected as a technique of warfare by the Western democracies and reaching their culmination in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, surely the most unspeakable crimes in history? To anyone whose political and moral consciousness had been formed by the horrors of the 1930's, by the war in Ethiopia, the Russian purge, the "China incident," the Spanish Civil War, the Nazi atrocities, the Western reaction to these events and, in part, complicity to them - these questions had particular significance and poignancy.
With respect to the responsibilty of intellectuals, there are still other, equally disturbing questions. Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In the Western world at least, they have the power that comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression. For the priviledged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology, and class interest through which the events of current history are presented to us. The responsibilities of intellectuals, then, are much deeper than what Macdonald calls the "responsibility of peoples," given the unique privileges that intellectuals enjoy.
Privileges like rapping about poo.