The stupidity of the intelligentsia

I am ashamed at what I think the intelligentsia thinks of me. Of course, the intelligentsia isn't thinking of me at all (save for the few rejected submissions I've made to The New Yorker), but I imagine if they were they'd call me an utter fool.

This is foolish thinking.

This black, this white. It leaves no room for the reality that all of our minds are limited in some way, even the most brilliant.

We all have blind spots.

I may not be as intelligent as most of the intelligentsia, but this makes me neither stupid nor a fool. And it's a person with a sharp intellect and keen perception that can appreciate the intelligence of someone who does not appear intelligent. It's a dull mind, a myopic mind, an insipid mind, a blinded and egoic mind that blows off any other mind as having nothing to offer them.

Every mind has a new kernel of truth to offer the world.

I've been alive for nearly 40 years, and my experience is that most people are, in their own way, highly intelligent.

So, screw the ivory tower and screw the Gatekeepers. Screw The New Yorker and Harper's. Screw the tempered and the measured, the banterers and their virtual cigars.

If you don't risk saying something stupid, you'll never say anything smart. You won't know which is which until you put all of your thoughts out there.