Dat debil inconvenience.

The Colonel has always esteemed Henry Miller for his inspired vision of what an intellectual should be:

For the first time I was talking to a man [Roy Hamilton] who got behind the meaning of words and went to the very essence of things. For the first time I felt I was talking to a philosopher, not a philosopher such as I had encountered through books, but a man who philosophized constantly—and who lived this philosophy which he expounded. That is to say, he had no theory at all, except to penetrate to the very essence of things and, in the light of each fresh revelation to so live his life so that there would be a minimum of discord between the truths which were revealed to him and the exemplification of these truths in action.^[1]

That said, there are certain highly intelligent persons simply cannot bear to admit to themselves the harsh nature of The World As It Is and so resort to bizarre mechanisms to conform reality to fantasy:

Socialism has of course long had big appeal to intellectuals because it offers the simplifications that intellectuals tend to seek. The only trouble is that the simplifications don't work. From the French revolution on through Stalin and Hitler to Pol Pot we all now know of the horrors that it regularly leads to. So having had their childish simplifications taken away from them by reality, Leftist intellectuals stamp their foot and say that it is reality which is at fault. By denying reality they are in some insane way able to hang on to their faith in socialism.^[2]

"Note also Dr. Sanity's take on what I think is the same phenomenon.^[3]

Notes
^[1] Tropic of Capricorn. By Henry Miller. Recently we listened to Miller reading from some of his writings and concluded that what he was reading was drivel but that doesn't take away from the brilliance of his insight.
^[2] Postmodernism Deconstructed." Dr. John Ray, Dissecting Leftism, 12/10/05.
^[3] "Beautiful Indifference." 6/6/05.