Virginia Woolf wrote famously, “About December 1910 human…
““Virginia Woolf wrote famously, “About December 1910 human nature changed.” Well, one doubts it. What did change, and has been changing all through the closing decades of the 19th century, is that the intelligentsia became increasingly alienated from the bourgeois world from which it sprung, and wished to become something Higher. It wished to make novels difficult and technical – think of Woolf or Joyce – to keep them out of the hands of the uneducated and to elevate the intelligentsia to a new clerisy, a new aristocracy of the spirit. Similarly in painting, music, and philosophy. It wished to make everything difficult and technical, and it succeeded. [Economists Lawrence] Klein, [Paul] Samuelson, and [Jan] Tinbergen were middle-period modernists. The vices of modernism come from the master vice of Pride, the vice so characteristic of an actual or wannabe aristocracy. It is prideful overreaching to think that social engineering can work, that a smart lad at a blackboard can outwit the wisdom of the world or the ages, that a piece of machinery like statistical significance can tell you how big or small a number is.””
About This Quote
This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.
Modernism's elite sought to alienate the masses through complex art and economics, driven by pride and belief in social engineering.
In simple terms: Elite used complexity to dominate.
Key Takeaway
Question elitist pride.
Themes
elitism
pride
modernism
Mood
critical
analytical
Type
observation
analysis
When to use this quote
- academic debate
- public policy
- education reform
Key Concepts
cultural criticism
economic theory
Questions to Reflect On
- Why create barriers to knowledge?
- How does pride affect social progress?
A Different Perspective
Complexity can obscure truth and exclude.