Impudent snobs speech (nonfiction)

Front cover of The Impudent Snobs: Agnew vs. the Intellectual Establishment by John R. Coyne Jr.

"Impudent snobs" is a well-known phrase from a speech delivered by Vice President Spiro Agnew in Houston Texas on May 22, 1970.

Sometimes it appears that we’re reaching a period when our senses and our minds will no longer respond to moderate stimulation. We seem to be approaching an Age of The Gross. Persuasion through speeches and books is too often discarded for disruptive demonstrations aimed at bludgeoning the unconvinced into action.

The young – and by this I don’t mean by any stretch of the imagination all the young, but I’m talking about those who claim to speak for the young – at the zenith of physical power and sensitivity, overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants. Subtly is lost and fine distinctions based on acute reasoning are carelessly ignored in a headlong jump to a predetermined conclusion.

Life is visceral, rather than intellectual. And the most visceral practitioners of life are those who characterize themselves as "intellectuals". Truth to them is "revealed" rather than logically proved. And the principal infatuations of today revolve around the "Social Sciences", those subjects which can accommodate any opinion and about which the most reckless conjecture cannot be discredited.

Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim, rather than to learn. The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the "generation gap."

A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as "intellectuals".

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

External links:

• Spiro Agnew @ Wikipedia
• Spiro Agnew @ Wikiquote
• Impudent snobs speech @ YouTube
• Impudent snobs @ closertogod.net
• comment @ Facebook