The Social Conditions of the Intellectual Exile

Abstract

[originally published in Volume 4, No.3] EXCERPT: Since the primary concern of the intellectual in exile is the right use of his freedom, the situation of the modern immigrant intellectual must be defined in terms pertinent to his task: as a challenge to freedom. He may respond to it in many ways. If the significance of national values is misjudged in relation to other values, his productive participation in a new national life is distorted; he sees it either as a conflict of supreme loyalties or as of so little importance that a shabby opportunism results. It is more gratifying to speak of the responses which spring from the right use that the intellectual immigrant may learn to make of his freedom. Experience matures judgment. Familiarity with new facts and new ways of looking at them increases understanding and circumspection. In a sense every immigrant passes through a second period of youth, with its blunders and invigorating hopes, its dangers and slow achievements. To his profit he learns by experience and participation. Where sympathy governs the relations, he may contribute, as is expected of him, his small share to the culture of his new country...