In 2003, Thomas Sowell wrote this wonderful essay on the twentieth aniversary of Eric Hoffer's death but it is timeless. Events these days make it worth quoting this little excerpt:
Hoffer’s strongest words were for the intellectuals — or rather, against the intellectuals. “Intellectuals,” he said, “cannot operate at room temperature.” Hype, moral melodrama, and sweeping visions were the way that intellectuals approached the problems of the world.
But that was not the way progress was usually achieved in America. “Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.”
Since the American economy and society advanced with little or no role for the intelligentsia, it is hardly surprising that anti-Americanism flourishes among intellectuals. “Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America,” Eric Hoffer said.
Emphasis mine - read Hoffer (and Mumford) a long time ago - going to have to go back and revisit some of his writings - more relavent than ever. Timeless.