The ancient idea that prayer is a more worthwhile activity than work finds its contemporary manifestation in the fact that intellectual work is more lucrative than manual labor. Of course the contents of intellectual life have changed along with its form. Our thoughts are no longer free to rise up to what we conceive to be the highest pitch of perfection, to our conception of Truth, Beauty, or God. Now we must limit ourselves to something more in line with the needs of the ordinary man, something more democratic, something the market will appreciate. Those who dedicate our lives to thought must adopt, as the goal of our thought, service to those who don’t dedicate themselves to thought. In the past an occasional genius or saint might have been excused from the grind of manual labor by revealing her dedication to Truth or to God. But now the only God we recognize is the marketplace. We all must prove ourselves there.

The majority of intelligent men and women devote our entire intellectual energy to obtaining that which others have through no intellectual effort. This ought to tell us there’s something profoundly wrong with the way we employ the intellect. The intellect, rather than striving to achieve a realm of freedom, places itself in servitude to what it is not, to institutions and principles that can never represent it or express its needs and aspirations.