I reviewed this book 11 years ago–Intellectuals and Society, by Thomas Sowell–and having revisited it recently, I can still recommend it. No one more accurately analyzes the machinations of elitist fatheads than Thomas Sowell.
https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/a-review-of-intellectuals-and-society
But he doesn’t get into why Western intellectuals are so feckless, so wrong, and so stupid. It’s easy to explain, though: these people have explicitly rejected God. They’re stuck worshiping themselves, and it leads them into a multitude of errors.
I admire Dr. Sowell. I enjoy listening to him on the radio. I have enjoyed and profited from his books and columns. And I can’t explain why he didn’t examine the intellectuals’ rejection of God. It’s this that makes them so profoundly stupid.
On the whole, though, his analysis of the absurd beliefs of intellectuals, the sheer uselessness of their ideas, their pomposity, and their shallowness–well, you just can’t beat it. Not even after 11 years.
We do need to understand what we are up against. We can get some of that understanding from Thomas Sowell.