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Anatomy of the State

make poets and scholars into officials."^[1] Of innumerable examples, we may cite the recent development of the "science" of strategy, in the service of the government’s main violence-wielding arm, the military.^[2] A venerable institution, furthermore, is the official or "court" historian, dedicated to purveying the rulers' views of their own and their predecessors' actions.^[3]

↑ Joseph Needham, "Review of Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism," Science and Society (1958): 65. Needham also writes that "the successive [Chinese] emperors were served in all ages by a great company of profoundly humane and disinterested scholars," p. 61. Wittfogel notes the Confucian doctrine that the glory of the ruling class rested on its gentleman scholar-bureaucrat officials, destined to be professional rulers dictating to the mass of the populace. Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957), pp. 320–21 and passim. For an attitude contrasting to Needham’s, cf. John Lukacs, "Intellectual Class or Intellectual Profession?" in de Huszar, The Intellectuals, pp. 521–22.
↑ Jeanne Ribs, "The War Plotters," Liberation (August, 1961): 13, "[s]trategists insist that their occupation deserves the 'dignity of the academic counterpart of the military profession.'" Also see Marcus Raskin, "The Megadeath Intellectuals," New York Review of Books (November 14, 1963): 6–7.
↑ Thus the historian Conyers Read, in his presidential address, advocated the suppression of historical fact in the service of "democratic" and national values. Read proclaimed that "total war, whether it is hot or cold, enlists everyone and calls upon everyone to play his part. The historian is not freer from this obligation than the physicist." Read, "The Social Responsibilities of the Historian," American Historical Review (1951): 283ﬀ. For a critique of Read and other aspects of court history, see Howard K. Beale, "The Professional Historian: His Theory and Practice," The Pacific Historical Review (August, 1953): 227–55. Also cf. Herbert Butterfield, "Official History: Its Pitfalls and Criteria," History and Human Relations (New York:

[1] Joseph Needham, "Review of Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism," Science and Society (1958): 65. Needham also writes that "the successive [Chinese] emperors were served in all ages by a great company of profoundly humane and disinterested scholars," p. 61. Wittfogel notes the Confucian doctrine that the glory of the ruling class rested on its gentleman scholar-bureaucrat officials, destined to be professional rulers dictating to the mass of the populace. Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957), pp. 320–21 and passim. For an attitude contrasting to Needham’s, cf. John Lukacs, "Intellectual Class or Intellectual Profession?" in de Huszar, The Intellectuals, pp. 521–22.

[p22-2] Jeanne Ribs, "The War Plotters," Liberation (August, 1961): 13, "[s]trategists insist that their occupation deserves the 'dignity of the academic counterpart of the military profession.'" Also see Marcus Raskin, "The Megadeath Intellectuals," New York Review of Books (November 14, 1963): 6–7.

[3] Thus the historian Conyers Read, in his presidential address, advocated the suppression of historical fact in the service of "democratic" and national values. Read proclaimed that "total war, whether it is hot or cold, enlists everyone and calls upon everyone to play his part. The historian is not freer from this obligation than the physicist." Read, "The Social Responsibilities of the Historian," American Historical Review (1951): 283ﬀ. For a critique of Read and other aspects of court history, see Howard K. Beale, "The Professional Historian: His Theory and Practice," The Pacific Historical Review (August, 1953): 227–55. Also cf. Herbert Butterfield, "Official History: Its Pitfalls and Criteria," History and Human Relations (New York:

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