It is one of the clear signs of the aimlessness and moral decay of a society when large and representative groups of its intellectual class vocally support disreputable or even evil causes. In the same measure, it is a sign of a society’s fundamental strength when its intellectual leaders defy the majority and at some risk to themselves support righteous causes when they are oppressed by the authorities. In this last category are such heroic figures as Edmund Burke approving the American revolutionaries and disapproving the French revolutionaries, Wilberforce and Lincoln championing the emancipation of slaves, Emile Zola and Georges Clemenceau upholding Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, and the many culturally prominent supporters of civil rights in the United States from Dorothy Parker to Leonard Bernstein. A special case, commanding respect, are those eminent intellectuals who remain fundamentally loyal to a regional or national civilization even as they recognize that it is in important respects morally insupportable. This would apply to Albert Camus in respect of French Algeria, and William Faulkner in regard to the white Mississippi of olden times. (Both authors were awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.)