Is there any hope in politics for pointy-headed intellectuals?

When the Alabama governor George Wallace described intellectuals as ‘pointy-heads who couldn’t ride a bicycle straight’, he coupled two insults.

When the Alabama governor George Wallace described intellectuals as ‘pointy-heads who couldn’t ride a bicycle straight’, he coupled two insults. The first — ‘pointy-heads’ — went straight into the legend and remains there, though I’d always thought intellectuals had domed heads.

Less remembered is the second barrel of Wallace’s revolver. But in five words it contains a potent argument. ‘Couldn’t ride a bicycle straight’ is a subtle insult for it suggests that what intellect needs as an accompaniment — and ‘intellectuals’ may lack — is instinct. To balance on a bike you don’t have to think: indeed, think too hard and you fall off. Almost everyone can ride a bike; few could say could how we do, except that it isn’t by taking thought, but by animal instinct: the gymnastic version of what in the field of decision-making we would call ‘common sense’.

I thought about Wallace and his bicycle when I read last week of the failure of one of the decade’s most significant intellectuals in politics: Michael Ignatieff. Hugely and deservedly respected, the recipient of 11 honorary degrees, author of 14 books, a prominent and longstanding champion of human rights, an arts broadcaster in Britain and a professor at Harvard, Ignatieff was ranked by Prospect magazine as the world’s 37th most important public intellectual. ‘Canada’s sexiest cerebral man,’ said another journal. When he became leader of the country’s Liberal party there were high hopes that a marriage of high intellect with low politics would be fruitful. Arriving from the United States he declared: ‘Down there, being a liberal is a burden. Up here, it is a badge of honour.’