Guardian: In 1927 the French philosopher Julien Benda published a piercing attack on the intellectuals of his day. They should, he argued in La Trahison des Clercs (the treason of the scholars), act as a check on popular passions. Civilisation, he claimed, is possible only if intellectuals stand in opposition to the demands of political "realism" by upholding universal principles. "Thanks to the scholars," he said, "humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honoured good." Europe might have been lying...