The Local Guru

The Cool Millennium, by Gerald Sykes. Prentice-Hall, $5.95

To those familiar with the campus scene, the Local Guru is a well-known type, and most campuses have one. The Local Guru can appear in any department, but Religion, Philosophy, and Sociology seem favored locations, while English and History, for example, are stonier places, probably because they have more settled curricula, and are more sure of themselves, and therefore are less penetrable by the free-wheeling Guru. Naturally, the Guru is despised by other faculty members who see him as subverting what they are pleased to call their “disciplines,” but the Guru attracts an intense band of student disciples. His message strikes a chord, he seems to honor and understand the students’ misery, and he provides it with some sort of objective justification. Above all, the Guru and his student disciples share an “insight” which renders them superior to the others around them, to the blinkered, the duped, and the mundane, and to the pharisees of orthodox learning on the faculty. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? The Guru always mixes in the personal affairs of his students, which are usually messy, and he massages psyches.

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Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

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The Cool Millennium, by Gerald Sykes. Prentice-Hall, $5.95

To those familiar with the campus scene, the Local Guru is a well-known type, and most campuses have one. The Local Guru can appear in any department, but Religion, Philosophy, and Sociology seem favored locations, while English and History, for example, are stonier places, probably because they have more settled curricula, and are more sure of themselves, and therefore are less penetrable by the free-wheeling Guru. Naturally, the Guru is despised by other faculty members who see him as subverting what they are pleased to call their “disciplines,” but the Guru attracts an intense band of student disciples. His message strikes a chord, he seems to honor and understand the students’ misery, and he provides it with some sort of objective justification. Above all, the Guru and his student disciples share an “insight” which renders them superior to the others around them, to the blinkered, the duped, and the mundane, and to the pharisees of orthodox learning on the faculty. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? The Guru always mixes in the personal affairs of his students, which are usually messy, and he massages psyches.