Worse, there is nothing at the bottom of all this strident wind-music—the ideas it is designed to set forth are, in the overwhelming main, poor ideas, and often they are ideas that are almost idiotic. One never gets the thrill of sharp and original thinking, dexterously put into phrases. The concepts underlying, say, “The Theory of the Leisure Class” are simply Socialism and water; the concepts underlying “The Higher Learning in America” are so childishly obvious that even the poor drudges who write editorials for newspapers have often voiced them. When, now and then, the professor tires of this emission of stale bosh and attempts flights of a more original character, he straightway comes tumbling down into absurdity. What the reader then has to struggle with is not only intolerably bad writing, but also loose, flabby, cocksure and preposterous thinking.... Again I take refuge in an example. It is from Chapter IV of “The Theory of the Leisure Class.” The problem before the author here has to do with the social convention which frowns upon the consumption of alcohol by women—at least to the extent to which men may consume it decorously. Well, then, what is his explanation of this convention? Here, in brief, is his process of reasoning: 1. The leisure class, which is the predatory class of feudal times, reserves all luxuries for itself, and disapproves their use by members of the lower classes, for this use takes away their charm by taking away their exclusive possession. 2. Women are chattels in the possession of the leisure class, and hence subject to the rules made for inferiors. “The patriarchal tradition ... says that the woman, being a chattel, should consume only what is necessary to her sustenance, except so far as her further consumption contributes to the comfort or the good repute of her master.” 3. The consumption of alcohol contributes nothing to the comfort or good repute of the woman’s master, but “detracts sensibly from the comfort or pleasure” of her master. _Ergo_, she is forbidden to drink.