Beyond the unavoidable damage to the reputation of some of the authors analyzed, the thesis that permeates Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals seems to be convincingly justified by the variety of examples offered in the work. Johnson shows that every “intellectual” who believes himself capable and wants to reform the world according to his own ideas ends up, sooner or later, possessed by them, which means worshipping them and holding them above the truth, which means taking sides with them to the detriment of real people. Possessed, he becomes a moral monster, refuting through his conduct any possible nobility contained in the idea that has dominated him. On the other hand, Johnson also shows that the way out of the magnetic attraction of ideas can only be through a sincere appreciation of the truth and the awareness that an idea is not worth a life. It is a work that, like good moralistic treatises, humanizes by exposing dehumanization.