An ivory tower is used to represent a person who is detached from the world’s struggle and strife. In a negative sense, it is frequently applied to intellectuals and college professors, or simply to the extremely naive. The basic idea is that a person can theorize all he or she wants about the world from the safety of a college campus, but living in it without the benefit of an ivory tower gives one a more realistic sense of how philosophy or art applies.
The term first appears in the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. In 7:4, Solomon praised his beloved’s neck, comparing it to “a tower of ivory.” In his Odyssey, Homer uses a similar term to describe those who come from an ivory gate as being foolish. Ivory may connote a naive person to Homer. Solomon’s use, on the other hand, is associated with purity and beauty.
Charles-Augustin Saint Beuve, a 19th-century French poet, used the expression to criticize and compare Alfred de Vigny to Victor Hugo. De Vigny, according to Saint Beuve, possessed a certain naivete and detachment from the world that Hugo, fortunately, lacked. Hugo waded into the muck, while de Vigny in his tour d’ivoire “retired before noon.”
Ivory is a strong, rare, and pure material. Although ivory is now associated with elephant poaching, Saint Beuve would not have been concerned about this. Ivory was linked to wealth rather than the illegal ivory trade. Ivory’s purity, and thus the ivory tower, also conveys a youthful or virginal quality, and thus the term naivety. A person who hides in an ivory tower is clearly inexperienced.
In modern usage, an ivory tower denotes a state of seclusion from the outside world. The ivory tower dweller is unaffected by life’s realities, resulting in a skewed or innocent viewpoint. Proclamations made from atop an ivory tower are meaningless because they are unrealistic.
Take, for example, the many celebrities who appear to maintain their youthful and slim appearance with ease. The average person, who does not have access to things like trained dietitians, personal trainers, and plastic surgeons, is often irritated when they ask why it is so difficult for others to stay thin or beautiful. The celebrity’s attitude toward personal appearance comes from an ivory tower of wealth and privilege reserved for a select few.