coberst

Intellectuals: Mostly Lickspittle Sycophants?

All thought is saturated with egocentric and sociocentric presuppositions. That is, all thought contains highly motivating bias centered in the self or in ideologies such as political, religious, and economic theories. Some individuals are conscious of these internal forces but most people are not.

Those individuals who are conscious of these biases within their thinking can try to rid their judgments of that influence. Those who are not conscious, or little conscious of such bias, are bound to display a significant degree of irrational tendencies in their judgments.

“Can the intellectual, who is supposed to have a special and perhaps professional concern with truth, escape from or rise above the partiality and distortions of ideology?”

Our culture has tended to channel intellectuals, or perhaps more properly those who function as intellectuals, into academic professions. Gramsci makes the accurate distinction that all men and women “are intellectuals…but all do not have the function of intellectuals in society”.

An intellectual might be properly defined as those who are primarily or professionally concerned with matters of the mind and the imagination but who are socially non-attached. “The intellectual is thought of not as someone who displays great mental or imaginative ability but as someone who applies those abilities in more general areas such as religion, philosophy and social and political issues. It is the involvement in general and controversy outside of a specialization that is considered as the hallmark of an intellectual; it is a matter of choice of self definition, choice is supreme here.”

Even anti-ideological is ideological. If partisanship can be defended servility cannot; many have allowed themselves to become the tools of others.

We have moved into an age when the university is no longer an ivory owner and knowledge is king but knowledge has become a commodity and educators have become instruments of power; the university has become a privately owned think-tank. Brzerzinsky recognizes that

“A profound change in the intellectual community itself is inherent in this development. The largely humanist-oriented, occasionally ideological minded intellectual dissenter , who saw his role largely in terms of proffering social critiques, is rapidly being displaced either by experts and specialist, who become involved in special government undertakings, or by generalist-integrators, who become house-ideologues for those in power, providing overall intellectual integration for disparate actions.”

The subordination to power is not just at the individual level but also at the institutional level. Government funds are made available to universities and colleges not for use as they deem fit but for specific government needs. Private industry plays even a larger role in providing funds for educational institutions to perform management and business study. Private industry is not inclined ‘to waste’ money on activities that do not contribute to the bottom line. ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune.’

Each intellectual is spouting a different ideology, how does the individual choose what ideology? Trotsky once said “only a participant can be a profound spectator”. Is detachment then a virtue? To suggest that intellectuals rise above ideology is impractical. Explicit commitment is preferable to bogus neutrality. But truth is an indispensable touchstone.

I think that the proper role for the intellectual is commitment plus detachment. Do you think many of our present day intellectuals qualify as committed and detached?

Quotes and ideas from “Knowledge and Belief in Politics” Bhikhu Parekh

kennethamy

A good different point of view is presented in the famous, "The Treason of the Intellectuals" by Julien Benda.
See:

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:...&cd=1&ie=UTF-8

untermensche

Intellectuals, no two are the same thing, and who is to say if some person is in fact an "intellectual"?

Intellectualism can sometimes be pure plagerism.

daemonia

Yes, but do you get paid for it?

open-ended answer

If people can't agree on what existence means I doubt there can be a universal agreement on any other dimension.

I posit: "An intellectual is one who uses words that send non-intellectuals running to the dictionary or just running away." Technical language, preferably of Greek or Latin etymology (and "ologies" always cause the intellectual tongue to wag) bring about such a concept.

What about "posers", (or for the intellectual poseurs)...) is there a "true intellectual" or is it just a form of self-announced braggatry(?-not a real word I think)- a continuation of a high-school mentality, animal mentality, "whose got the biggest x". ('I can bench 250'- 'My IQ is 165' 'I beat up so-and-sos and banged whats-hernames-and-etc.) Physical and mental pissing contests don't differ much.

Not to mention the authority of language, the "authority" of acadenemies of education... ('well he went to Harvard' ....and GW BUSH.went to...)
As long as noone understands what your saying it must be smart.

Aristotle held the minds of academia hostage for a millenia on certain issues (unintentionally!), and so the view of the "mainstream knowledge" as dictative should always be questioned, or at least, suspected....

Universities and professors often owe allegiance to benefactors, as do politicians, crime bosses, big business/special interest, etc. etc. Besides which, theories and philosophies are either fashionable or not- for the intellectually vacant(seeking tenents)- whatever is new on the table is to be eaten, consumed and spewed out for the rest of us.

daemonia

Intellectualism is unfortunately experiencing modern pressures - it has become a resource to be tapped and used in our capitalist driven corporate machine. Many young and brilliant minds are trapped by the restrictive bursary conditions they receive from many of the larger corporations. THis results in essential free academic research pursuits becoming tainted as R&D to make a better selling toothpaste.
The problem is that it is difficult for anyone touting (perhaps selfproclaiming) to be an intellectual to actually make more noise and difference than the intellectual masturbation forums as this achieve. While enjoyable and indeed (at times) achieving some quantum leaps closer to "enlightenment" we (i loosely call myself part of this) are still guilty. Do we exercise our intelligence to make a difference?
I try but like many before me will likely fail...
Forgive my cynicism but many years of academia has a way of actually teaching some hard (false?) "truths".

coberst

Character is an important component for an ideal intellectual. I would say that an ideal intellectual would have the same kind of character as does an ideal journalist.

One significant advantage engineering, physics and much of the natural sciences has is that they speak in mathematical terms. The individuals often speak in formulas or mathematical verbiage that is clear and concise and understandable by all the members. The use of every day words like habit can be confusing because of a lack of clarity. One might also think of attitude as a proper way to describe what I call habit.

What is character? Character is the network of habits that permeate all the intentional acts of an individual.

I am not using the word habit in the way we often do, as a technical ability existing apart from our wishes. These habits are an intimate and fundamental part of our selves. They are representations of our will. They rule our will, working in a coordinated way they dominate our way of acting. These habits are the results of repeated, intelligently controlled, actions.

Habits also control the formation of ideas as well as physical actions. We cannot perform a correct action or a correct idea without having already formed correct habits. “Reason pure of all influence from prior habit is a fiction.” “The medium of habit filters all material that reaches our perception and thought.” “Immediate, seemingly instinctive, feeling of the direction and end of various lines of behavior is in reality the feeling of habits working below direct consciousness.” “Habit means special sensitiveness or accessibility to certain classes of stimuli, standing predilections and aversions, rather than bare recurrence of specific acts. It means will.”

Because each job requires a different type of character a journalist would make a lousy military officer and vice versa.

What might be the ideal character traits of these two professions? It seems that the military officer should be smart, well trained, obedient and brave. The journalist should be smart, well trained, critical and intellectually honest. The journalist must have well-developed intellectual character traits and be skillful in critical thinking. The military officer should be trained to act according to a distinct program in critical circumstances.

The role of the journalist in wartime has evolved dramatically in the last 50 years. During WWII the journalist acted as cheerleader and propagandist. During the Vietnam War the journalist often played the role of critical analyst. While one can see some positive reasons for the cheerleader and propagandist I will assume that overall this is not a proper role for the journalist in a democracy. The ideal journalist must always be a critical analyst and communicate honestly to the reader the results of her investigation.

Since most people unconsciously seek opinion fortification rather than truth they become very agitated when they find news which does not fortify their opinion. Thus, most people have low opinions of journalists. Nevertheless, it is no doubt the ideal journalist who presents the facts fairly, accurately and in a balanced manner. The ability ‘to connect the dots’ in each situation is of primary importance for the ideal journalist. Knowledge is important but understanding and critical thinking is more important.

daemonia

Do you think that intellectualism can then be achieved through education?

The ability to create the habits and hence achieve a character to allow intellectualism is then possible, but does this not immediately mean we are training someone incompetent for some other task that might require a more regimented and menial mind?

How many intellectuals do we really need to screw in a lightbulb?

coberst

I am thinking about saving the world, which is somewhat beyond “to screw in a light bulb”.

Humans want stability, justice, comfort, and security. The task is how to provide these needs when we all live together in a society.

The paradox here is that basically if people have some semblance of some of these needs they are inclined to mind their own mundane day-to-day problems and let someone else run the world. Those who run the world come in all kinds of flavors but it is my contention that we can do better at running the world than we are doing and intellectuals are the key to this endeavor.

Intellectualism can be achieved through learning. Institutional education systems are part of this learning process but are not nearly sufficient to produce the intellectuals of the ordinary kind let alone the extraordinary kind I seek. The extraordinary intellectual is a self-actualizing self-learning individual with great curiosity and caring.

JamesBannon

Quintessential intellectual elitism. Why does someone who is more organised than some intellectual have a "menial" mind?

Why are day-to-day problems mundane? Try telling that to someone who doesn't have medical insurance, clean water, who worries whether they will be alive at the end of a day working in slave conditions. Will education or intellectual pursuits solve these problems or will supplying clean water, decent affordable medicine and proper working conditions?

Who or wtf is an extraordinary intellectual? Plato? Aristotle? Dawkins? Hawking? The pope? Why are such people, if they exist at all, likely to be better at running things than engineers or brick layers?