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{{short description|Person who engages in critical thinking and reasoning}}
{{Short description|Person who engages in critical thinking and reasoning}}
{{About|the term for a practician of intellect|the process of developing intellect|intellectualism}}
{{About|the term for a practician of intellect|the process of developing intellect|intellectualism}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2021}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2021}}
{{use dmy dates|date=September 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2015}}
[[File:Holbein-erasmus.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Erasmus of Rotterdam]] was one of the foremost intellectuals of his time.]]
[[File:Holbein-erasmus.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Erasmus of Rotterdam]] was one of the foremost intellectuals of his time.]]
[[File:Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Barcelona, 2015 (cropped).jpg|thumb|200px|''Foreign Policy'' magazine named the lawyer [[Shirin Ebadi]] a leading intellectual for her work protecting human rights in Iran.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Amburn |first1=Brad |date=2009 |title=The World's Top 20 Public Intellectuals |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/07/the-worlds-top-20-public-intellectuals/ |journal=Foreign Policy |access-date=2020-01-31}}</ref>]]
[[File:Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Barcelona, 2015 (cropped).jpg|thumb|200px|''Foreign Policy'' magazine named the lawyer [[Shirin Ebadi]] a leading intellectual for her work protecting human rights in Iran.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Amburn |first1=Brad |date=2009 |title=The World's Top 20 Public Intellectuals |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/07/the-worlds-top-20-public-intellectuals/ |journal=Foreign Policy |access-date=2020-01-31}}</ref>]]


An '''intellectual''' is a person who engages in [[critical thinking]], [[research]], and [[Human self-reflection|reflection]] about the [[reality]] of society, and who proposes solutions for the [[normative]] problems of society.<ref>''The New Fontana dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, A. Bullock & S. Trombley, Eds. (1999) p. 433.</ref><ref>Jennings, Jeremy and Kemp-Welch, Tony. "The Century of the Intellectual: From Dreyfus to Salman Rushdie", ''Intellectuals in Politics'', Routledge: New York (1997) p. 1.</ref> Coming from the world of [[culture]], either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting or producing or extending an [[ideology]], and by defending a system of [[value theory|values]].<ref>[[Pascal Ory/Ory, Pascal|Pascal Ory\Ory, Pascal]] and Sirinelli, Jean-François. ''Les Intellectuels en France. De l’affaire Dreyfus à nos jours'' (''The Intellectuals in France: From the Dreyfus Affair to Our Days''), Paris: Armand Colin, 2002, p. 10.</ref>
An '''intellectual''' is a person who engages in [[critical thinking]], [[research]], and [[Human self-reflection|reflection]] about the [[reality]] of society, and who proposes solutions for its [[normative]] problems.<ref>''The New Fontana dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, A. Bullock & S. Trombley, Eds. (1999) p. 433.</ref><ref>Jennings, Jeremy and Kemp-Welch, Tony. "The Century of the Intellectual: From Dreyfus to Salman Rushdie", ''Intellectuals in Politics'', Routledge: New York (1997) p. 1.</ref> Coming from the world of [[culture]], either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an [[ideology]], and by defending a system of [[value theory|values]].<ref>[[Pascal Ory|Ory, Pascal]] and Sirinelli, Jean-François. {{Lang|fr|Les Intellectuels en France. De l’affaire Dreyfus à nos jours}} (''The Intellectuals in France: From the Dreyfus Affair to Our Days''), Paris: Armand Colin, 2002, p. 10.</ref>


== Etymological background ==
== Etymological background ==
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=== "Man of letters" ===
=== "Man of letters" ===
{{anchor|Man of Letters}}
{{anchor|Man of Letters}}
The term "man of letters" derives from the French term ''[[Belles-lettres|belletrist]]'' or ''homme de lettres'' but is not synonymous with "an academic".<ref>''The Oxford English Reference Dictionary'' Second Edition, (1996) p. 130.</ref><ref>''The New Cassel's French–English, English–French Dictionary'' (1962) p. 88.</ref> A "man of letters" was a literate man, able to read and write, as opposed to an [[illiterate]] man in a time when [[literacy]] was rare and thus highly valued in the upper strata of society. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term ''Belletrist(s)'' came to be applied to the ''literati'': the French participants in—sometimes referred to as "citizens" of—the [[Republic of Letters]], which evolved into the [[salon (gathering)|salon]], a social institution, usually run by a hostess, meant for the edification, education, and cultural refinement of the participants.
The term "man of letters" derives from the French term ''[[Belles-lettres|belletrist]]'' or ''homme de lettres'' but is not synonymous with "an academic".<ref>''The Oxford English Reference Dictionary'' Second Edition, (1996) p. 130.</ref><ref>''The New Cassel's French–English, English–French Dictionary'' (1962) p. 88.</ref> A "man of letters" was a literate man, able to read and write, and thus highly valued in the upper strata of society in a time when [[literacy]] was rare. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term ''Belletrist(s)'' came to be applied to the ''literati'': the French participants in—sometimes referred to as "citizens" of—the [[Republic of Letters]], which evolved into the [[salon (gathering)|salon]], a social institution, usually run by a hostess, meant for the edification, education, and cultural refinement of the participants.


In the late 19th century, when literacy was relatively common in European countries such as the [[United Kingdom]], the "Man of Letters" (''littérateur'')<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Littérateur, n. |title=Discover the Story of English|edition=Second (1989)|date=June 2012|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/109241 |publisher=Oxford English Dictionary|orig-year=First published in New English Dictionary, 1903}}</ref> denotation broadened to mean "specialized", a man who earned his living writing intellectually (not creatively) about literature: the [[essay]]ist, the [[journalist]], the [[critic]], et al. Examples include [[Samuel Johnson]], [[Walter Scott]] and [[Thomas Carlyle]]. In the 20th century, such an approach was gradually superseded by the academic method, and the term "Man of Letters" became disused, replaced by the generic term "intellectual", describing the intellectual person.
In the late 19th century, when literacy was relatively common in European countries such as the [[United Kingdom]], the "Man of Letters" (''littérateur'')<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Littérateur, n. |title=Discover the Story of English|edition=Second (1989)|date=June 2012|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/109241 |publisher=Oxford English Dictionary|orig-year=First published in New English Dictionary, 1903}}</ref> denotation broadened to mean "specialized", a man who earned his living writing intellectually (not creatively) about literature: the [[essay]]ist, the [[journalist]], the [[critic]], et al. Examples include [[Samuel Johnson]], [[Walter Scott]] and [[Thomas Carlyle]]. In the 20th century, such an approach was gradually superseded by the academic method, and the term "Man of Letters" became disused, replaced by the generic term "intellectual", describing the intellectual person. The archaic term is the basis of the names of several academic institutions which call themselves [[College of Letters and Science (disambiguation)|Colleges of Letters and Science]].


=== "Intellectual" ===
=== "Intellectual" ===
The earliest record of the English noun "intellectual" is found in the 19th century, where in 1813, [[Byron]] reports that 'I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals'.<ref name="Collini">{{cite book|author-last=Collini| author-first=Stefan|title=Absent Minds. Intellectuals in Britain |date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0199291055}}</ref>{{rp|18}} Over the course of the 19th century, other variants of the already established adjective 'intellectual' as a noun appeared in English and in French, where in the 1890s the noun ('intellectuels') formed from the adjective 'intellectuel' appeared with higher frequency in the literature.<ref name="Collini"/>{{rp|20}}
The earliest record of the English noun "intellectual" is found in the 19th century, where in 1813, [[Byron]] reports that 'I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals'.<ref name="Collini">{{cite book|author-last=Collini| author-first=Stefan|title=Absent Minds. Intellectuals in Britain |date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0199291055}}</ref>{{rp|18}} Over the course of the 19th century, other variants of the already established adjective 'intellectual' as a noun appeared in English and in French, where in the 1890s the noun ({{Lang|fr|intellectuels}}) formed from the adjective {{Lang|fr|intellectuel}} appeared with higher frequency in the literature.<ref name="Collini"/>{{rp|20}}
Collini writes about this time that "[a]mong this cluster of linguistic experiments there occurred ... the occasional usage of 'intellectuals' as a plural noun to refer, usually with a figurative or ironic intent, to a collection of people who might be identified in terms of their intellectual inclinations or pretensions."<ref name="Collini"/>{{rp|20}}
Collini writes about this time that "[a]mong this cluster of linguistic experiments there occurred ... the occasional usage of 'intellectuals' as a plural noun to refer, usually with a figurative or ironic intent, to a collection of people who might be identified in terms of their intellectual inclinations or pretensions."<ref name="Collini"/>{{rp|20}}


In early 19th-century Britain, [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] coined the term ''clerisy'', the intellectual class responsible for upholding and maintaining the national culture, the secular equivalent of the Anglican clergy. Likewise, in [[Tsar]]ist Russia, there arose the ''[[intelligentsia]]'' (1860s–70s), who were the [[Status group|status class]] of [[White-collar worker|white-collar]] workers.
In early 19th-century Britain, [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] coined the term ''clerisy'', the intellectual class responsible for upholding and maintaining the national culture, the secular equivalent of the Anglican clergy. Likewise, in [[Tsar]]ist Russia, there arose the ''[[intelligentsia]]'' (1860s–1870s), who were the [[Status group|status class]] of [[White-collar worker|white-collar]] workers.
For Germany, the theologian [[Alister McGrath]] said that "the emergence of a socially alienated, [[theology|theologically]] literate, antiestablishment lay intelligentsia is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history of [[Germany]] in the 1830s".<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Kramer| author-first=Hilton|author-link=Hilton Kramer|title=The Twilight of the Intellectuals |date=1999|publisher=Ivan R. Dee|location=Chicago}}</ref>{{rp|53}} An intellectual class in Europe was socially important, especially to self-styled intellectuals, whose participation in society's arts, politics, journalism, and education—of either [[Nationalism|nationalist]], [[internationalism (politics)|internationalist]], or ethnic sentiment—constitute "vocation of the intellectual". Moreover, some intellectuals were anti-academic, despite universities (the academy) being synonymous with [[intellectualism]].{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}
For Germany, the theologian [[Alister McGrath]] said that "the emergence of a socially alienated, [[theology|theologically]] literate, antiestablishment lay intelligentsia is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history of [[Germany]] in the 1830s".<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Kramer| author-first=Hilton|author-link=Hilton Kramer|title=The Twilight of the Intellectuals |date=1999|publisher=Ivan R. Dee|location=Chicago}}</ref>{{rp|53}} An intellectual class in Europe was socially important, especially to self-styled intellectuals, whose participation in society's arts, politics, journalism, and education—of either [[Nationalism|nationalist]], [[internationalism (politics)|internationalist]], or ethnic sentiment—constitute "vocation of the intellectual". Moreover, some intellectuals were anti-academic, despite universities (the academy) being synonymous with [[intellectualism]].{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}


[[File:J’accuse.jpg|thumb|upright|The front page of ''[[L'Aurore (1944 newspaper)|L'Aurore]]'' (13 January 1898) featured [[Émile Zola]]'s open letter ''[[J'Accuse…!]]'' asking the French President [[Félix Faure]] to resolve the [[Dreyfus affair]].]]
[[File:J’accuse.jpg|thumb|upright|The front page of ''[[L'Aurore (1944 newspaper)|L'Aurore]]'' (13 January 1898) featured [[Émile Zola]]'s open letter ''[[J'Accuse…!]]'' asking the French President [[Félix Faure]] to resolve the [[Dreyfus affair]].]]


In France, the [[Dreyfus affair]] (1894–1906), an identity crisis of [[antisemitism|anti-semitic]] nationalism for the [[French Third Republic]] (1870–1940), marked the full emergence of the "intellectual in public life", especially [[Émile Zola]], [[Octave Mirbeau]] and [[Anatole France]] directly addressing the matter of French [[antisemitism]] to the public; thenceforward, "intellectual" became common, yet initially derogatory, usage; its French noun usage is attributed to [[Georges Clemenceau]] in 1898.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} Nevertheless, by 1930 the term "intellectual" passed from its earlier pejorative associations and restricted usages to a widely accepted term and it was because of the Dreyfus Affair that the term also acquired generally accepted use in English.<ref name="Collini"/>{{rp|21}}
In France, the [[Dreyfus affair]] (1894–1906), an identity crisis of [[antisemitism|antisemitic]] nationalism for the [[French Third Republic]] (1870–1940), marked the full emergence of the "intellectual in public life", especially [[Émile Zola]], [[Octave Mirbeau]] and [[Anatole France]] directly addressing the matter of French [[antisemitism]] to the public; thenceforward, "intellectual" became common, yet initially derogatory, usage; its French noun usage is attributed to [[Georges Clemenceau]] in 1898. Nevertheless, by 1930 the term "intellectual" passed from its earlier pejorative associations and restricted usages to a widely accepted term and it was because of the Dreyfus Affair that the term also acquired generally accepted use in English.<ref name="Collini"/>{{rp|21}}


In the 20th century, the term intellectual acquired positive connotations of [[Reputation|social prestige]], derived from possessing [[intellectualism|intellect]] and [[intelligence]], especially when the intellectual's activities exerted positive consequences in the [[public sphere]] and so increased the intellectual understanding of the public, by means of [[Morality|moral]] responsibility, [[altruism]], and [[solidarity]], without resorting to the [[psychological manipulation|manipulations]] of [[demagoguery]], [[paternalism]] and [[incivility]] (condescension).<ref name="Williams1983"/>{{rp|169}} The sociologist [[Frank Furedi]] said that "Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the [social and political] values that they uphold.<ref Name="Furedi2004">{{cite book|author-last=Furedi| author-first=Frank|author-link=Frank Furedi|title=Where Have All The Intellectuals Gone? |date=2004|publisher=Continuum Press|location=London and New York}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}}
In the 20th century, the term intellectual acquired positive connotations of [[Reputation|social prestige]], derived from possessing [[intellectualism|intellect]] and [[intelligence]], especially when the intellectual's activities exerted positive consequences in the [[public sphere]] and so increased the intellectual understanding of the public, by means of [[Morality|moral]] responsibility, [[altruism]], and [[solidarity]], without resorting to the [[psychological manipulation|manipulations]] of [[demagoguery]], [[paternalism]] and [[incivility]] (condescension).<ref name="Williams1983"/>{{rp|169}} The sociologist [[Frank Furedi]] said that "Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the [social and political] values that they uphold.<ref Name="Furedi2004">{{cite book|author-last=Furedi| author-first=Frank|author-link=Frank Furedi|title=Where Have All The Intellectuals Gone? |date=2004|publisher=Continuum Press|location=London and New York}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}}
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According to [[Thomas Sowell]], as a descriptive term of person, personality, and profession, the word ''intellectual'' identifies three traits:
According to [[Thomas Sowell]], as a descriptive term of person, personality, and profession, the word ''intellectual'' identifies three traits:
# Educated; erudition for developing theories;
# Educated; erudition for developing theories;
# Productive; creates [[cultural capital]] in the fields of philosophy, [[literary criticism]], and [[sociology]], law, medicine, and science, etc.; and
# Productive; creates [[cultural capital]] in the fields of philosophy, [[literary criticism]], and [[sociology]], law, medicine, and science, etc.; and
# [[Artist]]ic; creates art in [[literature]], [[musical composition|music]], [[painting]], [[sculpture]], etc.<ref>{{cite book|title=Knowledge and Decisions|last=Sowell|first=Thomas|author-link=Thomas Sowell|year=1980|publisher=Basic Books}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=February 2021}}
# [[Artist]]ic; creates art in [[literature]], [[musical composition|music]], [[painting]], [[sculpture]], etc.<ref>{{cite book|title=Knowledge and Decisions|last=Sowell|first=Thomas|author-link=Thomas Sowell|year=1980|publisher=Basic Books}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=February 2021}}


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{{Blockquote|text=Generally speaking, the record of these scholar-gentlemen has been a worthy one. It was good enough to be praised and imitated in 18th century Europe. Nevertheless, it has given China a tremendous handicap in their transition from government by men to government by law, and personal considerations in Chinese government have been a curse.<ref>{{cite book|editor=Charles Alexander Moore|title=The Chinese Mind: Essentials of Chinese Philosophy and Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_DoyN2h56ucC&pg=PA22|year=1967|publisher=U of Hawaii Press|isbn=978-0824800758}}</ref>{{rp|22}}}}
{{Blockquote|text=Generally speaking, the record of these scholar-gentlemen has been a worthy one. It was good enough to be praised and imitated in 18th century Europe. Nevertheless, it has given China a tremendous handicap in their transition from government by men to government by law, and personal considerations in Chinese government have been a curse.<ref>{{cite book|editor=Charles Alexander Moore|title=The Chinese Mind: Essentials of Chinese Philosophy and Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_DoyN2h56ucC&pg=PA22|year=1967|publisher=U of Hawaii Press|isbn=978-0824800758}}</ref>{{rp|22}}}}


In [[Joseon|Joseon Korea]] (1392–1910), the intellectuals were the ''literati'', who knew how to read and write, and had been designated, as the [[chungin]] (the "middle people"), in accordance with the Confucian system. Socially, they constituted the [[petite bourgeoisie]], composed of scholar-bureaucrats (scholars, professionals, and technicians) who administered the dynastic rule of the Joseon dynasty.<ref>{{cite book|author=The Korea Foundation|title=Koreana – Winter 2015|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WkmOCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT73|date=2016|isbn=979-1156041573}}</ref>{{rp|73–4}}
In [[Joseon|Joseon Korea]] (1392–1910), the intellectuals were the ''literati'', who knew how to read and write, and had been designated, as the [[chungin]] (the "middle people"), in accordance with the Confucian system. Socially, they constituted the [[petite bourgeoisie]], composed of scholar-bureaucrats (scholars, professionals, and technicians) who administered the dynastic rule of the Joseon dynasty.<ref>{{cite book|author=The Korea Foundation|title=Koreana – Winter 2015|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WkmOCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT73|date=2016|publisher=한국국제교류재단 |isbn=979-1156041573}}</ref>{{rp|73–4}}


== Public intellectual<!-- 'Public intellectual' redirects here. --> ==
== Public intellectual<!-- 'Public intellectual' redirects here. --> ==
{{external media|float=right|video1=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?163104-1/role-intellectuals-public-life "Role of Intellectuals in Public Life", panel featuring Michael Ignatieff, Russell Jacoby, Roger Kimball, Susie Linfield, Alex Star, Ellen Willis and Alan Wolfe, March 1, 2001], [[C-SPAN]]}}
{{external media|float=right|video1=[https://www.c-span.org/video/?163104-1/role-intellectuals-public-life "Role of Intellectuals in Public Life", panel featuring Michael Ignatieff, Russell Jacoby, Roger Kimball, Susie Linfield, Alex Star, Ellen Willis and Alan Wolfe, March 1, 2001], [[C-SPAN]]}}
The term '''''public intellectual'''''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairs [[discourse]] of society, in addition to an academic career.<ref>Etzioni, Amitai. Ed., ''Public Intellectuals'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.</ref> Regardless of their [[Academy|academic]] field or the [[profession]]al expertise, the public intellectual addresses and responds to the [[normative]] problems of society, and, as such, is expected to be an impartial critic who can "rise above the partial preoccupation of one's own profession—and engage with the global issues of [[truth]], judgment, and [[Taste (sociology)|taste]] of the time".<ref>Bauman, 1987: 2.</ref>{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}<ref Name="Furedi2004"/>{{rp|32}} In ''Representations of the Intellectual'' (1994), [[Edward Said|Edward Saïd]] said that the "true intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society".<ref Name="Jennings">{{cite book |last1=Jennings |first1=Jeremy |last2=Kemp-Welch |first2=Tony |editor1-last=Jennings |editor1-first=Jeremy |editor2-last=Kemp-Welch |editor2-first=Tony |title=Intellectuals in Politics: From the Dreyfus Affair to Salman Rushdie |publisher=Routledge |date=1997 |pages=100–110 |chapter=The Century of the Intellectual: From Dreyfus to Salman Rushdie |isbn=0-415-14995-9}}</ref>{{rp|1–2}} Public intellectuals usually arise from the educated élite of a society; although the North American usage of the term ''intellectual'' includes the university academics.<ref>McKee (2001)</ref>{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} The difference between ''intellectual'' and ''academic'' is participation in the realm of public affairs.<ref>Bourdieu 1989</ref>{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}
The term '''''public intellectual'''''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairs [[discourse]] of society, in addition to an academic career.<ref>Etzioni, Amitai. Ed., ''Public Intellectuals'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.</ref> Regardless of their [[Academy|academic]] fields or [[profession]]al expertise, public intellectuals address and respond to the [[normative]] problems of society, and, as such, are expected to be impartial critics who can "rise above the partial preoccupation of one's own profession—and engage with the global issues of [[truth]], judgment, and [[Taste (sociology)|taste]] of the time".<ref>Bauman, 1987: 2.</ref><ref Name="Furedi2004"/>{{rp|32}} In ''Representations of the Intellectual'' (1994), [[Edward Said|Edward Saïd]] said that the "true intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society".<ref Name="Jennings">{{cite book |last1=Jennings |first1=Jeremy |last2=Kemp-Welch |first2=Tony |editor1-last=Jennings |editor1-first=Jeremy |editor2-last=Kemp-Welch |editor2-first=Tony |title=Intellectuals in Politics: From the Dreyfus Affair to Salman Rushdie |publisher=Routledge |date=1997 |pages=100–110 |chapter=The Century of the Intellectual: From Dreyfus to Salman Rushdie |isbn=0-415-14995-9}}</ref>{{rp|1–2}} Public intellectuals usually arise from the educated élite of a society; although the North American usage of the term ''intellectual'' includes the university academics.<ref>McKee (2001)</ref> The difference between ''intellectual'' and ''academic'' is participation in the realm of public affairs.<ref>Bourdieu 1989</ref>


[[Jürgen Habermas]]' ''Structural Transformation of Public Sphere'' (1963) made significant contribution to the notion of public intellectual by historically and conceptually delineating the idea of private and public. Controversial, in the same year, was [[Ralf Dahrendorf]]'s definition: “As the court-[[jester]]s of modern society, all intellectuals have the duty to doubt everything that is obvious, to make relative all authority, to ask all those questions that no one else dares to ask".<ref>Ralf Dahrendorf, ''Der Intellektuelle und die Gesellschaft'', [[Die Zeit]], 20 March 1963, reprinted in ''The Intellectual and Society'', in ''On Intellectuals'', ed. Philip Rieff, Garden City, NY, 1969</ref>{{rp|51}}
[[Jürgen Habermas]]' ''Structural Transformation of Public Sphere'' (1963) made significant contribution to the notion of public intellectual by historically and conceptually delineating the idea of private and public. Controversial, in the same year, was [[Ralf Dahrendorf]]'s definition: "As the court-[[jester]]s of modern society, all intellectuals have the duty to doubt everything that is obvious, to make relative all authority, to ask all those questions that no one else dares to ask".<ref>Ralf Dahrendorf, ''Der Intellektuelle und die Gesellschaft'', [[Die Zeit]], 20 March 1963, reprinted in ''The Intellectual and Society'', in ''On Intellectuals'', ed. Philip Rieff, Garden City, NY, 1969</ref>{{rp|51}}


An intellectual usually is associated with an [[ideology]] or with a [[philosophy]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=McLennan| first=Gregor|title=Traveling With Vehicular Ideas: The Case of the Third Way |date=2004|journal=Economy and Society |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=484–99| doi=10.1080/0308514042000285251| s2cid=145227353}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}} The Czech intellectual [[Václav Havel]] said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that moral responsibility for the intellectual's ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. Therefore, it is best to avoid [[utopia]]n intellectuals who offer 'universal insights' to resolve the problems of [[political economy]] with [[Public policy|public policies]] that might harm and that have harmed civil society; that intellectuals be mindful of the social and cultural ties created with their words, insights and ideas; and should be heard as social critics of [[politics]] and [[Power (social and political)|power]].<ref Name="Jennings"/>{{rp|13}}
An intellectual usually is associated with an [[ideology]] or with a [[philosophy]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=McLennan| first=Gregor|title=Traveling With Vehicular Ideas: The Case of the Third Way |date=2004|journal=Economy and Society |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=484–99| doi=10.1080/0308514042000285251| s2cid=145227353}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}} The Czech intellectual [[Václav Havel]] said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that moral responsibility for the intellectual's ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. Therefore, it is best to avoid [[utopia]]n intellectuals who offer 'universal insights' to resolve the problems of [[political economy]] with [[Public policy|public policies]] that might harm and that have harmed civil society; that intellectuals be mindful of the social and cultural ties created with their words, insights and ideas; and should be heard as social critics of [[politics]] and [[Power (social and political)|power]].<ref Name="Jennings"/>{{rp|13}}


=== Public engagement ===
=== Public engagement ===
The determining factor for a "thinker" (historian, philosopher, scientist, writer, artist) to be considered a public intellectual is the degree to which the individual is [[logical consequence|implicated]] and [[engaged theory|engaged]] with the vital reality of the contemporary world, i.e. participation in the public affairs of society.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} Consequently, being designated as a public intellectual is determined by the degree of influence of the designator's [[motivation]]s, opinions, and options of action (social, political, ideological), and by affinity with the given thinker.
The determining factor for a "thinker" (historian, philosopher, scientist, writer, artist) to be considered a public intellectual is the degree to which the individual is [[logical consequence|implicated]] and [[engaged theory|engaged]] with the vital reality of the contemporary world, i.e. participation in the public affairs of society. Consequently, being designated as a public intellectual is determined by the degree of influence of the designator's [[motivation]]s, opinions, and options of action (social, political, ideological), and by affinity with the given thinker.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}


After the failure of the large-scale [[May 68]] movement in France, intellectuals within the country were often maligned for having specific areas of expertise while discussing general subjects like democracy. Intellectuals increasingly claimed to be within marginalized groups rather than their spokespeople, and centered their activism on the social problems relevant to their areas of expertise (such as gender relations in the case of psychologists). A similar shift occurred in China after the [[1989 Tiananmen Square protests|Tiananmen Square Massacre]] from the "universal intellectual" (who plans better futures from within academia) to ''minjian'' ("grassroots") intellectuals, the latter group represented by such figures as [[Wang Xiaobo]], social scientist [[Yu Jianrong]], and ''[[Yanhuang Chunqiu]]'' editor Ding Dong ({{lang|zh|丁東}}).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Béja|first=Jean-Philippe|date=2020|title=Review of Minjian: The Rise of China's Grassroots Intellectuals|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26959862|journal=China Review|volume=20|issue=4|pages=285–287|jstor=26959862|issn=1680-2012}}</ref>
After the failure of the large-scale [[May 68]] movement in France, intellectuals within the country were often maligned for having specific areas of expertise while discussing general subjects like democracy. Intellectuals increasingly claimed to be within marginalized groups rather than their spokespeople, and centered their activism on the social problems relevant to their areas of expertise (such as gender relations in the case of psychologists). A similar shift occurred in China after the [[1989 Tiananmen Square protests|Tiananmen Square Massacre]] from the "universal intellectual" (who plans better futures from within academia) to ''minjian'' ("grassroots") intellectuals, the latter group represented by such figures as [[Wang Xiaobo]], social scientist [[Yu Jianrong]], and ''[[Yanhuang Chunqiu]]'' editor Ding Dong ({{lang|zh|丁東}}).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Béja|first=Jean-Philippe|date=2020|title=Review of Minjian: The Rise of China's Grassroots Intellectuals|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26959862|journal=China Review|volume=20|issue=4|pages=285–287|jstor=26959862|issn=1680-2012}}</ref>


=== Public policy ===
=== Public policy ===
In the matters of [[Public policy doctrine|public policy]], the public intellectual connects scholarly research to the practical matters of solving societal problems. The British sociologist [[Michael Burawoy]], an exponent of [[public sociology]], said that professional sociology has failed, by giving insufficient attention to resolving social problems, and that a dialogue between the academic and the layman would bridge the gap.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Social Scientist As Public Intellectual: Critical Reflections In A Changing World|last=Gattone|first=Charles|date=2006|publisher=Rowman and Littlefield}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}} An example is how [[Chile]]an intellectuals worked to reestablish [[democracy]] within the [[Right-wing politics|right-wing]], [[Neoliberalism|neoliberal]] governments of the [[Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–90)]], the Pinochet régime allowed professional opportunities for some liberal and left-wing social scientists to work as politicians and as consultants in effort to realize the theoretical economics of the [[Chicago Boys]], but their access to [[Power (social and political)|power]] was contingent upon political [[pragmatism]], abandoning the political neutrality of the academic intellectual.<ref>Sorkin (2007)</ref>{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}
In the matters of [[Public policy doctrine|public policy]], the public intellectual connects scholarly research to the practical matters of solving societal problems. The British sociologist [[Michael Burawoy]], an exponent of [[public sociology]], said that professional sociology has failed by giving insufficient attention to resolving social problems, and that a dialogue between the academic and the layman would bridge the gap.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Social Scientist As Public Intellectual: Critical Reflections In A Changing World|last=Gattone|first=Charles|date=2006|publisher=Rowman and Littlefield}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}} An example is how [[Chile]]an intellectuals worked to reestablish [[democracy]] within the [[Right-wing politics|right-wing]], [[Neoliberalism|neoliberal]] governments of the [[Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–90)|military dictatorship of 1973–1990]], the Pinochet régime allowed professional opportunities for some liberal and left-wing social scientists to work as politicians and as consultants in effort to realize the theoretical economics of the [[Chicago Boys]], but their access to [[Power (social and political)|power]] was contingent upon political [[pragmatism]], abandoning the political neutrality of the academic intellectual.<ref>Sorkin (2007)</ref>


In ''[[The Sociological Imagination]]'' (1959), [[C. Wright Mills]] said that academics had become ill-equipped for participating in public discourse, and that journalists usually are "more politically alert and knowledgeable than sociologists, economists, and especially ... political scientists".<ref name=Mills>{{cite book|title=The Sociological Imagination|last=Mills|first=Charles Wright|author-link=C. Wright Mills|date=1959|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford}}</ref>{{rp|99}} That, because the universities of the U.S. are bureaucratic, private businesses, they "do not teach [[Critical thinking|critical reasoning]] to the student", who then does not know "how to gauge what is going on in the general struggle for power in modern society".<ref name=Mills/>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}} Likewise, [[Richard Rorty]] criticized the quality of participation of intellectuals in public discourse as an example of the "civic irresponsibility of [[Intellectualism|intellect]], especially academic intellect".<ref name=Bender/>{{rp|142}}
In ''[[The Sociological Imagination]]'' (1959), [[C. Wright Mills]] said that academics had become ill-equipped for participating in public discourse, and that journalists usually are "more politically alert and knowledgeable than sociologists, economists, and especially ... political scientists".<ref name=Mills>{{cite book|title=The Sociological Imagination|last=Mills|first=Charles Wright|author-link=C. Wright Mills|date=1959|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford}}</ref>{{rp|99}} That, because the universities of the U.S. are bureaucratic, private businesses, they "do not teach [[Critical thinking|critical reasoning]] to the student", who then does not know "how to gauge what is going on in the general struggle for power in modern society".<ref name=Mills/>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}} Likewise, [[Richard Rorty]] criticized the quality of participation of intellectuals in public discourse as an example of the "civic irresponsibility of [[Intellectualism|intellect]], especially academic intellect".<ref name=Bender/>{{rp|142}}
{{external media | width = 210px | align = right | headerimage= | video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?169625-1/public-intellectuals ''Booknotes'' interview with Posner on ''Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline'', June 2, 2002], [[C-SPAN]]}} The American legal scholar [[Richard Posner]] said that the participation of academic public intellectuals in the public life of society is characterized by logically untidy and politically biased statements of the kind that would be unacceptable to academia. That there are few ideologically and politically independent public intellectuals, and disapproves that public intellectuals limit themselves to practical matters of public policy, and not with [[Value (ethics)|values]] or [[public philosophy]], or public [[ethics]], or [[public theology]], not with matters of moral and spiritual outrage.
{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage= | video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?169625-1/public-intellectuals ''Booknotes'' interview with Posner on ''Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline'', June 2, 2002], [[C-SPAN]]}} The American legal scholar [[Richard Posner]] said that the participation of academic public intellectuals in the public life of society is characterized by logically untidy and politically biased statements of the kind that would be unacceptable to academia. He concluded that there are few ideologically and politically independent public intellectuals, and disapproved public intellectuals who limit themselves to practical matters of public policy, and not with [[Value (ethics)|values]] or [[public philosophy]], or public [[ethics]], or [[public theology]], nor with matters of moral and spiritual outrage.


== Intellectual status class==
== Intellectual status class==
{{main|Intelligentsia}}
{{main|Intelligentsia}}


Socially, intellectuals constitute the [[intelligentsia]], a [[Status group|status class]] organised either by [[ideology]] (e.g., [[conservatism]], [[fascism]], [[socialism]], [[Liberalism|liberal]], [[reactionary]], [[revolution]]ary, [[Democracy|democratic]], [[communism]]), or by nationality (American intellectuals, French intellectuals, Ibero–American intellectuals, ''et al.''). The term ''intelligentsiya'' originated from the of [[Russian Empire|Tsarist Russia]] ({{circa|1860s}}–1870s), where it denotes the [[Social stratification|social stratum]] of those possessing intellectual formation (schooling, education), and who were Russian society's counterpart to the German ''[[Bildungsbürgertum]]'' and to the French ''bourgeoisie éclairée'', the [[Bourgeoisie|enlightened middle classes]] of those realms.<ref name="Williams1983">Williams, Raymond. ''Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society'' (1983)</ref>{{rp|169–71}}
Socially, intellectuals constitute the [[intelligentsia]], a [[Status group|status class]] organised either by [[ideology]] (e.g., [[conservatism]], [[fascism]], [[socialism]], [[Liberalism|liberal]], [[reactionary]], [[revolution]]ary, [[Democracy|democratic]], [[communism]]), or by nationality (American intellectuals, French intellectuals, Ibero–American intellectuals, ''et al.''). The term ''intelligentsiya'' originated from [[Russian Empire|Tsarist Russia]] ({{circa|1860s}}–1870s), where it denotes the [[Social stratification|social stratum]] of those possessing intellectual formation (schooling, education), and who were Russian society's counterpart to the German ''[[Bildungsbürgertum]]'' and to the French ''bourgeoisie éclairée'', the [[Bourgeoisie|enlightened middle classes]] of those realms.<ref name="Williams1983">Williams, Raymond. ''Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society'' (1983)</ref>{{rp|169–71}}


In [[Marxist philosophy]], the [[social class]] function of the intellectuals (the [[intelligentsia]]) is to be the source of progressive ideas for the transformation of society: providing advice and counsel to the political leaders, interpreting the country's politics to the mass of the population (urban workers and peasants). In the pamphlet ''[[What Is to Be Done?]]'' (1902), [[Vladimir Lenin]] (1870–1924) said that [[Vanguardism|vanguard-party revolution]] required the participation of the intellectuals to explain the complexities of [[socialism|socialist]] ideology to the uneducated [[proletariat]] and the urban industrial workers in order to integrate them to the revolution because "the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only [[Trade union|trade-union]] consciousness" and will settle for the limited, socio-economic gains so achieved. In Russia as in [[Continental Europe]], socialist theory was the product of the "educated representatives of the propertied classes", of "revolutionary socialist intellectuals", such as were Karl Marx and [[Friedrich Engels]].<ref>Le Blanc, Paul. ''Revolution, Democracy, Socialism: Selected Writings of Lenin'' (Pluto Press, London: 2008)</ref>{{rp|31,137–8}}
In [[Marxist philosophy]], the [[social class]] function of the intellectuals (the [[intelligentsia]]) is to be the source of progressive ideas for the transformation of society: providing advice and counsel to the political leaders, interpreting the country's politics to the mass of the population (urban workers and peasants). In the pamphlet ''[[What Is to Be Done?]]'' (1902), [[Vladimir Lenin]] (1870–1924) said that [[Vanguardism|vanguard-party revolution]] required the participation of the intellectuals to explain the complexities of [[socialism|socialist]] ideology to the uneducated [[proletariat]] and the urban industrial workers in order to integrate them to the revolution because "the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only [[Trade union|trade-union]] consciousness" and will settle for the limited, socio-economic gains so achieved. In Russia as in [[Continental Europe]], socialist theory was the product of the "educated representatives of the propertied classes", of "revolutionary socialist intellectuals", such as were Karl Marx and [[Friedrich Engels]].<ref>Le Blanc, Paul. ''Revolution, Democracy, Socialism: Selected Writings of Lenin'' (Pluto Press, London: 2008)</ref>{{rp|31,137–8}}
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The Italian communist theoretician [[Antonio Gramsci]] (1891–1937) developed [[Karl Marx]]'s conception of the intelligentsia to include political leadership in the public sphere. That because "all knowledge is [[Existentialism|existentially]]-based", the intellectuals, who create and preserve knowledge, are "spokesmen for different social groups, and articulate particular social interests". That intellectuals occur in each social class and throughout the [[right-wing]], the [[Centrism|centre]] and the [[left-wing]] of the [[political spectrum]] and that as a social class the "intellectuals view themselves as autonomous from the [[ruling class]]" of their society.
The Italian communist theoretician [[Antonio Gramsci]] (1891–1937) developed [[Karl Marx]]'s conception of the intelligentsia to include political leadership in the public sphere. That because "all knowledge is [[Existentialism|existentially]]-based", the intellectuals, who create and preserve knowledge, are "spokesmen for different social groups, and articulate particular social interests". That intellectuals occur in each social class and throughout the [[right-wing]], the [[Centrism|centre]] and the [[left-wing]] of the [[political spectrum]] and that as a social class the "intellectuals view themselves as autonomous from the [[ruling class]]" of their society.


Addressing their role as a social class, [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] said that intellectuals are the moral conscience of their age; that their moral and ethical responsibilities are to observe the socio-political moment, and to freely speak to their society, in accordance with their consciences.<ref>Scriven 1993</ref>{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}{{rp|119}}
Addressing their role as a social class, [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] said that intellectuals are the moral conscience of their age; that their moral and ethical responsibilities are to observe the socio-political moment, and to freely speak to their society, in accordance with their consciences.<ref>Scriven 1993</ref>{{rp|119}}


The British historian [[Norman Stone]] said that the intellectual [[social class]] misunderstand the reality of society and so are doomed to the errors of [[logical fallacy]], ideological stupidity, and poor planning hampered by ideology.<ref Name="Jennings"/>{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} In her memoirs, the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] politician [[Margaret Thatcher]] wrote that the anti-monarchical [[French Revolution]] (1789–1799) was "a [[utopia]]n attempt to overthrow a traditional order [...] in the name of [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen|abstract ideas]], formulated by vain intellectuals".<ref>{{cite book|title=The Downing Street Years|last=Thatcher|first=Margaret|author-link=Margaret Thatcher|date=1993|publisher=HarperCollins|location=London|isbn=0-8317-5448-6}}</ref>{{rp|753}}
The British historian [[Norman Stone]] said that the intellectual [[social class]] misunderstand the reality of society and so are doomed to the errors of [[logical fallacy]], ideological stupidity, and poor planning hampered by ideology.<ref Name="Jennings"/> In her memoirs, the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] politician [[Margaret Thatcher]] wrote that the anti-monarchical [[French Revolution]] (1789–1799) was "a [[utopia]]n attempt to overthrow a traditional order [...] in the name of [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen|abstract ideas]], formulated by vain intellectuals".<ref>{{cite book|title=The Downing Street Years|last=Thatcher|first=Margaret|author-link=Margaret Thatcher|date=1993|publisher=HarperCollins|location=London|isbn=0-8317-5448-6}}</ref>{{rp|753}}


=== Latin America ===
=== Latin America ===
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In the United States, members of the intellectual status class have been [[demographic]]ally characterized as people who hold [[Liberalism|liberal]]-to-[[leftist]] political perspectives about [[Guns versus butter model|guns-or-butter]] [[fiscal policy]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1549 |title=Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media: Section 4: Scientists, Politics and Religion – Pew Research Center for the People & the Press |publisher=People-press.org |date=9 July 2009|access-date=14 April 2010}}</ref>
In the United States, members of the intellectual status class have been [[demographic]]ally characterized as people who hold [[Liberalism|liberal]]-to-[[leftist]] political perspectives about [[Guns versus butter model|guns-or-butter]] [[fiscal policy]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1549 |title=Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media: Section 4: Scientists, Politics and Religion – Pew Research Center for the People & the Press |publisher=People-press.org |date=9 July 2009|access-date=14 April 2010}}</ref>


In "The Intellectuals and Socialism" (1949), [[Friedrich Hayek]] wrote that "journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists" form an intellectual social class whose function is to communicate the complex and specialized knowledge of the [[scientist]] to the general public. He argued that intellectuals were attracted to [[socialism]] or [[social democracy]] because the socialists offered "broad visions; the spacious comprehension of the social order, as a whole, which a [[Planned economy|planned system]] promises" and that such broad-vision philosophies "succeeded in inspiring the imagination of the intellectuals" to change and improve their societies.<ref>"The Intellectuals and Socialism", ''The University of Chicago Law Review'' (Spring 1949)</ref>{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} According to Hayek, intellectuals disproportionately support socialism for idealistic and utopian reasons that cannot be realized in practice.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mises.org/etexts/hayekintellectuals.pdf|title=Papers of Interest|work=Mises Institute|date=18 August 2014}}</ref>
In "The Intellectuals and Socialism" (1949), [[Friedrich Hayek]] wrote that "journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists" form an intellectual social class whose function is to communicate the complex and specialized knowledge of the [[scientist]] to the general public. He argued that intellectuals were attracted to [[socialism]] or [[social democracy]] because the socialists offered "broad visions; the spacious comprehension of the social order, as a whole, which a [[Planned economy|planned system]] promises" and that such broad-vision philosophies "succeeded in inspiring the imagination of the intellectuals" to change and improve their societies.<ref>"The Intellectuals and Socialism", ''The University of Chicago Law Review'' (Spring 1949)</ref> According to Hayek, intellectuals disproportionately support socialism for idealistic and utopian reasons that cannot be realized in practice.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mises.org/etexts/hayekintellectuals.pdf|title=Papers of Interest|work=Mises Institute|date=18 August 2014}}</ref>


== Persecution of intellectuals ==
== Persecution of intellectuals ==


Totalitarian governments manipulate and apply [[anti-intellectualism]] to repress political dissent. Intellectuals were also targeted by the Nazis, the communist regime in China, in [[Socialist Republic of Romania|communist Romania]] by the [[Romanian Communist Party]] (PCR) and the [[Securitate]], the Khmer Rouge, the Young Turks, and in conflicts in Bangladesh, the former Yugoslavia, and Poland.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}}
Totalitarian governments manipulate and apply [[anti-intellectualism]] to repress political dissent. Intellectuals were targeted by the Nazis, the communist regime in China, in [[Socialist Republic of Romania|communist Romania]] by the [[Romanian Communist Party]] (PCR) and the [[Securitate]], the Khmer Rouge, and in conflicts in Bangladesh, the former Yugoslavia, and Poland.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}}


== Criticism ==
== Criticism ==
[[File:Portrait of Milton Friedman.jpg|thumb|upright|The economist [[Milton Friedman]] identified the intelligentsia and the business class as interfering with capitalism.]]
[[File:Portrait of Milton Friedman.jpg|thumb|upright|The economist [[Milton Friedman]] identified the intelligentsia and the business class as interfering with capitalism.]]


The French philosopher [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] noted that "the Intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern them" (''L'intellectuel est quelqu'un qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas'').<ref>Annie Cohen-Solal, ''Sartre'', Gallimard, 1989</ref>{{rp|588–9}}
The French philosopher [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] noted that "the Intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern them" ({{Lang|fr|L'intellectuel est quelqu'un qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas}}).<ref>Annie Cohen-Solal, ''Sartre'', Gallimard, 1989</ref>{{rp|588–9}}


[[Noam Chomsky]] expressed the view that "intellectuals are specialists in [[defamation]], they are basically [[political commissar]]s, they are the ideological administrators, the most threatened by [[Dissident|dissidence]]."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chomsky |first1=Noam |title=Understanding Power |date=2003 |publisher=Penguin Books India |isbn=9780143029915 |page=206}}</ref> In the article "[[The Responsibility of Intellectuals]]", Chomsky analyzes the intellectual culture in the U.S., and argues that it is largely subservient to [[Power (social and political)|power]]. He is particularly critical of [[Social Science|social scientist]]s and technocrats, who provide a [[Pseudo-science|pseudo-scientific]] justification for the [[State crime|crimes of the state]].
[[Noam Chomsky]] expressed the view that "intellectuals are specialists in [[defamation]], they are basically [[political commissar]]s, they are the ideological administrators, the most threatened by [[Dissident|dissidence]]."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chomsky |first1=Noam |title=Understanding Power |date=2003 |publisher=Penguin Books India |isbn=9780143029915 |page=206}}</ref> In his 1967 article "[[The Responsibility of Intellectuals]]", Chomsky analyzes the intellectual culture in the U.S., and argues that it is largely subservient to [[Power (social and political)|power]]. He is particularly critical of [[Social Science|social scientist]]s and technocrats, who provide a [[Pseudo-science|pseudo-scientific]] justification for the [[State crime|crimes of the state]].


In "An Interview with Milton Friedman" (1974), the American economist [[Milton Friedman]] said that [[businessmen]] and intellectuals are enemies of [[capitalism]]: most intellectuals believed in socialism while businessmen expected economic privileges. In his essay "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" (1998), the American [[Libertarianism in the United States|libertarian]] philosopher [[Robert Nozick]] of the [[Cato Institute]] argued that intellectuals become embittered leftists because their superior intellectual work, much rewarded at school and at university, are undervalued and underpaid in the capitalist [[market economy]]. Thus, intellectuals turn against capitalism despite enjoying more socioeconomic status than the average person.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n1-1.html |title=Why do intellectuals oppose capitalism? |first=Robert |last=Nozick |journal=Cato Policy Report |volume=20 |issue=1 |date=January–February 1998 |pages=1, 9–11 }}</ref>
In "An Interview with Milton Friedman" (1974), the American economist [[Milton Friedman]] said that [[businessmen]] and intellectuals are enemies of [[capitalism]]: most intellectuals believed in socialism while businessmen expected economic privileges. In his essay "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" (1998), the American [[Libertarianism in the United States|libertarian]] philosopher [[Robert Nozick]] of the [[Cato Institute]] argued that intellectuals become embittered leftists because their superior intellectual work, much rewarded at school and at university, are undervalued and underpaid in the capitalist [[market economy]]. Thus, intellectuals turn against capitalism despite enjoying more socioeconomic status than the average person.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n1-1.html |title=Why do intellectuals oppose capitalism? |first=Robert |last=Nozick |journal=Cato Policy Report |volume=20 |issue=1 |date=January–February 1998 |pages=1, 9–11 }}</ref>
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{{refbegin|30em}}
{{refbegin|30em}}
* [[Raymond Aron|Aron, Raymond]] (1962) ''The Opium of the Intellectuals.'' New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
* [[Raymond Aron|Aron, Raymond]] (1962) ''The Opium of the Intellectuals.'' New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
* Basov, Nikita ''et al''. (2010). ''The Intellectual: A Phenomenon in Multidimensional Perspectives'', [http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ikp3ever10607101.pdf Inter-Disciplinary Press].
* Basov, Nikita ''et al''. (2010). ''The Intellectual: A Phenomenon in Multidimensional Perspectives'', [http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ikp3ever10607101.pdf Inter-Disciplinary Press] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924035614/http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ikp3ever10607101.pdf |date=24 September 2015 }}.
* Bates, David, ed., (2007). ''Marxism, Intellectuals and Politics.'' London: Palgrave.
* Bates, David, ed., (2007). ''Marxism, Intellectuals and Politics.'' London: Palgrave.
* Benchimol, Alex. (2016) ''Intellectual Politics and Cultural Conflict in the Romantic Period: Scottish Whigs, English Radicals and the Making of the British Public Sphere'' (London: Routledge).
* Benchimol, Alex. (2016) ''Intellectual Politics and Cultural Conflict in the Romantic Period: Scottish Whigs, English Radicals and the Making of the British Public Sphere'' (London: Routledge).
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* Huszar, George B. de, ed., (1960). ''The Intellectuals: A Controversial Portrait''. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. Anthology with many contributors.
* Huszar, George B. de, ed., (1960). ''The Intellectuals: A Controversial Portrait''. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. Anthology with many contributors.
* [[Paul Johnson (writer)|Johnson, Paul]] (1990). ''Intellectuals''. New York: Harper Perennial {{ISBN|0-06-091657-5}}. Highly ideological criticisms of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]], [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]], [[Karl Marx|Marx]], [[Henrik Ibsen|Ibsen]], [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]], [[Ernest Hemingway|Hemingway]], [[Bertrand Russell]], [[Bertolt Brecht|Brecht]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre]], [[Edmund Wilson]], [[Victor Gollancz]], [[Lillian Hellman]], [[Cyril Connolly]], [[Norman Mailer]], [[James Baldwin (writer)|James Baldwin]], [[Kenneth Tynan]], [[Noam Chomsky]], and others.
* [[Paul Johnson (writer)|Johnson, Paul]] (1990). ''Intellectuals''. New York: Harper Perennial {{ISBN|0-06-091657-5}}. Highly ideological criticisms of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]], [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]], [[Karl Marx|Marx]], [[Henrik Ibsen|Ibsen]], [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]], [[Ernest Hemingway|Hemingway]], [[Bertrand Russell]], [[Bertolt Brecht|Brecht]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre]], [[Edmund Wilson]], [[Victor Gollancz]], [[Lillian Hellman]], [[Cyril Connolly]], [[Norman Mailer]], [[James Baldwin (writer)|James Baldwin]], [[Kenneth Tynan]], [[Noam Chomsky]], and others.
* Kennedy, Michael D. (2015). ''Globalizing knowledge: Intellectuals, universities and publics in transformation'' (Stanford University Press). 424pp [http://journals.sfu.ca/cjhe/index.php/cjhe/article/viewFile/187569/pdf online review].
* Kennedy, Michael D. (2015). ''Globalizing knowledge: Intellectuals, universities and publics in transformation'' (Stanford University Press). 424pp [http://journals.sfu.ca/cjhe/index.php/cjhe/article/viewFile/187569/pdf online review].
* Konrad, George ''et al''. (1979). ''The Intellectuals On The Road To Class Power.'' Sussex: Harvester Press.
* Konrad, George ''et al''. (1979). ''The Intellectuals On The Road To Class Power.'' Sussex: Harvester Press.
* [[Christopher Lasch|Lasch, Christopher]] (1997). ''The New Radicalism in America, 1889–1963: The Intellectual as a Social Type.'' New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
* [[Christopher Lasch|Lasch, Christopher]] (1997). ''The New Radicalism in America, 1889–1963: The Intellectual as a Social Type.'' New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
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* Moses, A. Dirk (2009) ''German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Moses, A. Dirk (2009) ''German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* [[Murray Rothbard|Rothbard, Murray N.]] (1989). "World War I as Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals," ''The Journal of Libertarian Studies,'' Vol. IX, No. 1, pp.&nbsp;81–125.
* [[Murray Rothbard|Rothbard, Murray N.]] (1989). "World War I as Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals," ''The Journal of Libertarian Studies,'' Vol. IX, No. 1, pp.&nbsp;81–125.
* Sapiro, Gisèle. (2014). ''The French Writers' War 1940–1953'' (1999; English edition 2014); highly influential study of intellectuals in the French Resistance [http://www.h-france.net/vol15reviews/vol15no68atack.pdf online review].
* Sapiro, Gisèle. (2014). ''The French Writers' War 1940–1953'' (1999; English edition 2014); highly influential study of intellectuals in the French Resistance [http://www.h-france.net/vol15reviews/vol15no68atack.pdf online review].
* [[J. Salwyn Schapiro|Shapiro, J. Salwyn]] (1920). [https://archive.org/stream/atlanticmonthly04unkngoog#page/n826/mode/2up "The Revolutionary Intellectual,"] ''The Atlantic Monthly,'' Vol. CXXV, pp.&nbsp;320–330.
* [[J. Salwyn Schapiro|Shapiro, J. Salwyn]] (1920). [https://archive.org/stream/atlanticmonthly04unkngoog#page/n826/mode/2up "The Revolutionary Intellectual,"] ''The Atlantic Monthly,'' Vol. CXXV, pp.&nbsp;320–330.
* Shenfield, Arthur A. (1970). "The Ugly Intellectual," ''The Modern Age'', Vol. XVI, No. 1, pp.&nbsp;9–14.
* Shenfield, Arthur A. (1970). "The Ugly Intellectual," ''The Modern Age'', Vol. XVI, No. 1, pp.&nbsp;9–14.
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[[Category:Lord Byron]]
[[Category:Lord Byron]]
[[Category:Occupations]]
[[Category:Occupations]]
[[Category:Persecution of intellectuals|and elsewhere]]
[[Category:Positions of authority]]
[[Category:Positions of authority]]
[[Category:Social classes]]
[[Category:Social classes]]

Latest revision as of 05:14, 27 April 2024

Erasmus of Rotterdam was one of the foremost intellectuals of his time.
Foreign Policy magazine named the lawyer Shirin Ebadi a leading intellectual for her work protecting human rights in Iran.[1]

An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for its normative problems.[2][3] Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an ideology, and by defending a system of values.[4]

Etymological background[edit]

"Man of letters"[edit]

The term "man of letters" derives from the French term belletrist or homme de lettres but is not synonymous with "an academic".[5][6] A "man of letters" was a literate man, able to read and write, and thus highly valued in the upper strata of society in a time when literacy was rare. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term Belletrist(s) came to be applied to the literati: the French participants in—sometimes referred to as "citizens" of—the Republic of Letters, which evolved into the salon, a social institution, usually run by a hostess, meant for the edification, education, and cultural refinement of the participants.

In the late 19th century, when literacy was relatively common in European countries such as the United Kingdom, the "Man of Letters" (littérateur)[7] denotation broadened to mean "specialized", a man who earned his living writing intellectually (not creatively) about literature: the essayist, the journalist, the critic, et al. Examples include Samuel Johnson, Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle. In the 20th century, such an approach was gradually superseded by the academic method, and the term "Man of Letters" became disused, replaced by the generic term "intellectual", describing the intellectual person. The archaic term is the basis of the names of several academic institutions which call themselves Colleges of Letters and Science.

"Intellectual"[edit]

The earliest record of the English noun "intellectual" is found in the 19th century, where in 1813, Byron reports that 'I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals'.[8]: 18  Over the course of the 19th century, other variants of the already established adjective 'intellectual' as a noun appeared in English and in French, where in the 1890s the noun (intellectuels) formed from the adjective intellectuel appeared with higher frequency in the literature.[8]: 20  Collini writes about this time that "[a]mong this cluster of linguistic experiments there occurred ... the occasional usage of 'intellectuals' as a plural noun to refer, usually with a figurative or ironic intent, to a collection of people who might be identified in terms of their intellectual inclinations or pretensions."[8]: 20 

In early 19th-century Britain, Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term clerisy, the intellectual class responsible for upholding and maintaining the national culture, the secular equivalent of the Anglican clergy. Likewise, in Tsarist Russia, there arose the intelligentsia (1860s–1870s), who were the status class of white-collar workers. For Germany, the theologian Alister McGrath said that "the emergence of a socially alienated, theologically literate, antiestablishment lay intelligentsia is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history of Germany in the 1830s".[9]: 53  An intellectual class in Europe was socially important, especially to self-styled intellectuals, whose participation in society's arts, politics, journalism, and education—of either nationalist, internationalist, or ethnic sentiment—constitute "vocation of the intellectual". Moreover, some intellectuals were anti-academic, despite universities (the academy) being synonymous with intellectualism.[citation needed]

The front page of L'Aurore (13 January 1898) featured Émile Zola's open letter J'Accuse…! asking the French President Félix Faure to resolve the Dreyfus affair.

In France, the Dreyfus affair (1894–1906), an identity crisis of antisemitic nationalism for the French Third Republic (1870–1940), marked the full emergence of the "intellectual in public life", especially Émile Zola, Octave Mirbeau and Anatole France directly addressing the matter of French antisemitism to the public; thenceforward, "intellectual" became common, yet initially derogatory, usage; its French noun usage is attributed to Georges Clemenceau in 1898. Nevertheless, by 1930 the term "intellectual" passed from its earlier pejorative associations and restricted usages to a widely accepted term and it was because of the Dreyfus Affair that the term also acquired generally accepted use in English.[8]: 21 

In the 20th century, the term intellectual acquired positive connotations of social prestige, derived from possessing intellect and intelligence, especially when the intellectual's activities exerted positive consequences in the public sphere and so increased the intellectual understanding of the public, by means of moral responsibility, altruism, and solidarity, without resorting to the manipulations of demagoguery, paternalism and incivility (condescension).[10]: 169  The sociologist Frank Furedi said that "Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the [social and political] values that they uphold.[11][page needed]

According to Thomas Sowell, as a descriptive term of person, personality, and profession, the word intellectual identifies three traits:

  1. Educated; erudition for developing theories;
  2. Productive; creates cultural capital in the fields of philosophy, literary criticism, and sociology, law, medicine, and science, etc.; and
  3. Artistic; creates art in literature, music, painting, sculpture, etc.[12][page needed]

Historical uses[edit]

In Latin language, at least starting from the Carolingian Empire, intellectuals could be called litterati, a term which is sometimes applied today.[citation needed]

The word intellectual is found in Indian scripture Mahabharata in the Bachelorette meeting (Swayamvara Sava) of Draupadi. Immediately after Arjuna and Raja-Maharaja (kings-emperors) came to the meeting, Nipuna Buddhijibina (perfect intellectuals) appeared at the meeting.[citation needed]

In Imperial China in the period from 206 BC until AD 1912, the intellectuals were the Scholar-officials ("Scholar-gentlemen"), who were civil servants appointed by the Emperor of China to perform the tasks of daily governance. Such civil servants earned academic degrees by means of imperial examination, and were often also skilled calligraphers or Confucian philosophers. Historian Wing-Tsit Chan concludes that:

Generally speaking, the record of these scholar-gentlemen has been a worthy one. It was good enough to be praised and imitated in 18th century Europe. Nevertheless, it has given China a tremendous handicap in their transition from government by men to government by law, and personal considerations in Chinese government have been a curse.[13]: 22 

In Joseon Korea (1392–1910), the intellectuals were the literati, who knew how to read and write, and had been designated, as the chungin (the "middle people"), in accordance with the Confucian system. Socially, they constituted the petite bourgeoisie, composed of scholar-bureaucrats (scholars, professionals, and technicians) who administered the dynastic rule of the Joseon dynasty.[14]: 73–4 

Public intellectual[edit]

External videos
video icon "Role of Intellectuals in Public Life", panel featuring Michael Ignatieff, Russell Jacoby, Roger Kimball, Susie Linfield, Alex Star, Ellen Willis and Alan Wolfe, March 1, 2001, C-SPAN

The term public intellectual describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairs discourse of society, in addition to an academic career.[15] Regardless of their academic fields or professional expertise, public intellectuals address and respond to the normative problems of society, and, as such, are expected to be impartial critics who can "rise above the partial preoccupation of one's own profession—and engage with the global issues of truth, judgment, and taste of the time".[16][11]: 32  In Representations of the Intellectual (1994), Edward Saïd said that the "true intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society".[17]: 1–2  Public intellectuals usually arise from the educated élite of a society; although the North American usage of the term intellectual includes the university academics.[18] The difference between intellectual and academic is participation in the realm of public affairs.[19]

Jürgen Habermas' Structural Transformation of Public Sphere (1963) made significant contribution to the notion of public intellectual by historically and conceptually delineating the idea of private and public. Controversial, in the same year, was Ralf Dahrendorf's definition: "As the court-jesters of modern society, all intellectuals have the duty to doubt everything that is obvious, to make relative all authority, to ask all those questions that no one else dares to ask".[20]: 51 

An intellectual usually is associated with an ideology or with a philosophy.[21][page needed] The Czech intellectual Václav Havel said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that moral responsibility for the intellectual's ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. Therefore, it is best to avoid utopian intellectuals who offer 'universal insights' to resolve the problems of political economy with public policies that might harm and that have harmed civil society; that intellectuals be mindful of the social and cultural ties created with their words, insights and ideas; and should be heard as social critics of politics and power.[17]: 13 

Public engagement[edit]

The determining factor for a "thinker" (historian, philosopher, scientist, writer, artist) to be considered a public intellectual is the degree to which the individual is implicated and engaged with the vital reality of the contemporary world, i.e. participation in the public affairs of society. Consequently, being designated as a public intellectual is determined by the degree of influence of the designator's motivations, opinions, and options of action (social, political, ideological), and by affinity with the given thinker.[citation needed]

After the failure of the large-scale May 68 movement in France, intellectuals within the country were often maligned for having specific areas of expertise while discussing general subjects like democracy. Intellectuals increasingly claimed to be within marginalized groups rather than their spokespeople, and centered their activism on the social problems relevant to their areas of expertise (such as gender relations in the case of psychologists). A similar shift occurred in China after the Tiananmen Square Massacre from the "universal intellectual" (who plans better futures from within academia) to minjian ("grassroots") intellectuals, the latter group represented by such figures as Wang Xiaobo, social scientist Yu Jianrong, and Yanhuang Chunqiu editor Ding Dong (丁東).[22]

Public policy[edit]

In the matters of public policy, the public intellectual connects scholarly research to the practical matters of solving societal problems. The British sociologist Michael Burawoy, an exponent of public sociology, said that professional sociology has failed by giving insufficient attention to resolving social problems, and that a dialogue between the academic and the layman would bridge the gap.[23][page needed] An example is how Chilean intellectuals worked to reestablish democracy within the right-wing, neoliberal governments of the military dictatorship of 1973–1990, the Pinochet régime allowed professional opportunities for some liberal and left-wing social scientists to work as politicians and as consultants in effort to realize the theoretical economics of the Chicago Boys, but their access to power was contingent upon political pragmatism, abandoning the political neutrality of the academic intellectual.[24]

In The Sociological Imagination (1959), C. Wright Mills said that academics had become ill-equipped for participating in public discourse, and that journalists usually are "more politically alert and knowledgeable than sociologists, economists, and especially ... political scientists".[25]: 99  That, because the universities of the U.S. are bureaucratic, private businesses, they "do not teach critical reasoning to the student", who then does not know "how to gauge what is going on in the general struggle for power in modern society".[25][page needed] Likewise, Richard Rorty criticized the quality of participation of intellectuals in public discourse as an example of the "civic irresponsibility of intellect, especially academic intellect".[26]: 142 

External videos
video icon Booknotes interview with Posner on Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, June 2, 2002, C-SPAN

The American legal scholar Richard Posner said that the participation of academic public intellectuals in the public life of society is characterized by logically untidy and politically biased statements of the kind that would be unacceptable to academia. He concluded that there are few ideologically and politically independent public intellectuals, and disapproved public intellectuals who limit themselves to practical matters of public policy, and not with values or public philosophy, or public ethics, or public theology, nor with matters of moral and spiritual outrage.

Intellectual status class[edit]

Socially, intellectuals constitute the intelligentsia, a status class organised either by ideology (e.g., conservatism, fascism, socialism, liberal, reactionary, revolutionary, democratic, communism), or by nationality (American intellectuals, French intellectuals, Ibero–American intellectuals, et al.). The term intelligentsiya originated from Tsarist Russia (c. 1860s–1870s), where it denotes the social stratum of those possessing intellectual formation (schooling, education), and who were Russian society's counterpart to the German Bildungsbürgertum and to the French bourgeoisie éclairée, the enlightened middle classes of those realms.[10]: 169–71 

In Marxist philosophy, the social class function of the intellectuals (the intelligentsia) is to be the source of progressive ideas for the transformation of society: providing advice and counsel to the political leaders, interpreting the country's politics to the mass of the population (urban workers and peasants). In the pamphlet What Is to Be Done? (1902), Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said that vanguard-party revolution required the participation of the intellectuals to explain the complexities of socialist ideology to the uneducated proletariat and the urban industrial workers in order to integrate them to the revolution because "the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness" and will settle for the limited, socio-economic gains so achieved. In Russia as in Continental Europe, socialist theory was the product of the "educated representatives of the propertied classes", of "revolutionary socialist intellectuals", such as were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.[27]: 31, 137–8 

The Hungarian Marxist philosopher György Lukács (1885–1971) identified the intelligentsia as the privileged social class who provide revolutionary leadership. By means of intelligible and accessible interpretation, the intellectuals explain to the workers and peasants the "Who?", the "How?" and the "Why?" of the social, economic and political status quo—the ideological totality of society—and its practical, revolutionary application to the transformation of their society.

The Italian communist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) developed Karl Marx's conception of the intelligentsia to include political leadership in the public sphere. That because "all knowledge is existentially-based", the intellectuals, who create and preserve knowledge, are "spokesmen for different social groups, and articulate particular social interests". That intellectuals occur in each social class and throughout the right-wing, the centre and the left-wing of the political spectrum and that as a social class the "intellectuals view themselves as autonomous from the ruling class" of their society.

Addressing their role as a social class, Jean-Paul Sartre said that intellectuals are the moral conscience of their age; that their moral and ethical responsibilities are to observe the socio-political moment, and to freely speak to their society, in accordance with their consciences.[28]: 119 

The British historian Norman Stone said that the intellectual social class misunderstand the reality of society and so are doomed to the errors of logical fallacy, ideological stupidity, and poor planning hampered by ideology.[17] In her memoirs, the Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher wrote that the anti-monarchical French Revolution (1789–1799) was "a utopian attempt to overthrow a traditional order [...] in the name of abstract ideas, formulated by vain intellectuals".[29]: 753 

Latin America[edit]

The American academic Peter H. Smith describes the intellectuals of Latin America as people from an identifiable social class, who have been conditioned by that common experience and thus are inclined to share a set of common assumptions (values and ethics); that ninety-four per cent of intellectuals come either from the middle class or from the upper class and that only six per cent come from the working class. [30]

Philosopher Steven Fuller said that because cultural capital confers power and social status as a status group they must be autonomous in order to be credible as intellectuals:

It is relatively easy to demonstrate autonomy, if you come from a wealthy or [an] aristocratic background. You simply need to disown your status and champion the poor and [the] downtrodden [...]. [A]utonomy is much harder to demonstrate if you come from a poor or proletarian background [...], [thus] calls to join the wealthy in common cause appear to betray one's class origins. [31]: 113–4 

United States[edit]

The Congregational theologian Edwards Amasa Park proposed segregating the intellectuals from the public sphere of society in the United States.

The 19th-century U.S. Congregational theologian Edwards Amasa Park said: "We do wrong to our own minds, when we carry out scientific difficulties down to the arena of popular dissension".[26]: 12  In his view, it was necessary for the sake of social, economic and political stability "to separate the serious, technical role of professionals from their responsibility [for] supplying usable philosophies for the general public". This expresses a dichotomy, derived from Plato, between public knowledge and private knowledge, "civic culture" and "professional culture", the intellectual sphere of life and the life of ordinary people in society.[26]: 12 

In the United States, members of the intellectual status class have been demographically characterized as people who hold liberal-to-leftist political perspectives about guns-or-butter fiscal policy.[32]

In "The Intellectuals and Socialism" (1949), Friedrich Hayek wrote that "journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists" form an intellectual social class whose function is to communicate the complex and specialized knowledge of the scientist to the general public. He argued that intellectuals were attracted to socialism or social democracy because the socialists offered "broad visions; the spacious comprehension of the social order, as a whole, which a planned system promises" and that such broad-vision philosophies "succeeded in inspiring the imagination of the intellectuals" to change and improve their societies.[33] According to Hayek, intellectuals disproportionately support socialism for idealistic and utopian reasons that cannot be realized in practice.[34]

Persecution of intellectuals[edit]

Totalitarian governments manipulate and apply anti-intellectualism to repress political dissent. Intellectuals were targeted by the Nazis, the communist regime in China, in communist Romania by the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and the Securitate, the Khmer Rouge, and in conflicts in Bangladesh, the former Yugoslavia, and Poland.[citation needed]

Criticism[edit]

The economist Milton Friedman identified the intelligentsia and the business class as interfering with capitalism.

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre noted that "the Intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern them" (L'intellectuel est quelqu'un qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas).[35]: 588–9 

Noam Chomsky expressed the view that "intellectuals are specialists in defamation, they are basically political commissars, they are the ideological administrators, the most threatened by dissidence."[36] In his 1967 article "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", Chomsky analyzes the intellectual culture in the U.S., and argues that it is largely subservient to power. He is particularly critical of social scientists and technocrats, who provide a pseudo-scientific justification for the crimes of the state.

In "An Interview with Milton Friedman" (1974), the American economist Milton Friedman said that businessmen and intellectuals are enemies of capitalism: most intellectuals believed in socialism while businessmen expected economic privileges. In his essay "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" (1998), the American libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick of the Cato Institute argued that intellectuals become embittered leftists because their superior intellectual work, much rewarded at school and at university, are undervalued and underpaid in the capitalist market economy. Thus, intellectuals turn against capitalism despite enjoying more socioeconomic status than the average person.[37]

The economist Thomas Sowell wrote in his book Intellectuals and Society (2010) that intellectuals, who are producers of knowledge, not material goods, tend to speak outside their own areas of expertise, and yet expect social and professional benefits from the halo effect derived from possessing professional expertise. In relation to other professions, public intellectuals are socially detached from the negative and unintended consequences of public policy derived from their ideas. Sowell gives the example of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), who advised the British government against national rearmament in the years before the Second World War.[38]: 218–276 

References[edit]

  1. ^ Amburn, Brad (2009). "The World's Top 20 Public Intellectuals". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  2. ^ The New Fontana dictionary of Modern Thought Third Edition, A. Bullock & S. Trombley, Eds. (1999) p. 433.
  3. ^ Jennings, Jeremy and Kemp-Welch, Tony. "The Century of the Intellectual: From Dreyfus to Salman Rushdie", Intellectuals in Politics, Routledge: New York (1997) p. 1.
  4. ^ Ory, Pascal and Sirinelli, Jean-François. Les Intellectuels en France. De l’affaire Dreyfus à nos jours (The Intellectuals in France: From the Dreyfus Affair to Our Days), Paris: Armand Colin, 2002, p. 10.
  5. ^ The Oxford English Reference Dictionary Second Edition, (1996) p. 130.
  6. ^ The New Cassel's French–English, English–French Dictionary (1962) p. 88.
  7. ^ "Littérateur, n.". Discover the Story of English (Second (1989) ed.). Oxford English Dictionary. June 2012 [First published in New English Dictionary, 1903].
  8. ^ a b c d Collini, Stefan (2006). Absent Minds. Intellectuals in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199291055.
  9. ^ Kramer, Hilton (1999). The Twilight of the Intellectuals. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
  10. ^ a b Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1983)
  11. ^ a b Furedi, Frank (2004). Where Have All The Intellectuals Gone?. London and New York: Continuum Press.
  12. ^ Sowell, Thomas (1980). Knowledge and Decisions. Basic Books.
  13. ^ Charles Alexander Moore, ed. (1967). The Chinese Mind: Essentials of Chinese Philosophy and Culture. U of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0824800758.
  14. ^ The Korea Foundation (2016). Koreana – Winter 2015. 한국국제교류재단. ISBN 979-1156041573.
  15. ^ Etzioni, Amitai. Ed., Public Intellectuals, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.
  16. ^ Bauman, 1987: 2.
  17. ^ a b c Jennings, Jeremy; Kemp-Welch, Tony (1997). "The Century of the Intellectual: From Dreyfus to Salman Rushdie". In Jennings, Jeremy; Kemp-Welch, Tony (eds.). Intellectuals in Politics: From the Dreyfus Affair to Salman Rushdie. Routledge. pp. 100–110. ISBN 0-415-14995-9.
  18. ^ McKee (2001)
  19. ^ Bourdieu 1989
  20. ^ Ralf Dahrendorf, Der Intellektuelle und die Gesellschaft, Die Zeit, 20 March 1963, reprinted in The Intellectual and Society, in On Intellectuals, ed. Philip Rieff, Garden City, NY, 1969
  21. ^ McLennan, Gregor (2004). "Traveling With Vehicular Ideas: The Case of the Third Way". Economy and Society. 33 (4): 484–99. doi:10.1080/0308514042000285251. S2CID 145227353.
  22. ^ Béja, Jean-Philippe (2020). "Review of Minjian: The Rise of China's Grassroots Intellectuals". China Review. 20 (4): 285–287. ISSN 1680-2012. JSTOR 26959862.
  23. ^ Gattone, Charles (2006). The Social Scientist As Public Intellectual: Critical Reflections In A Changing World. Rowman and Littlefield.
  24. ^ Sorkin (2007)
  25. ^ a b Mills, Charles Wright (1959). The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  26. ^ a b c Bender, Thomas (1993). Intellect and Public Life. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  27. ^ Le Blanc, Paul. Revolution, Democracy, Socialism: Selected Writings of Lenin (Pluto Press, London: 2008)
  28. ^ Scriven 1993
  29. ^ Thatcher, Margaret (1993). The Downing Street Years. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-8317-5448-6.
  30. ^ Smith, Peter H. (2017). A view from Latin America. The New History.
  31. ^ Fuller, Steve (2005). The Intellectual: The Positive Power of Negative Thinking. Cambridge: Icon.
  32. ^ "Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media: Section 4: Scientists, Politics and Religion – Pew Research Center for the People & the Press". People-press.org. 9 July 2009. Retrieved 14 April 2010.
  33. ^ "The Intellectuals and Socialism", The University of Chicago Law Review (Spring 1949)
  34. ^ "Papers of Interest" (PDF). Mises Institute. 18 August 2014.
  35. ^ Annie Cohen-Solal, Sartre, Gallimard, 1989
  36. ^ Chomsky, Noam (2003). Understanding Power. Penguin Books India. p. 206. ISBN 9780143029915.
  37. ^ Nozick, Robert (January–February 1998). "Why do intellectuals oppose capitalism?". Cato Policy Report. 20 (1): 1, 9–11.
  38. ^ Sowell, Thomas (2010). Intellectuals and Society. Basic Books.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Aron, Raymond (1962) The Opium of the Intellectuals. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
  • Basov, Nikita et al. (2010). The Intellectual: A Phenomenon in Multidimensional Perspectives, Inter-Disciplinary Press Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine.
  • Bates, David, ed., (2007). Marxism, Intellectuals and Politics. London: Palgrave.
  • Benchimol, Alex. (2016) Intellectual Politics and Cultural Conflict in the Romantic Period: Scottish Whigs, English Radicals and the Making of the British Public Sphere (London: Routledge).
  • Benda, Julien (2003). The Treason of the Intellectuals. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
  • Camp, Roderic (1985). Intellectuals and the State in Twentieth-Century Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press.
  • Coleman, Peter (2010) The Last Intellectuals. Sydney: Quadrant Books.
  • Di Leo, Jeffrey R., and Peter Hitchcock, eds. (2016) The New Public Intellectual: Politics, Theory, and the Public Sphere. (Springer).
  • Finkielkraut, Alain (1995). The Defeat of the Mind. Columbia University Press.
  • Gella, Aleksander, Ed., (1976). The Intelligentsia and the Intellectuals. California: Sage Publication.
  • Gouldner, Alvin W. (1979). The Future of the Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. New York: The Seabury Press.
  • Gross, John (1969). The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters. New York: Macmillan.
  • Huszar, George B. de, ed., (1960). The Intellectuals: A Controversial Portrait. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. Anthology with many contributors.
  • Johnson, Paul (1990). Intellectuals. New York: Harper Perennial ISBN 0-06-091657-5. Highly ideological criticisms of Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz, Lillian Hellman, Cyril Connolly, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Kenneth Tynan, Noam Chomsky, and others.
  • Kennedy, Michael D. (2015). Globalizing knowledge: Intellectuals, universities and publics in transformation (Stanford University Press). 424pp online review.
  • Konrad, George et al. (1979). The Intellectuals On The Road To Class Power. Sussex: Harvester Press.
  • Lasch, Christopher (1997). The New Radicalism in America, 1889–1963: The Intellectual as a Social Type. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
  • Lemert, Charles (1991). Intellectuals and Politics. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications.
  • McCaughan, Michael (2000). True Crime: Rodolfo Walsh and the Role of the Intellectual in Latin American Politics. Latin America Bureau ISBN 1-899365-43-5.
  • Michael, John (2000). Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values. Duke University Press.
  • Misztal, Barbara A. (2007). Intellectuals and the Public Good. Cambridge University Press.
  • Molnar, Thomas (1961). The Decline of the Intellectual. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company.
  • Piereson, James (2006). "The Rise & Fall of the Intellectual," The New Criterion, Vol. XXV, p. 52.
  • Posner, Richard A. (2002). Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press ISBN 0-674-01246-1.
  • Rieff, Philip, Ed., (1969). On Intellectuals. New York: Doubleday & Co.
  • Sawyer, S., and Iain Stewart, eds. (2016) In Search of the Liberal Moment: Democracy, Anti-totalitarianism, and Intellectual Politics in France since 1950 (Springer).
  • Showalter, Elaine (2001). Inventing Herself: Claiming A Feminist Intellectual Heritage. London: Picador.
  • Viereck, Peter (1953). Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals. Boston: Beacon Press.

Further reading[edit]

  • Aczél, Tamás & Méray, Tibor. (1959) The Revolt of the Mind. New York: Frederick A. Praeger.
  • Barzun, Jacques (1959). The House of Intellect. New York: Harper.
  • Berman, Paul (2010). The Flight of the Intellectuals. New York: Melville House.
  • Carey, John (2005). The Intellectuals And The Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880–1939. Chicago Review Press.
  • Chomsky, Noam (1968). "The Responsibility of Intellectuals." In: The Dissenting Academy, ed. Theolord Roszak. New York: Pantheon Books, pp. 254–298.
  • Grayling, A.C. (2013). "Do Public Intellectuals Matter?," Prospect Magazine, No. 206.
  • Hamburger, Joseph (1966). Intellectuals in Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  • Hayek, F.A. (1949). "The Intellectuals and Socialism," The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. XVI, No. 3, pp. 417–433.
  • Huizinga, Johan (1936). In the Shadows of Tomorrow. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
  • Kidder, David S., Oppenheim, Noah D., (2006). The Intellectual Devotional. Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Books ISBN 1-59486-513-2.
  • Laruelle, François (2014). Intellectuals and Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • Lilla, Mark (2003). The Reckless Mind – Intellectuals in Politics. New York: New York Review Books.
  • Lukacs, John A. (1958). "Intellectuals, Catholics, and the Intellectual Life," Modern Age, Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 40–53.
  • MacDonald, Heather (2001). The Burden of Bad Ideas. New York: Ivan R. Dee.
  • Milosz, Czeslaw (1990). The Captive Mind. New York: Vintage Books.
  • Molnar, Thomas (1958). "Intellectuals, Experts, and the Classless Society," Modern Age, Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 33–39.
  • Moses, A. Dirk (2009) German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Rothbard, Murray N. (1989). "World War I as Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals," The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. IX, No. 1, pp. 81–125.
  • Sapiro, Gisèle. (2014). The French Writers' War 1940–1953 (1999; English edition 2014); highly influential study of intellectuals in the French Resistance online review.
  • Shapiro, J. Salwyn (1920). "The Revolutionary Intellectual," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CXXV, pp. 320–330.
  • Shenfield, Arthur A. (1970). "The Ugly Intellectual," The Modern Age, Vol. XVI, No. 1, pp. 9–14.
  • Shlapentokh, Vladimir (1990) Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
  • Shore, Marci (2009). Caviar and Ashes. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  • Small, Helen (2002). The Public Intellectual. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
  • Strunsky, Simeon (1921). "Intellectuals and Highbrows," Part II, Vanity Fair, Vol. XV, pp. 52, 92.
  • Whittington-Egan, Richard (2003-08-01). "The Vanishing Man of Letters: Part One". Contemporary Review.
  • Whittington-Egan, Richard (2003-10-01). "The Vanishing Man of Letters: Part Two". Contemporary Review.
  • Wolin, Richard (2010). The Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Culture Revolution and the Legacy of the 1960s. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

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