Intellectuals, Intellectuals.

There is a grave problem with that word – intellectual – and the way we have come to use it in contemporary conversation. When you think about it, there has always been a problem. In the days of yore, those who were well read, and usually on the side of the establishment were intellectuals. They were renaissance men oriented towards the classics, comfortably modern philosophy, scientific rationality, with refined tastes that only the elite could afford to successfully pursue. Those who were women, expressed ideas too radical or partook of common, vulgar culture, were not.

Today, an intellectual cannot favour the establishment. The scientist is not an intellectual. The bookworm, that vast repository of knowledge, expressing herself in awkward phrases, is not an intellectual. Anyone of the right wing is not an intellectual. Anyone who contradicts absolute equality is not an intellectual. And we still exclude the culture of the vulgar.

That leaves us with an inadequate sort of intellectual. One who has the wherewithal and panache to speak out in public, be a bit of an anarchist with a sufficient amount of patriotism, be able to speak with a hint of that global citizen accent, indulge only in the refinement of the elite, while only in word defending the equi-stature of other sorts of culture. An intellectual must also not be comfortable with technology, look presentably good and allude to literature, music and cinema that his company is unlikely to have heard of.

Allusion, in fact, is the most integral component of the sort of intellectual we savour today. Refer to things in order to be taken seriously. Refer to the most obscure. Creativity, at least in social company, the simplistic sort that reduces problems to apples and oranges, is not a sign of intellect. But watch out for that man over there, referring to a paper the latest neo-marxist toast of the season wrote for that journal. Watch out for the lady that just quoted Bertrand Russell, and name dropped Rembrandt and Umberto Eco. These collectors of information about other people have reduced the exercise of intellect to a contest – who can use the biggest word in the room?

I humbly suggest that if we are to so grossly misrepresent, and more importantly, usurp the word to pedestal some people, and omit those who are genuine and sincere in their entreaties, then do away with the word entirely. Because using Latin phrases will neither get your point across, nor serve the cause of intellectual human progress.