You Otta Be an Intellectual!

Several things:

The number of "intellectuals" as a percentage of population is almost certainly greater today than at anytime in recorded history. As late as the 19th century only a tiny proportion of our species were even literate. The effort to obtain the necessities of bare existence left little time for the pursuit of "disinterested knowledge".

In earlier times, people rarely wandered far from the spot where their great-great-grandparents lived, and the world beyond was almost a fairy tale. No radio. No television. No virtually instantaneous internet communications network tying the whole world together. The wage slave who labored over 65 hours and earned less than $1000 a year still had time to contemplate the stars occasionally and when the stars could be seen through the coal smoke of many hearths. Education was based on intimate knowledge of Greek and Latin, hardly the stuff to awaken curiosity or passion for learning. The idea of universal literacy was considered lunacy.

The number of books published each year was really small, and most had been around for thousands of years. Popular novels were long and filled with minute detail, so that a book owner could "stretch out" the story an hour a day for maybe a years worth of reading. Newspapers tended to be smaller because publishers only "knew" what was happening locally, and news from afar was mostly rumor months, or even years after the reported events. Magazines catered to the special interests of its readers with limited advertising (modern marketing hadn't been invented yet). Political pamphletes were less often about lofty notions of political philosophy than rabble rousing partisan exhortations.

Today the opportunities for expanding one's intellectual horizons are easily available to most, and most folks in the developed countries have both time and means to pursue learning ... if they so desire. Today the expectation is that people WILL and do avail themselves of the books flooding off of the publishers presses. Infants can watch great and terrifying events in real time as they unfold. Our extended life expectancy after the end of career and active social striving is available for those who appreciate learning and thinking.

How many people avail themselves of the opportunity to pursue "disinterested knowledge"? If people don't read and study, what more could be done about it? People can't be forced to step beyond their day to day interests into the world of learning. Some will spend a life time in thought and contemplation of "Big Issues", and others will be quite content to hear occasionally that their favorite sports team won a match. Which will be happier on their death bed? Will one suffer less as a result of their intellectual choices? What is the purpose of learning and study, if not to fulfill our curiosity and desire to know? Doesn't society already reward the educated and thoughtful far better than the high school dropout who spends a lifetime working at Wal-Mart?

In the end, we are responsible for ourselves. We choose for ourselves what to read, if anything. We don't have to watch a group of six idiots contend with one another to win some little prize by exposing their greed and lack of gravitas. We can choose entraining, but trivial pursuits, or the pursuit of subjects that are difficult and time consuming to learn and understand. We can respond to our world with curiosity and thoughtful skepticism, or we can get all emotional about our largely unexamined prejudices.

Ah, ain't freedom great! We don't live in a theocracy, where questioning even small points of doctrine can be punished by death. Books are printed without censorship and can be had at the local library for FREE! When was the last time you had to smuggle a forbidden book past customs so you could read it? Its hard to imagine the dangers our friends living in China face just to occasionally exchange their views with us here on A2K. In the DPRK, life is a constant battle for mere survival and literally all reading material is directed at perpetuation of a murderous dictator, there is no internet or electronic communications with the outside world. Doesn't that sound jolly? Wouldn't the world be vastly improved if the radical Islamic movement could just pull down the evil American Empire and substitute in its place an enlightened society dedicated to the worship of Allah? NOT!!

Re: You Otta Be an Intellectual!


It would be very optimistic indeed to believe that these pursuits were carried out without any regard for money.

Asherman

Much of what you say is correct.

I would say that you are not correct regarding the number of people pursuing disinterested knowledge.

People are free to do what they wish and unfortunately they are not knowledgable enough to know what is good for them self or for their democracy that has been handed to them and that they may lose for future generations because they are not awake.

I suspect you are correct. They had to make a living and I do not know how all of them did so. I suspect that like most people who were educated in that period they were part of the aristocracy and thus took pride in the fact that they did nothing for money except collect it from their peasants.

On the contrary, Asherman is probably right about the number of people pursuing "disinterested knowledge." As he noted, the ability to pursue such interests requires a certain minimum of material comfort, and affluence is more widespread now than in the past. We have more leisure time to pursue things not directly related to our day-to-day sustenance. Your analogy between "disinterested pursuits" and music is an unwittingly apt one in this regard: there are more composers alive today than in the entire 18th and 19th centuries combined, for similar reasons: more people can afford to be composers, and the means of composing are now available to anyone who has a computer and other basic equipment. Similarly, information is available to a wider public in ways that weren't even conceivable just 50 years ago--through mass media and especially through the internet.

Shapless

All that you say is most likely correct. However, I think the abundance of opportunity means nothing if the character and will are not present and it is these factors that I find missing from today's men and women.

I can't agree or disagree, as I don't know how I would go about determing how "today's men and women" spend their leisure time. If there is something wrong with their "character and will," it's not for lack of trying, since the number of people in the United States pursuing graduate degrees in the humanities (to take just one marker--frequently the most romanticized one--of "disinterested knowledge") continues to rise to unmanageable proportions. (Any doubts about about this can easily be put to rest by asking a humanities Ph.D. about the current job crisis.)

By a somewhat less exalted measure, a recent study by Nature magazine judged the accuracy of Wikipedia to be startlingly close to that of the Encyclopaedia britannica. This was of course disputed, but if nothing else it shows that lots of people out there have lots of time on their hands and are apparently using it to bring their expertise to a forum that gives them no immediate benefit except the satisfaction that they have contributed to a body of knowledge--what seems to fit your definition of "disinterested."

Our pop-culture is a culture of instantanious gratification. Today's generation makes many more decisions than previous generations but the decisions are more of a trivial nature and are of short time range.

I don't understand how those two claims are related to each other or to the rest of the thread.

It is related to the question of how many people today might be inclined to pursue 'disinterested knowlege' My claim is that we have too shallow a culture to expect many to take such a course of action. We are constantly become more shallow in matters of intellectual sophistication.

In his appreciation of freedom Asherman asks "When was the last time you had to smuggle a forbidden book past customs so you could read it?"
I find delicious the notion of having to treat an intellectual work with the passion that today many people reserve for pornography.
Which reminds me, the work of the artist and the intellectual is not "disinterested" insofar as it is passionate. I like to make the distilnction between activity that is intrinsically valuable and that which is extrinsically valuable. The former is activity that is internally motivated; the latter activity is externally motivated, what we do under some kind of duress.
Right now, we A2Kers are exchanging ideas for the pleasure of doing so. How wonderful.
By the way, Coberst. A great thread, wonderfully introduced.

But we have been trying to show you phenomena that suggest that many are taking such a course of action--much more now than in the past. You're not responding to these claims or substantiating your own, you're just issuing general reprimands.

I would just like to see some reasons behind what you say. For example, what would an indication of a healthy intellectural culture look like? More books? Fewer Coke commercials? Why are you unconvinced by the things we've pointed out in this thread--have we misrepresented or contradicted the facts? How would you render the data? You may be right, you may be wrong; I don't know. But give us something to work with so we can talk to each other, not talk at each other. If "intellectual sophistication" starts anywhere, surely it starts with informed dialogue.

Shapless

A culture of instant gratification is unlikely to make the kind of commitment demanded of an intellectual.

It is easier to identify urban centers, than nations, as environments more or less nutritious for the emergence and sustenance of the intellectual life. I would rank, say, Vienna, Paris, Mexico City and New York over Kansas City, Fresno, Reno and Torreon, Mexico. The larger, older and more urban the environment the more nutritious it is likely to be.

Maybe I am being unclear about what I'm asking for, or am asking for something unreasonable, but I was hoping you'd be able to give us some actual details, Coberst. You talk of the "commitments demanded of an intellectual," but what, specifically, are these commitments? Surely you have to know what they are before you can know that they are not being met.

For example, would a vibrant artistic life be an indication of a healthy intellectual culture? More college undergraduates pursuing jobs in academia rather than business? A proliferation of information resources, and wider portion of the population using them? In a previous thread you suggested that acquiring "intellectual hobbies" would improve the United States' high school graduation rate; if the rate were to improve, would that mean we'd be closer to the level of intellect you are envisioning (and if so, how could you tell that the improvement was due to the intellectual hobbies of adults and not, say, increased funding for after-school activities)?

Shapeless, I have the impression that an intellectual culture is something more organic than what we see in formal social pollicy. For example, when we want to improve our schools we add math classes, almost never is there an official call for more history, literature, philosophy classes. Math classes serve the interests of industry/commerce. I think, as an aside, that we will never teach philosophy in our precollege educational curricula. The last thing the pillars of society want is thinking children (the consequence is rap philosophy). IntellectualISM is an elitist (or demographically-shrinking) process because the popular/mass culture is massively supported by the commercial sector. The intellectual, like the artistic, life grows like weeds, of its own accord, without external or official support.

This is true, though a recent article in the NY Times gives me hope that schools are starting to acknowledge that a background in the arts has benefits that extend far beyond the arts. I have a friend who teaches at a private school that is toying with the idea of introducing Rhetoric to junior high school kids. She wasn't clear on what the actual curriculum would consist of, but as someone who teaches college kids I will whole-heartedly support anything that might improve the writing and arguing skills of students.

That seems to me to be the best argument (or at least the one that has a shot at working) for why we should continue to have arts education in schools--not because we hope to raise artists, though I won't object if that happens, but because the arts, if taught properly, engage students' critical skills in ways that other subjects do not. And that also encapsculates my views on how I judge the merit of an intellectual: the degree to which he or she can bring critical skills to bear on something outside the field in which he or she acquired it.

The self-alienated model of the intellectual is a pervasive one, as you noted. Should it be changed? What would it take?

Shapless

I have been saying in my posts what I think is required. It is what has been very useful for me personally. I have said it many times but I shall repeat it even though I know you will reject it this time just as you have always rejected it.

I am a fan of Critical Thinking that is being taught in our schools and colleges. This effort began slowly about twenty years ago, I think. CT is an attempt to teach young people how to think logically and to acquaint them with the necessary attitude and character required to use that thinking ability in a good way.

I have read two books on this subject both of them are authored by Richard Paul and Lynda Elder. One appears to be directed at teachers as a book giving lots of direct aid into how to teach this subject. The other book is apparently a text book designed for high school students.

This book "Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life" focuses on this attitude and character requirement. I bought this book because it goes into detail about these matters of our natural irrational tendencies caused by ego and social forces.

I am of the opinion that learning how to think coherently combined with knowledge about the self together are important for all people. Since few of us adults were ever taught these vital matters when we were in school I have for several years tried to influence adults to take up the self study of CT. Most all of my posting for the last 30 months have been aimed at convincing adults to study CT that can provide a base for their self-learning for the rest of their lives. It worked for me and I am convinced that it is good for everyone personally and for the community also.

JL says--"Which reminds me, the work of the artist and the intellectual is not "disinterested" insofar as it is passionate. I like to make the distilnction between activity that is intrinsically valuable and that which is extrinsically valuable. The former is activity that is internally motivated; the latter activity is externally motivated, what we do under some kind of duress."

You misunderstand my meaning of disinterested knowledge. It is this knowledge that I want to seek because I want to understand. My passion is part of the structure of learning that which I find I want to know.

As you say it is intrinsically motivated not extrinsicly motivated. Understanding seldom happens in anyones life but it generally happens only in search for this intrinsic value because knowing is sufficient for most of the demands of the world. Only when I have the passion to understand will I do the work necessary to go beyond knowing.