Intellectuals: Mostly Lickspittle Sycophants?

I don't agree with most of that. Possibly all of it. It strikes me that it is written by someone who is trying to present himself as an intellectual which no proper intellectual would ever think of doing.

It doesn't matter a damn what



as being.

As I see it an intellectual is someone who can be detached at certain times. It is impossible to be always detached given the pain/pleasure dichotomy and biological needs.

It helps to have occupations which require no mental effort such as ploughing, an income enough for all forseeable needs, no ties and a familiarity with the works of the principle headbangers such as Henry Miller (at times) or any of a suprisingly short list headed by Rabelais.

Obviously, it is necessary to not mind being thought a bit odd.

I don't think of myself as odd.

What we need to do is to create a new brand of intellectuals.

If one half of one percent of the population acquires the hobby that I call the ?'intellectual life' such a group could be the foundation for a new "Age of Enlightenment".

The original Age of Enlightenment occurred in Europe during the eighteenth century. "The men [in the 18th century the enlightened were still only half enlightened] of the Enlightenment united on a vastly ambitious program, a program of secularism, humanity, cosmopolitanism, and freedom, above all, freedom in its many forms?-freedom from arbitrary power, freedom of speech, freedom of trade, freedom to realize one's talents, freedom of aesthetic response, freedom, in a word, of moral man to make his own way in the world."

It appears to me that following the completion of our schooling the normal inclination is to pack up our yearbook and our intellect into a large trunk and store it in the attic. Occasionally one might go up to the attic and reminisce about the old days.

What I propose is that following the end of our school days we begin a gradual process of self-actualizing self-learning.

This period of our life is generally filled with our duties to family and career so that not a great deal of time is available for extraneous matters. However, time is always available for important things and the important thing is to ?'keep curiosity alive'.

I suspect that if one does not engage in non job related intellectual efforts for the twenty years between the end of schooling and mid-life that the curiosity with which we started life will have dried up and blown away.

What are non job related intellectual activities? Such activities are what I consider to be intellectualism. Intellectualism is active engagement with ?'disinterested knowledge'.

There is in industry the concept of ?'applied research', which is research looking for a good way to build a new mouse trap; there is also a concept called ?'pure research', which is a search for truth that may or may not lead to an enhancement of the ?'bottom line'.

Interested knowledge is knowledge we acquire because there is money in it. Disinterested knowledge is that knowledge we seek because we care about understanding something even though there is no money in it.


The goal of intellectual life is similar to the goal of the artist "the artist chooses the media and the goal of every artist is to become fluent enough with the media to transcend it. At some point you pass from playing the piano to playing music."

Yes of course, self-actualization is the key along with an alignment of the planets and a personal library lined with leather bound books as well as an avoidence of all things experienced in nature.

I'm a lickspittle sycophant without the burden of being an intellectual.

So am I.

Sounds pretty intellectual to me.
Intellectuals are, as I see it: (1) professional thinkers, people who have the social function of using their minds to promote understanding, to inform the public in matters conceptual (teachers, reporters, researchers, etc., and (2) amateur thinkers, people whose "hobby" (Coberst) is to find enjoyment in addressing (identifying and resolving) conceptual problems.
Most of the people in this forum fit into the second category. Some in the first as well.

Spendius,

Well said !


Coberst has a "thing" about objectifying intellectualism as though it is a tangible "state of being" which you can aspire to (in his case later in life).
Here the "new intellectual coberst" is "rhetorically examined" by a hypothetical third party which is really "the same old coberst". This attempted objectification in fact denies coberst the very goal he seeks. He needs to realise that intellectuality is often more about informed scepticism than informed opinion. We have only seen attempts at opinion on this forum. This thread is not in fact an invitation to debate, it is yet another "new self" reinforcement exercise.

I would like to suggest that the reader consider the desirability of developing self-learning as a hobby. One might think of this as a 'second wind'. Like the marathoner developing a new source of energy and excitement at mid-race the self-learner undertakes a second-stage journey in life by creating a new worldview through an aroused curiosity and the development of questions for a deeper understanding of reality.

Quote: "All men, like all nations, are tested twice in the moral realm: first by what they do, then by what they make of what they do. The condition of guilt, a sense of one's own guilt, denotes a kind of second chance. Men are, as if by a kind of grace, given a chance to repay to the living that it is they find themselves owing the dead."
"Coming to Terms with Vietnam," by Peter Marin, Harpers, Dec. 1980.

I've always wondered about "lickspittle." Whose spittle is being licked? Is the licker licking his or her own spittle, or that of someone else? If someone else, from whence is the spittle licked?

So many questions . . .

I lickspittle from all comers.

I like that phrase "informed skepticism". Actually that is an absolute necessary condition for self-actualizing self-learning. The following is a post about this very subject.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
--Voltaire (1694-1778)

While I was in Asheville awaiting oral surgery my companion and I settled down in the waiting area of St Joseph Hospital to just ?'hang out' for a few hours. This was a convenient and a comfortable place to sit and wander about just passing time. One is pretty well free to walk many of the corridors and rest in many of the waiting areas along with everyone else. It was obvious that the hospital functioned fully 24/7.

A person can walk the corridors of any big city hospital and observe in wonder at the effectiveness of human rationality in action. One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. We seem to be capable of developing vast systems to efficiently provide good or evil; but have not been able to completely ?'accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative'. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

This is a question that has long intrigued me. How can we be so successful in developing a technology and yet be so unsuccessful in developing the ability to manage that magnificent technology? We seem to be like the man with an ?'Arnold' like upper body mounted on a spindle, varicose veined, arthritic lower body.

I have lately begun to formulate an answer to the question. I am not saying that I have discovered a new problem but that I have discovered how others have been struggling with this problem and that it is only now that I have become conscious of this aspect of reality. I am saying that I have discovered a problem that has worried mankind for centuries and that I have only now begun to understand the problem. I also want to be so bold as to suggest I may have a practical proposal to significantly impact the problem with a partial solution.

A certain part of reality exists for me only when I have become conscious of it. The first step of becoming conscious of any part of reality is to formulate a coherent question about it. It is possible to create solutions to problematic situations only after developing a clear understanding of the facts.

I have discovered that those who struggle with such questions have theorized that rationality can be classified into two major categories; instrumental rationality is that form that allows us to develop our technology and communication rationality is that form that allows us to deal with the other type of problem.

There are problems where the end is known and only the best means are of question. The dentist knows that I have a toothache and the problem he must decide is the best way to eliminate that toothache. The dentist is the subject and the toothache is the object. The problem exists between a subject and an object. The end is clear, eliminate the ache, the means will be either pull the tooth or do a root canal. Instrumental rationality is to determine the best means to reach a specified end.

Instrumental rationality is not a method suitable for developing ends. Dialectical rationality is the only mode of reasoning suitable for arriving at satisfactory ends.

In a criminal jury trial each juror ideally begins hearing the case as a mental blank slate. The witnesses engage in a controlled and guided dialogue wherein each witness communicates to the jury their particular truth regarding the matter under consideration. Each juror modifies his or her blank slate as the witness's parade through; each providing his or her view of the truth. A dialogue takes place for the benefit of the juror who is not a member of the dialogue.

Each juror is required to reason dialectically. Dialectical reasoning is a process wherein the opinion of the juror is molded and remolded based upon the truths presented. The blank slate becomes slate A after witness A and then becomes slate A-B after witness B and then becomes slate A-B-C, etc.

At the end of the trial the jurors assemble in isolation to determine a verdict. Generally the members are polled to determine if all agree upon the truth of the case. If one or more jurors dissent from the others a new dialogue must take place. The jurors begin a dialogue in an attempt to reach a unanimous decision.

In this stage each juror is engaged in communication in dialogue while simultaneously each juror is engaged in a rational dialectic.

A jury trial might be a useful example of a problem engaged by many reflective agents with a multiplicity
of frames of reference. In such a situation the jury must utilize communicative techniques to enter into a dialogue wherein there is a constant dialectic until a unanimous solution is reached or deadlock prevails.

Communicating by dialogue together with reasoning dialectically is a technique for attempting to solve multi-dimensional problems. Problems that are either not pattern like or that the pattern is too complex to ascertain.

Most problems that we face in our daily life are multi-dimensional in nature. Simple problems that occur daily in family life are examples. Each member of the family has a different point of view with differing needs and desires. Most of the problems we constantly face are not readily solved by mathematics because they are not pattern specific and are multi-dimensional.

Dialogue is a technique for mutual consideration of such problems wherein solutions grow in a dialectical manner. Through dialogue each individual brings his/her point of view to the fore by proposing solutions constructed around their specific view. All participants in the dialogue come at the solution from the logic of their views. The solution builds dialectically; from a thesis and a contrasting thesis, a synthesis is constructed that takes into consideration both proposals. From this synthesis, a new thesis has developed.

When we are dealing with single dimensional problems well circumscribed by paradigms the personal biases of the subject are of small concern. In multi-dimensional problems, without the advantage of paradigms, the biases of the problem solvers become a serious source of error. One important task of dialogue is to illuminate these prejudices. These biases may be quite subtle and often out of the consciousness of the participant holding them.

Our schools have decided that our children should learn to be critical thinkers. CT can provide the student with the intellectual foundation to lean how to think and reason about multidimensional problems. I agree with their judgment. This disciplined form of thought is important to each child and is vitally important to our society. I have attempted to relay to you my sense of the importance of critical thinking in the hope that you may share that judgment and lend your support to the school system in this vital matter.

Allow me (whether or not one wants to, one will have to) to respond more seriously.

Sometimes, "intellectuals" have found a place in society purely because of the vanity of society, or more specifically, those who make decisions in society. The French King François I invaded Italy, and fought the Spanish (i won't explain why France and Spain were fighting over Italy). One of the things he did was to bring Leonardo Da Vinci back to France with him, and to give him a comfortable home and an income in his old age. François did not seem to have expected Leonardo's presence to have yeilded solid dividends for him, although he certainly could have been expected to have profited if it were possible. But his motive--and this can be confirmed by so many of his actions in his reign--was that Leonardo would be an ornament to his realm, and an acretion to his personal glory.

Frederick II of Prussia, rightfully known as Frederick the Great, had long been a correspondent of and a friend to Voltaire. At one point, he brought Voltair to Potsdam, and then lodged him in Berlin, providing a home and an income. Eventually, tiring of Voltaire's duplicity and his amateurish and unhelpful forays into diplomacy (Voltaire entertained a much higher opinion of his diplomatic skills than events seem to warrant was justified), Frederick sent him back to France. But a major aspect of Frederick's reign, and one of the reasons he deserves to be known as Frederick the Great, was his dedication to culture and education. Frederick also genuinely delighted in discourse and argumentation, and the evidence for this is in the correspondence and memoirs of literally hundreds of his contemporaries. But one might ask if such "intellectualism" ever serves a purpose in society.

In the late 17th century in England, the compilation of statistics became an interest for a handful of "intellectuals," some of whom "fed at the public troth" in the universites, and others of whom were gentlemen of independent means who simply were interested in what was then an obscure mathematical pursuit. In the early 18th century, many people in universities and many private individuals began to focus specifically on demographics. Demographics in particular and statistics in general (it is hard to separate them) became a scientific pursuit. That statistics, and specifically demographics, are made into "bad science" through political exploitation does not alter how basic and foundational statistical compilation and review are to "good science." Still, even though government began to take an interest, and members of Parliament used statistics (or alleged statistics) to justify the measures they proposed, it was not seen that there were any useful function for demographics in society.

In the early 19th century, largely due to a continuous commerce with India, septic diseases became all too common in England--typus, typhoid fever and the most dreaded of septic diseases, cholera. During the 1850s, as cholera raged through London in particular, and thousands died, a young doctor in Clapham made a particular study of the incidence and prevelance of cholera in the east end of London. Using medical reports, which were then just beginning to be compiled in a thorough manner, he was able actually to draw lines on a city map which showed that residents in certain areas contracted cholera, and that other residents did not (he ignored the incidence and prevelance of cholera in travelers and vistors to the areas in question). He then investigated "on the ground," and found that people in one area notorious for cholera used a particular well to draw water, but that people who lived "above" them (relative to the flow of drainage to the Thames) who used a different well had almost no cholera. Futher investigation revealed that the lower wells were within the drainage of sewage (both sewage pipes buried underground, and open sewage ditches), but that the people in the area which was almost cholera-free, were using the "upper" wells to draw water, wells which were above the drainage of the sewage system.

He concluded that the cholera was water-borne. We now know that cholera is caused by a water-borne enterotoxin, but in the 1850s, there was no "germ theory" of medicine to explain the phenomenon. (This physician was, by the way, one of the first promoters of the germ theory of medicine, and was in opposition to the prevailing "miasma theory" to explain the spread of cholera.) He prevailed upon the local council to close the "lower" wells, and to require people, whatever the inconvenience for them, to draw water from the "upper" wells. Cholera disappeared in the district almost overnight. (The physician in question was John Snow--you can look him up if you want to, and get a more accurate description of what he did, which might correct any errors i have made.)

Snow himself acknowledged that the cholera pandemic was already declining, but he produced a map of the incidence and prevalence of the cholera outbreaks, and it had a dramatic effect on both medicine and the view society took of demographics. What had been, a little more than a century earlier, a curiosity among "intellectuals," demographic statistics, was shown to have a useful function.

Certainly all philosophers who cannot show that they have any other visible means of support should immediately be taken out and shot. However, there is no good reason to assume that "intellectuals" are simply sycophants, or that there is no practical value to "intellectualism." Even when only ornaments for our society, "intellectuals" fulfill a valuable function of demonstrating the success and culture of society--it can afford to feed what might otherwise be considered useful mouths. The possibility also always exists that "intellectuals" might actually serve a useful function in society.

By the by, before the term scientist gained currency, those engaged in what we would consider science were usually referred to in English as philosopher. The commander of HMS Beagle, an aristocratic and singularly misanthropic petty tyrrant, habitually addressed Charles Darwin as "Philospher." I suspect that there are many people who think Darwin ought to have been taken out and shot.

Setanta

I am suggesting that most of our inellectuals have sold out to government and corporations for silver.

The silver was removed from the coinage gradually--reduced to 40% in 1964, and eliminated altogether in 1969. I suspect that no one gets silver for anything any longer.

What do you expect "intellectuals" to do, starve, in the hope that you will admire them posthumously for their integrity? Do you suggest that government and corporations are axiomatically evil, and that any remuneration from them constitutes tainted money?

Can we have an example?

I spent 30 years working for the state government ( I only did it for the $$$)