Mommy, what's an intellectual?

[Lawrence]

All the people profiled as "visionaries" by magazines like Wired or FastCompany can be considered intellectuals.
But the word isn't often used. The word has picked up the connotation of someone who is abstract and whose insights
lack practical value. Habermas and bell hooks are intellectuals, but Seth Godin?

Maybe "intellectual" is a word whose heyday is behind it? Maybe it was useful in an era when knowledge workers were
still rare and limited to a few fields? Maybe it makes less sense in a nation where much of the middle class is
engaged in knowledge work?


> Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema:
> > An example of "populism," as discussed recently here, at its worst.
> > > The most revealing response was supplied by the American writer Joyce
> > > Carol Oates. 'The term "intellectual" is a very self-conscious one in
> > > the United States,' she said. 'To speak of oneself as an
> > > "intellectual" is equivalent to arrogance and egotism, for it suggests
> > > that there is a category of persons who are "not-intellectual".'
> > > ...
>
> "Suggests" is incorrect.  If one constructs a meaningful
> category of intellectuals, perforce there must as well be a
> non-empty category of non- or unintellectuals, who presumably
> do not do or cannot do the things intellectuals do.  But what
> do intellectuals do that other kinds of people don't do?