Mommy, what's an intellectual?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>>"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?
>
>Oh, puleeze. Intellectuals read, write, and interpret difficult 
>abstract concepts in disciplines requiring special training and long 
>study. Most people read, write, and interpret something or other, 
>but that no more makes them intellectuals than the fact that I 
>occassionally knowck together a few shelves makes me a carpenter. 
>The fact that my sister, a journeyman carpenter, reads a book or 
>writes an email now and then doesn't make her an intellectual; she 
>would bew as helpless placed in front of Rawls or Adorno as I would 
>be if you told me to hang a door. I am not saying that one is better 
>than other. Carpentry is also a discipline requiring study and 
>training, which I aint got. Btw, most professors and professionals 
>are not intellectuals, if that is supposed to mean persons of wide 
>culture. Most philosophy, law, and political science profs I know 
>(to take the disciplines I knnow best) are narrow technicians. --jks

I boils down to questions concerning the division of labor.  I think 
the division of labor is here to stay even if we get around to 
establishing socialism, though that is a thought unacceptable to some 
LBO-talkers.

Yoshie