beeotch
question: what's at stake here? why does anyone care what an intellectual is? has someone claimed that we can't get anywhere without them? has someone claimed we can't get anywhere with them? why harm do they do? what good do they do? are we supposed to want more or fewer intellectuals? has someone claimed that anti-intellectualism is the problem? is there general agreement or sharp disagreement over the notion that anti-intellectualism is good or bad thing for left social struggle?
these are serious q's. i'm just trying to figure out why it matters.
^^^^^^ CB: In the history of class struggles, the main advantage ruling classes have over ruled classes is much better class consciousness.
The promise of Marxist, organic or radical intellectuals is that they can raise the class consciousness of the mass of the ruled class today, so that they can make the revolution, overthrow the ruling class. The revolutionary consciousness and theory grips the masses through working class individuals becoming intellectuals ( like Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Dietzgen - who was a worker who co-discovered dialectical materialism, according to Marx and Engels - or Dimitrov, par example ) ;and through petit bourgeois and bourgeois intelletuals deserting the ruling class and going over to the ruled class ( classic examples are Marx , Engels ( capitalist) , Luxemburg).
When theory grips masses it becomes a material force. Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement, no practical-critical activity.
( By and large , we would expect radical intellectuals to be a small minority of the total sector/strata of predominantly mental workers; most mental laborers are going to be working for the ruling class, and helping to make ideas favoring the continued rule of the ruling class, i.e. help make "ruling ideas", i.e. do political "harm".