Intellectuals, Public Intellectuals, & Hacks

[Twega]

 

In the discussion, Sam Vaknin says that public intellectuals are, in a way, anxiolytics. Their deep knowledge calms people who are overwhelmed by information. Public intellectuals structure and contextualize information, and communicate it to the public. This reminds me of why I like Leo's video because they do have an anxiolytic affect on me.

[Leo Gura]

The biggest function public intellectuals serve is to keep you from doing the hard work of contemplating things for yourself.

You don't want to think. You want to be told all the answers. Which is the whole problem.

"All of mankind's problems stem from an inability to sit alone in a room and contemplate."

[Preety_India]

Yea the recontextualization of broader concepts and ideas by a small group of people and the whole mass of people simply relying on this contextualization is a huge problem in my eyes. 

It is responsible for mob mentality, cult mentality, lack of free thinking, resistance to new ideas, demonization of those who disagree with the standard perception and elimination of important information. 

 

[Rilles]

Public intellectuals are our new preachers, up on stage preaching the gospel of science and materialism, all hail the church of Atom!

[North Sea]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The biggest function public intellectuals serve is to keep you from doing the hard work of contemplating things for yourself.

You don't want to think. You want to be told all the answers. Which is the whole problem.

"All of mankind's problems stem from an inability to sit alone in a room and contemplate."

Nice misquote

[DocWatts]

Like it or not, in this day and age, public intellectuals are a large part of how ideas get transmitted from Specialist Fields within Academia and into Mainstream Culture. This has both positive and negative aspects to it. No matter how intellectually curious and developed you are, no one is going to be able to become an expert in quantum mechanics and comparative theology and psychology and evolutionary biology and sociology and AI Research and so on, and so on.  And I don't care how many days a Mystic spends sitting in a cave meditating and contemplating, there's just some knowledge that depends on Empirical observations and Interpersonal Interactions, that they're not going to have access to unless they go out and seek it. Taking a deep dive into any Specialist Field is going to come with opportunity costs, so the breadth and depth of one's knowledge will always be limited.

Part of the job of public intellectuals is to make these ideas more accessible for a wider audience. Serious question: how many people here have tried actually reading an Academic Paper from a field you're not familiar with? It's likely to be filled with technical terms and jargon that you're not familiar with, and trying to wade through it will likely feel like banging your head up against a wall.

The problem comes when Cults of Personality begin to form around these figures, and when they begin transmuting their Specialized Knowledge into an Ideology, often in a very subtle and sneaky ways. So it seems like what we should be doing is pushing for a Healthier and more Honest form of Public Intellectualism.

Edited January 19, 2021 by DocWatts

[Aaron p]

5 hours ago, Rilles said:

all hail the church of Atom!

 

What is this higgs bosom god particle collider thing. They call it the god particle 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Aaron p

[Merkabah]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

"All of mankind's problems stem from an inability to sit alone in a room and contemplate."

That quote should headline the UN's charter.......................

[Lindsay]

This video of Sam Vaknin changed my mind about narcissism.