Irrelevance of Intellectuals

Do intellectuals engaging in public life have a positive effect? That’s the topic of Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft’s book Thinking in Public. Do public intellectuals act as “public guardians of truth and justice and opponents of political corruption”?

Or do intellectuals, as Jon Baskin wonders, become too prescriptive? Are they so convinced that they have the answers that they dismiss “public opinion as little more than gossip” and devalue the “ability of individuals to make informed political choices”? Are intellectuals willing to hear contradictory ideas, and then to integrate the valid points of their opponents? Or do they act as if they have all the answers, and think in terms of “accomplishment of pre-established tasks, rather than as an ongoing argument involving perennial questions about what we value, and why”?

Traditionally, the role of intellectuals has been that of “agitating against unpopular state policy/conduct”, writes MK Raghavendra. But in India, they are now up against “the most popular government in decades”.

Typical of the supporters of the left, Raghavendra ties himself into knots trying to defend the leftist slant of academia:

“The point is not whether such history has a bias but whether the reconstruction of the past by the historian passes examination at the right academic levels.”

This is exactly the kind of circular argument that infuriates the right. A bias is OK as long as academics certify it? Don’t they see that those certifying academics are themselves perceived to be left leaning, but hey, we should believe that doesn’t matter? Really?

The intellectuals, at least in India, seem to be extraordinarily good at speaking against the very topics that touch the rawest nerve of the right, namely nationalist tendencies. Raghavendra puts that error perfectly citing the left’s stance on Kashmir, Naxals and JNU sloganeering:

“What left-wing intellectuals have done instead is to paint themselves as obdurate anarchists preparing for the dismemberment of India on political/moral grounds. They invite separatists to shout ‘azadi’ slogans, a move which only provokes the nationalists.”

If introspection and course correction on some topics is the need of the hour for intellectuals to become relevant again, then boy, they show no signs of either. Instead, they seem to be acting exactly like what Boskin warned: convinced that they are correct, and that those who oppose them are evil or stupid (or both).

If this is an ideological battle that is being fought, then the tactics of the left are the worst possible.