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One of the best criticism and analysis of public intellectuals I have read is in the Thomas Sowell's book Intellectuals. Ironically, being an intellectual himse
by tn13 12y ago
One of the best criticism and analysis of public intellectuals I have read is in the Thomas Sowell's book Intellectuals. Ironically, being an intellectual himself a lot of his words apply to him as well.
One of the most common mistake we people make is to think of intellectuals as some higher beings. It is true than an educationist or economists will know lot more than an average Joe about their respective fields. But the probability that he will make wrong decisions is not drastically different because the real world is far more complex and the amount of stuff that we dont know is simple too large.
For example a professional shooter will be able to score much higher than an average Joe. But if the objective is to get a "100%" score then both Joe and the professional shooter are likely to fail with near same probability.
- gd1 12y ago>One of the most common mistake we people make is to think of intellectuals as some higher beings. Don't worry, I can assure I'm not making that mistake.
- lurcio 12y agoSteve Fuller's "The Intellectual" is an amusing take on the history and role. (It's quite anglo-centric & comes from a more liberal reference point than Sowell).