When I think of intellectuals and the world they reside in I think of Academia and I get incredibly bored. People who work to be intelligent for no other purpose to be intelligent bug me. But I am a student, academics is a part of my life. I have to read, I have to write.
I never understood what an Intellectual wok is. I tried. But how does look at the world through an intellectual lens. One can't just turn on brains and see the world differently. But I will give this a try.
Plato created an allegory of a cave. In this cave some people in a really awful situation were tied down and forced to stare at the wall. In this caves shadows were projected on to the wall. This was the entire life that these people knew. Now being an intellectual means that you ask the right questions regarding that situation. And thinking out the answers to such questions. Suppose that someone asked if the people in that cave were happy. If I were an Intellectual I would say they are not.
I would reach that conclusion by asking questions. These people had only ever known life in the cave correct? yes. How would they react if they saw the real world? I can only assume that they would only react with fear. Being exposed to something with such a massive contrast to what they have known must raise many questions if not insecurities about the world and the very sanity of the cave people. But are they happy in the cave? Humans by nature have ambition, sitting in a cave does nothing to do that. Being stagnant leads to depression.
An intellectual and their way of knowing is simply using logic and thought out ideas to see the world. While academia is prevalent with intellectuals it is not everything. The intellectual wok is a way to view the world from a very philosophical point of view.
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