Who is an intellectual?

The following article appeared in Times of India, written by Anil Dharker. It argues and helps us to think about "intellectual" in a much better way.

Everyone loves making lists and everyone loves reading lists. So list-makers, in theory at least, cannot fail. Yet do they always succeed? When it comes to objective lists, there's no problem: computing a rich list, for example, is a matter of collating a lot of figures containing a lot of zeroes in them. Other forms of number crunching give us fascinating, and generally indisputable, lists like the Highest Grossing Movies of All Time. Gone With The Wind ruled for years, then came the Star Wars films, then The Titanic. Now the list changes every year. Then there are those like Best Selling Books Ever (the Bible, always the Bible) or the Most Expensive Real Estate in India (Rs 50,000 for the little space you stand on).


The problem begins when you make lists that require subjective judgment. The Ten Best Movies of All Time? Citizen Kane will be on everyone's piece of paper, but no one will agree on the other nine. The Best Cricket Team ever? Don Bradman will be on all lists but the other 10 players will be more a reflection of the list-maker's nationality and vintage than his knowledge of the game. The Best Recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony? If one said Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, what's the betting that someone will remember versions by Bruno Walter or Wilhelm Furtwangler?


However difficult it is for people to agree on these subjective lists, there is at least agreement on what you are making a list about (movies, cricket team, symphony). Now folks at the American Foreign Policy magazine have rushed in where angels fear to tread. And the angels are wary of butting in for a very good reason: How do you make a list called The World's Top 100 Intellectuals, when it's difficult to agree on a definition of "intellectual" to start with?


Foreign Policy tries to make its selfimposed task easier by considering only what it calls "public intellectuals", which begs the question: What are "private intellectuals"? Then it names in its list people like former US vice president turned-green crusader Al Gore, longtime Singapore leader Lee Kuan Yew, Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank fame and the controversial Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain. In what sense do they qualify as intellectuals? By definition (and not prejudice), one should eliminate all politicians and most social activists from a list of intellectuals, not because they lack intelligence but because they deal in certainties, an essential prerequisite for men (and women) of action, whereas the intellectual deals in the opposite spectrum of uncertainty, reasoned speculation, philosophical discussion and the like.


It is a given that an intellectual possesses an acute intelligence, but it doesn't follow that a very intelligent person is an intellectual. To give a deliberately outrageous example, Shane Warne in the ongoing IPL cricket tournament has displayed a highly developed intelligence. But wouldn't you become a bit of a joke if you called him intellectual? As for Sunita Narain, she may have shown an ability to influence wider debate as the magazine put it but did she consider both sides of the question, an essential trait of an intellectual before denouncing Coke and Pepsi? And if you become an intellectual by provoking vigorous debate should we consider Raj Thackeray an intellectual too?


The list also assumes that writers, because they live by their brains, are necessarily intellectuals. But there are writers and writers. Two on Foreign Policy's list, Salman Rushdie and Umberto Eco, have wonderful imaginations. They play hide-and-seek with plot and characters, and perform acrobatics with language, but do they deal with abstract concepts and pure reason? Do they deal with pursuits that exercise the intellect, or do they, instead, cleverly manipulate our emotions?


To make an ideal list of intellectuals, it would be more fitting to start by first defining the term. How about Albert Camus's definition from his Notebooks? He said, "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself". The Foreign Policy list, on the other hand, contains too many who want us to watch their minds. And marvel at their brilliance.

The Wheel Is Useless As A Stand-alone Invention

The following is an article I came across. Written by Deepak Ranade, a neurosurgeon. The article appeared in Times of India, on 31st July 2008. It has great meaning in it, I liked it alot so preserving it here.

The wheel was a path-breaking invention. The wheel, however, might not have been as useful if not for the invention of brakes and gears that help us control movement. The wheel made locomotion plausible but brakes regulated this motion.

The defining quality of any system is probably based on the degree of control one can exercise on it. In karate, up to the black belt stage, the discipline and regimen is for strengthening the body and speeding up reflexes. Thereafter, all subsequent degrees are attained by perfecting selfcontrol and restraint.

In evolution, life forms have been empowered incrementally as they progress through stages. Human beings have the power of control, of temperance and restraint, and the ability to think beyond the self. Physiologically, higher centres in the brain have been given the responsibility of inhibition to maintain restrictive control on lower centres of the brain and spine. In spinal injuries, when the lower motor neurons are disconnected from the higher centres and they fire without control, it leads to reflex movements of the limbs, spasm of the muscles and so on. Though movement occurs, it is involuntary, uncontrolled and purposeless.

The ability to rise above reflex behaviour seems to be the summit of the evolutionary pyramid. Olympian Carl Lewis once explained the reason for his spectacular achievement: “I have mastered the art of self-denial”. Behaviour that rises above the primitive reflexes forms the essence of culture and sophistication. All religions have a set of behavioural restrictions like fasting, celibacy and observing silence. These restrictions help the individual increase his will power, temperance, self-control and discipline.

Some religions talk about renunciation.But renunciation eliminates choice. So it is probably indulgence in abstinence. The swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction charged with the potential energy to swing back to indulgence. It may also reflect a subconscious fear of lack of self-control. Like the instance of the guru, who was invited for a meal by his disciple. Whilst the other devotees were served on plantain leaves, the guru was served on silverware as a mark of reverence. The guru however was offended and walked off as he was a renunciate. He may as well have eaten in the silverware. If he was no longer in any mundane bondage, there ought to have been no distinction between silver and leaves.

In reproductive behaviour, too, human beings have the freedom to choose. Any control is self-imposed. This selfcontrol is the evolutionary upgrade. It is as if the remote control which operates all other animals has been substituted by a sharp discriminatory ability which bestows free will. In Hindu culture, it is called vivek buddhi. The intellect of discrimination. Free will reflects the ability to restrain rather than indulge. If indulgence was the purpose, all actions would have been reflexive, with scarce regard to volition.

Exercising restraint requires a higher form of intelligence. Indulgence required neither skill nor intellect. And renunciation relied more on extremism.

Obesity, alcoholism, hypertension and diabetes, when they are lifestyle-related, point to the diminishing self-regulatory process. Affluence has given man the opportunity to indulge like never before. Austerity is facing extinction. Patience, contentment are no longer virtues but are relegated to mere words. All catastrophes like global warming, nuclear threat and poverty are merely a reflection of our ever-increasing inclination for indulgence.

Life has its own lessons to teach us ...

It is always said that future is uncertain, probably true. I feel this makes life and living a challenging one. I mean what enthusiasm will we have if we know everything that's gonna come to us. One way of looking at this point is that life checks us at every point and notes down what all we need to learn (at much higher level) and puts one by one before us as we pass by. It is like saying we are being supervised by a person who looks at things at much higher level and teaches us what we need to learn. To connect it properly to first sentence, it is saying we plan something and most of the time we end up in a situation we arent willing for and this situation is unexpected or unwilling to us as we are put out of our comfort zone and outside this comfort zone is something to be taught to us.
Many a times we might not understand why things are happening the way they are. But they all are trying to tell us something new which we havent learnt before (may be there was no need any before). Many times I have asked questions like "Why me?" or "Why these things happen only with me?". The answer lies in the fact that life poses questions in the form of things that are happening to us and each one of us has his/her own journey. I realized that we evolve as we start looking at the possible answers to those questions. Ofcourse in the first place it is important to understand that it is just a learning or evolving process in nature. This is the very fact that took the fear of failure off from me. I just see failure as one more possibility to learn, infact we learn much more. I strongly feel both success and failure are same as both of them try to teach us a point or two, ofcourse former in a soft way and latter in a hard way. By using the terms "hard" and "soft" it might seem that I am more inclined to having a success-learning but it is just in human nature to look for a less strenuous way (even electrons look for a less resistive path).
But this view should not stop us from doing what we are supposed to do. We must also do it in the right way. By the word "right" I mean the one which is ethically right. One might ask "How am I supposed to know which is ethical and which is not?" I would just say "ask the person within you." I strongly feel that the spirit (soul) within us is purest of all. In order to talk to it and listen to it we need to follow some strict rules (shutting out ego, speaking truth always, looking at everything in an indifferent way, etc).
I may not be able to conclude this post in a proper way but all I want to say is "Life has its own lessons to teach us and in order to learn them we need to know ourselves well and once we learn them, our comfort zone expands and then we have next lesson ready, helping us to push it much more. "