It is the duty of the intellectuals to commit suicide as a class.
- Che Guevara
Is this anti-intellectual? Not precisely.
If intellectuals exist as a cohesive class – if there is a stratum of society dedicated to thinking, and thinking well – it doesn’t take much from there to realize, in the context of experts and society, that this means there is a class dedicated to thinking for others.
What is the duty of intellectuals? Do they not have a duty to free thought, to ensuring that everyone gets to think for themselves?
So we arrive at a paradox: to be useful to society, intellectuals have to be recognized as thinking better than others, as having the technical expertise and therefore the right to think on behalf of others. But intellectuals also have the moral obligation to not permit that people be forced into a zombie-like existence where others do their thinking for them.
Che’s solution, essentially, is that the intellectuals destroy their identity as a class.
Comments (3)
an excellent plan. all we have to do is wait until they are deep in their…oops, i mean wait until the law of gravity is repealed.
and thus is che consigned to the dust heap of cool t-shirts and history.
Does the same argument go for wealth? The wealthy have a right to ensure that lower class poverty is alleviated?
Intelligence is a far weightier responsibility, it seems. Then why does it seem that there are far more stupid people than there are poor people?
Should the intellectual individual ever have kids, it is inevitable that she becomes so sleep deprived that she will devolve into a sleep-obsessed zombie, and quite possibly never recover to being the intellectual she once was. And then the friendships change, because you can no longer theorize or overanalyzing, but rather simply survive as a troubleshooter, flying by the seat of your pants every day. Once upon a time I used to be intellectual, now I fish turds out of my kid’s bath with my bare hands. (>_<);; so it’s actually not a paradox, it’s a balance. Being intellectual is a luxury of someone who has time to think and discuss with others who think, and it would be great if those people could think on behalf of people like me, who may be capable but are too friggin’ busy fishing turds out of the bath. Of course not to impose zombie-like existence. So God bless those intellectual who keep businesses going, who handle politics, who advance our technology, who make our world a better place. And may God especially bless the intellectual who offers an alternative to fishing turds out of bath with my bare hands. (That intellectual was a friend who suggested a fish net.)