What kind of intellectuals do we need?

(Part 1 – Katabasis)

Two friends, one from the north and the other from the south, met at the foot of a mountain to climb to its peak, far high. The abrupt and steep beginning of the ascent did not discourage them in their intention to overcome the difficult path with their own strength.

They could have reached the top by car or some other means of transportation on the road, but they were both somewhat reactionary by nature, so they did not like such an easy way of conquering the peaks. "An easy path to the top is bad for one's character," they often said. Besides, they were peripatetic in their disposition and they realized that their dialogues went more smoothly as they climbed higher. Perhaps that was all due to the fresh air.

The friend from the north began to reminisce about the beginning of their friendship. They started their acquaintance with the first edition of the magazine ‘’Obnova’’(Renewal). The friend from the south contacted him via e-mail expressing his desire to write for the magazine edited by the friend from the north. In their communication, they soon found a common topic: Oswald Spengler and their love for their homeland and their people. Both had a rich leisure time that had nothing to do with their formal education. They admired each other's interests: high literature, classical music, writing, film art, the seventh and tenth art, philosophy, history, etc.

Soon they agreed to meet in vivo. The northerner realized before the moment of the meeting with the southerner that he had not actually checked what the southerner looked like. He had created a notion of him based on prejudice about intellectuals from American films - glasses with double mirrors, thin and physically weak, tall since he was from the south, checkered shirt tucked into pants. However, he was quite surprised when he realized that he only guessed his height as his characteristic. He thought someone was joking with him when he saw a dark and burly guy (about 100 kilos of muscle) in a Thor Steinar tracksuit with a deep and heavy voice. The northerner immediately confessed this to him when they sat down to drink beer, which the southerner drank in almost one gulp. Now, as he remembered this during the ascent, he asked himself and his friend a question: why did he have a wrong notion of the southerner, that is, why did he assume that the southerner, as an intellectual, was also physically inferior, that is, had the appearance of an American weakling? He wondered what are the actual characteristics of an intellectual, who is an intellectual and by what criteria? Can they even be called intellectuals?

The etymology was the best start for the northerner, especially if the word has Latin or Greek roots, so he came to the first characteristic that is important for determining the meaning of the term "intellectual". This term comes from the Latin word intellectus intellectualis: intellectual - intellegere: to understand. Therefore, the ability to understand is certainly a key attribute of an intellectual according to etymological analysis. After the etymological analysis, the northerner turned to the historical analysis of the term itself. Since he was a supporter of Spengler's theory that the birth of the West, to which they belong, was in the Middle Ages, he referred to Jacques Le Gooff's thinking on the concept of intellectuals in his book "Intellectuals in the Middle Ages". Le Gooff places the emergence of intellectuals in the 12th century and finds their origin in the Goliards - vagabonds who teach and go from town to town in search of new knowledge, however, they differ from intellectuals in that they are not critical of society.[1] In the 13th century, intellectuals were associated with the emergence of universities, but there was still no value distinction between manual labor and intellectual labor, probably due to the influence of monasteries (ora et labora - Benedictines).[2] However, with further development and the emergence of universities, intellectuals increasingly value intellectual work, from which they increasingly exclusively sustain themselves, their economic power grows, they cease to be open to the masses and close themselves off in offices and lecture halls. [3] This increasingly becomes an elite activity.

The southerner found a useful definition of an intellectual from an essay by Živan Bezić: [4] He started from a negative definition and asserted that an intellectual is not defined by education or membership in the academic community because there is a possibility of informal education; profession (e.g. lawyers, doctors, ministers, etc.) does not make an intellectual because there are so-called "fah idiots" who possess only narrow and exclusively specialized knowledge related to their profession; finally, even social status is not a specificity that absolutely determines the essence of an intellectual. [5] Then, starting from the epistemological rule that every definition must have a proximate genus and specific difference, he set the following definition: an intellectual is a highly (cannot be average) and deeply (intus-legere; quality of knowledge before quantity of knowledge) educated (formal or informal) person who creates and/or improves intellectual goods. [6] Intellectuality as thought is a calling - a way of life for the intellectual. "Intellect is his main criterion of evaluation and his main working tool. " [7]He is a kind of aristocrat of the spirit. [8]

As an alternative to this active definition, the northerner offered a somewhat more passive definition of the intellectual from the work on the characters of intellectuals in Croatian literature: "By analyzing the characteristics of these characters, one can come to the determinants of an intellectual: above-average intelligence, above-average ability to memorize facts, desire for knowledge, erudition, and critical thinking towards oneself or the world."[9]He also noticed that all of them are placed by their writers in an important relationship with women, and specifically with two ideal types of women, as their face and reverse side (Mary and Eve). Depending on his relationship with these women, an intellectual could either fulfill his potential or ruin it. If he builds a community with a woman who embodies the maternal ideal type, he will be able to dedicate himself more easily and fully to his potential.

The southerner disagreed with this view and believed the opposite. He believed that the concept of an intellectual is fundamentally related to the concept of a genius as an ideal type, and as such, cannot be essentially determined by the ideal type of Woman, but only by the ideal type of Man, because the more one realizes oneself as an ideal type of Man, the greater one's ability to approach the ideal type of Genius. An intellectual who does not strive to be an ideal type of Genius is not actually an intellectual. He referred to arguments from Otto Weininger's book "Sex and Character" in support of his argument. He extracted the basic characteristics of the ideal type of Genius that every intellectual must strive for:

1. The more he embodies various types of people and understands different types of people, the greater the genius;

2. The more someone is inclined towards a universal and general perspective of thinking about ideas and reality, the greater the genius;

3. The better he remembers important life experiences, the greater the genius;

4. The greater the individuality of his own personality, his "self," the greater the genius;

5. The more someone is an ideal type of Man according to his own characteristics (individuality, memory, value, love, attention, will), the greater the genius.

The northerner liked the ideal construction of the Genius as the goal that the intellectual must strive for because he had already set himself three important goals in life in high school, aimed at being better than he was: 1. intellectual improvement, 2. spiritual improvement, and 3. physical improvement.

The southerner suddenly spoke up, probably because they were nearing the top and the effort was becoming greater and greater, and pointed out that their discussion had been too abstract from the perspective of the intellectual. This perspective needs to be supplemented with a more concrete one because we are all conditioned by our identity - national, gender, racial, religious, etc. This is supported by the theory of cultural hegemony on organic intellectuals: "Every social group organically shapes its intellectuals, who then build and direct its collective consciousness." [10]

Almost unnoticedly, the northerner and southerner arrived at the top of the mountain through their conversation. The question that ultimately arose for both of them was: What kind of intellectuals does Croatia need?

Written by Marko Paradžik

[1] Ivo Goldstein, Jacques Le Goff, Intellectuals in the Middle Ages - accessed July 7, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Živan Bezić, Who and What is an Intellectual? http://hrcak.srce.hr/85823 - accessed July 1, 2017.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Marko Paradžik, "Characters of Intellectuals in Croatian Literature: From Šenoa's Lovro to Marinković's Melkior," Journal for Culture, Society and Politics Renewal: Identity, No. 2, September, 2014, p. 154.

[10] Leo Marić, "European New Right and Theory of Cultural Hegemony," Journal for Culture, Society and Politics Renewal: Cultural Hegemony, No. 1, September, 2013, p. 31.