Talk:Intellectual

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Intelligentsia > Intellectuals

I agree with the general creation of the new page as appropriate, but believe the it should be named Intellectuals as a broader, less exclusive designation, as I believe that Intelligentsia, when used by a speaker of English, is more likely to have either a somewhat arrogantly "snobbish", or else somewhat derisive connotation to it, referring to specific groups of intellectuals, or those who account themselves such, or are taken to do so. I can understand if existing redirects brought one to intelligence, that it might take an admin to move the page to "Intellectual" or "Intellectuals" at this point, but I believe "intellectual" is generally the more commonly and broadly used term, and overall a better title for it than "Intelligentsia". ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 20:40, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Both terms are used with broad and narrow senses. I am not sure which is more disdainful to the popular creed of Anti-intellectualism, but "intelligentsia", being a class construct, has the further odium of Elitism. It is probably true that "intelligentsia" is the less familiar term, so I endorse moving the new page to "Intellectuals". ~ Ningauble (talk) 12:04, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Un-Sourced Quotations

• I hate intellectuals. They are from the top down. I am from the bottom up.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright

• The person of independent mind who forms his own opinions on the evidence of his senses and the fruits of his logic is an ideal form of human being which, like other ideal forms, rarely exists in nature. Even most intellectuals - always a small minority in a population - tend in their thinking merely to follow more refined fads.
  • Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age

• All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.
  • Nicholas Murray Butler

• Intellectuals are rebels, not revolutionaries.
  • César Vallejo

• And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.
  • Edward Said

• It may be expecting too much to expect most intellectuals to have common sense, when their whole life is based on their being uncommon -- that is, saying things that are different from what everyone else is saying. There is only so much genuine originality in anyone. After that, being uncommon means indulging in pointless eccentricities or clever attempts to mock or shock.
  • Thomas Sowell