|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Intellectual. As Fuller argues in his book, academics perhaps try to achieve a timeless perspective on a well defined patch of reality, whereas intellectuals “are prompted by current events to develop a distinctive point of view on all of reality, which they repeatedly revisit and revise as times change.” They realise that their conscience is the most reliable instrument of inquiry at their disposal. We remember them more for the attitude they bring to what they write or say. They do not disappear into the subject they write on. Steve Fuller, in his dissection of the role of the intellectual, argues against the conventional academic: “Ironically, academics try to recover the lived experience of a narrow range of their own experience—typically only what permits empathy for the agents. To an intellectual, such trans-generational tact looks like the last vestige of ancestor worship. The refusal of academics to engage with their subjects in the full range of human emotions is an admission of defeat, be it expressed by a dignified silence or an enthusiastic endorsement. Academics may believe that they have arrived too late to turn the past towards a different future, but intellectuals are forever hopeful—and hence defiant.” Upholding the virtues of the intellectual autonomy, Fuller argues that any meaningful answers need to take into consideration the role of the intellectual as a person who can give an impetus towards socialist thinking that can reach out to the millions who have sacrificed, gone hungry, lost dear ones only that culture may take birth and survive. It is imperative to keep this fact of our social and economic history in the forefront in order to come to grips with the need to offer resistance to a growing exploitative world. Fuller maintains the intellectual is always in conflict with the state, a position that alienates certain groups. At such a time of intense intellectual crisis, it would be prudent to heed Samantha Power’s warning: “At the moment the western world seems to be afraid and fear is dangerous…While fear is dangerous, fear can also concentrate the mind and lead citizens to take political action. The coming years are years of danger and promise, and we can only hope, like Arendt (and Chomsky) that the tug towards apathy will be overcome by the lure of human improvement and self-preservation.” Fuller’s book corroborates this view and makes a powerful case for the role of the intellectual as essential to modern-day politics, a case that upholds the ‘positive power of negative thinking’ and the passion to reach out to the whole truth. He has given a sense of historical context and a passionate moral concern to the issue of what it means to be an intellectual and to be deeply suspicious of power structures and conspiracies. Intellectuals, in his opinion, inescapably stand for freedom and fraternity, always holding up the causes that concern the larger section of society. Fuller, however, is conscious of the multiple roles of the intellectuals, especially those who allow themselves to be coopted by the state because of their ‘business plan’ that looks out for a rightful social and economic environment where their ideas can take root and flourish. He does give a passing allusion to the impact of modern technologies on the role of the intellectual, but this is a subject for a new book that could take up the challenge of laying out a firm thesis on the shifting role of the intellectual in our decidedly complex age.
|
.jpg)
In a world of cutthroat economics, Vaclav Havel advises that it is our responsibility to improve the world, “first of all in the field of the human spirit, of human conscience, of human responsibility” and thus provide some inspiration for the people of this world. Steve Fuller, Professor of Sociology at Warwick, likewise, explains the role of the intellectual in times of trouble: “Like Batman scouring the skies of Gotham City for the bat signal requesting his services, the intellectual reads the news as hidden appeals for guidance from a desperate world.”