What is the point of intellectual elites? | Politics #31

In this day and age, information spread is rapid, before a theory, a research paper or survey is peer reviewed, the catchy headlines makes its way into the minds of people. Now, not only does this hold true for mere mundane celebrity gossip, or the top tier scientific research but the thoughts of the ones considered to be the elite class in intellectual capability have their thoughts spread much faster. Imagine if Socrates, or Aristotle were alive, with all their subtitled clips spreading on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, that would be a spectacle to observe.

The “intellectual elites”, most of them have their books in the world, selling millions of copies, and that’s totally fine. In those books are ideas, thoughts, propositions that are catered to a certain area of a problem-ridden world. If one had to classify difficulty levels in any field, difficulty as in the ability required for a certain problem, there would be tiers, we call “elite” to those who tackle with the most difficult of problems, you can’t be an elite football player if you’re playing in ISL as compared to someone playing in the Premier League or LaLiga. There has been this term thrown around about an informal group called the “intellectual dark web.”

This group consists of many prominent (right or wrong) speakers, like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Bret and Erec Weinstein, Zizek and others. To be honest, I don’t really care now about what they think particularly about the issues they have in their regions, I don’t know as much of the politics of their region, and don’t really care as much. The point I’m making is the pedestal that they are put on, not just in America – if you haven’t realized yet, whatever happens in the US has ripple effects all over the world – but everywhere. Leave the US think about the “elites” of the Indian sub-continent, for example, Tharoor, Guha and others. When was the last time they talked about the world issues that is taking the souls of hundreds of thousands?

The following that they generate, creates a compelling persona of an elite class (again, I’m neither saying they’re right or wrong), now the elite class needs to tackle the elite problems, so to speak. Some might say that every problem matters, yes it does, but, not every problem demands the same degree of consideration as all the others. To give you a basic example, no one cares as much about your anxiety when you’re being bombed to death – get yourself up and escape.

I’ve been watching all kinds of shows, talks and lectures of these “elites” and even have read some of their books. All of them have a sect that they want to deal with, and that’s the important point; want to deal with.

The top of the class thinkers of the global market we have, choose to talk about certain things, debate about certain issues and still they are referred to as the elites; dealing with the elite problems. Okay then, let’s take a look at the congregation of their countries that discuss the issues of the world. Right now, according to the UN, following are the major issues of the world, with the most detrimental ratio:

  • Threats from conflict between states
  • Threats from terrorism (I do disagree with what qualifies as a terrorist act though, read about why over here)
  • Threats from violence and massive human rights violations within states

You don’t need to be an intellectual “elite” to know the issues of the current times that have had and are having a catastrophic route. The Palestine-Israel conflict, Kashmir conflict, Chinese Uyghur Muslim issue, Yemen crisis, and others. When was the last time you heard one the most respected of the “intellectual elites” for example, Jordan Peterson talk about the Palestine issue, the Kashmir issue and others? I have read his books, watched his lectures, he is no doubt a brilliant psychologist and even represents the scientific research very well on a global platform, but I’ve never seen him even mention, for example, the Rohingya genocide. He talks about Mao a lot, I came to read about Unit 731 because of his talks, and that was great that I came to know about it, and those issues are important to know, but what about the ones that are going to be history soon, where’s the lesson that we learn from history then? Will there be a lecture on Kashmir after an Indo-Pak war starts and Kashmiris are butchered and the US allows the sides immunity as they have huge market potential? I’m not trying to bash him here, or anyone of the “elites.” It is a simple observation, the stand you have on a global scale, with a huge following as an intellectual, then what’s the use of such prowess if it isn’t used for the urgent-calling issues of the world? And when will the “I need to read about it” even begin so that it maybe solved?

One might say well they aren’t the ones calling themselves an elite, so we can’t “judge” them on that basis. Well, if you are selling millions of copies of the books, have a billion views on YouTube, you have influence, trust of the people, and that doesn’t come to a layman.

But there’s another point here; we can’t entirely blame them, they are there in their own region protecting their own ideals, regardless of it being right or wrong, they have a right to do so. Two things come out of it; first, the “elites” are dealing with the issue that are of prominence in their own country, catering to their own doctrine, second, that those elites thus make no sense as “elites” for any other country, because as I’ve said before, an elite deals with elite problems; which varies from region to region.

I’d say it is common sense that if the ones regarded as intellectuals, thought of as the best of the thinkers, aren’t talking about the most pressing of the issues then what are they even doing if not drowning in either denial, ignorance or wilful blindness. Now that also entails that maybe they shouldn’t be called elite intellectuals, well then we are faced with the problem of who will solve the toughest of issues. We need to have the brains for it, the issues are here now, and we need minds working at it right now. What are you working on?

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