18 January 2001, 801 words
I can spot a pseudo-intellectual quicker than Kamal Persad can spot a black creole. But this ability is the result of long training. Most people label someone as intelligent once that person's prejudices coincide with their own. They label as pseudo-intellectual someone of superior knowledge whose opinions they do not find palatable.
As a writer, I have made it my business to find more reliable criteria to distinguish pseudo-intellectuals from real ones. I pay attention to both types, of course. Real intellectuals provide most of the information and ideas which I use in my articles, but pseudo-intellectuals often reflect the bad ideas and dangerous attitudes which it is part of my duty as a professional writer to offset. As Bertrand Russell - a true intellectual - once put it, "Half the useful work in the world consists of combating the harmful work."
However, being able to identify a pseudo-intellectual (hereinafter abbreviated to pseud) is also a practical matter. I can't waste time reading and listening attentively to persons who, when they are not saying nothing, speak only lies and half-truths. Identifying the pseuds amongst us thus becomes a necessary exercise for me professionally. But it is also a necessary exercise for any citizen who's truly interested in truth.
This brings us to the first characteristic you must look out for: pseuds invariably speak or write as though absolute truth exists. This is quite ironic, since such persons are never interested in truth, just in their version of it. As a result, they will always twist logic and fact to suit their foregone conclusions.
A genuine intellectual, on the other hand, is committed to finding truth. This is not paradoxical. The process is part of the discovery, and real thinkers present facts and logic to argue that their conclusion is only the most probable version of the truth. At the same time, you do not find such thinkers waffling about different truths being equally valid, save in matters so subjective that no logical argument is possible (which is exactly the kind of matters that pseuds prefer).
David Hume's An Enquiry Concering Human Understanding contains a succinct summary of pseud indicators: "If we take in our hand any volume...let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."
This brings us to the matter of quotes. The average pseud frequently gives facts, or supposed facts, without making his sources clear. Some pseuds often do the reverse, giving long quotes from certain authorities without criticism or comment. In both cases, the motive is the same: to show how well-read, informed and learned they are. But that kind of quote-happiness is always an indicator of intellectual laziness.
Such mental torpor is also characteristic of the most insidious kind of pseud: one who is expert in a particular field and nothing else. Such persons always act as though their technical competence reflects general wisdom, although it logically reflects nothing of the sort.
It is true that a real intellectual is usually an expert in something, but such persons will also have wide general knowledge. More importantly, they are usually philosophically competent, in the sense that their opinions are non-contradictory. (This, by the way, does not guarantee validity: it is possible to present an argument which, if the premises are false, will be both entirely logical and entirely wrong.)
The issue of wrongness is another difference between a genuine intellectual and a pseudo one. When a real intellectual makes a mistake, whether in fact or logic or opinion, they always take pains to point it out. This is because nothing appalls real intellectuals so much as misleading their audience. When a pseud makes an error, on the other hand, they just pretend it never happened. If it is forced to their attention, they usually argue that they meant something quite different from what they said.
Indeed, it is in anticipation of such criticism that the speech and writing of pseuds is usually characterised by a lack of clarity and precision. Their statements are either so general, so convoluted, or so trite, that virtually any interpretation can be placed upon them. Such obfuscation is intended to conceal their lack of content, or their barbaric ideologies, or both.
These, then, are the main characteristics of the pseudo-intellectual mind. But, if readers still find looking out for these indicators requires too much effort, there are more easily identifiable, though less reliable, signs. These are a preference for shirt-jacs, oddly-shaped moustaches, an unsmiling countenance, or hair that is dyed an incredible black.
Copyright ©2002 Kevin Baldeosingh