Sunday, June 28, 2009

What Is your definition of AN INTELLECTUAL

How does each of you define what it means to say someone is "an intellectual?" In what sense is it a good thing to be and intellectual and in what sense is it bad? How many of you consider yourselves to be intellectuals. Name 3 or for publications which you see as intellectual, and 3 or four which are definitely not intellectual. Name the 10 top people in your lifetime, living or dead, who are intellectuals.

I should have said "how DO each of you.." I suppose I was thinking "how does ONE define" . I see The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly magazines as intellectual. People: Wm. F. Buckley Jr., Charlie Rose, Salman Rushdie, Tony Randall.

I notice that some people become PASSIONATE about ideas and insights with a passion that can endure for hours in conversations. What role, if any, does such passion play in the definition of an intellectual.

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