Definitions: Being an Intellectual & the Meaning of Life.

no look I mean no role models no no it's
it's look it's it's a great topic I mean in some ways it's the show less than in the world you know what what does this label mean you know to be an intellectual oh you know and I'm asking this at a time in 2018 when almost nobody uses the label and when it is laughed at so you know I'm Sam Harris has tried to revive the label and talks about the intellectual dark web and the Sun it is laughable it is worth scoffing at it is worth ridicule you know it's true I mean like you know you say are you wearing a cowboy hat because you're actually a cowboy or you you know is it dressed up for Halloween some people are real intellectuals and some are not as absurd as it sounds not only is it possible to work in something like the academic study of history and not be an agate not being intellectual it's common it's not just possible to do humanitarian work in Laos and not be an intellectual the vast majority are not it's not you know it's not just possible to be an artist and not being intellectual you know the vast majority are so when we're looking for we're looking for the trait making the trade you know what is the trait that makes someone make someone to lecture well this is my my way of putting it I think part of being an intellectual is being perpetually profoundly dissatisfied with your own ignorance and then being perpetually profoundly too satisfied with the ignorance of your own society the rule of ignorance in the shaping of and and functioning of your own society and that may or may not exhibit itself in a in a really directly political way what is the point one answer you know you virtually before on this YouTube channel the point is Who I am the point is who you want to be and who you want to become right and on some level we all know that I mean it's shallow and it's deep at the same time like what you read and what you care about and what kind of difference trying to make in the world these things they become who you are and you become them in a very real sense if you sit on the couch and watch football and drink beer after work you become a sitting on the couch football watching [ __ ] that's and you are that's it's nothing you can't put that aside so no that's not who I really am that's just yeah you can't think that's not who I really am that's just what I do in my in my free time no that is that is who you are right or you could say your free time is yes yes that's right well I think that's also what haunts intellectuals right I think that's that's what I see so I mean you know I mean why why try to learn Cree it's not like a today can speak the cree language fluently why try to learn Chinese and why I mean within that I care about Chinese politics and history in the kind of critical way that I do well guess what I get to be me you know like that's the final outcome is that that you know it's not that this is something I do that this is you know this is who I am this video has been a long time coming I got a question many months ago from James I'm just using first names James is a longtime supporter on patreon as someone who's also a vegan involved in baking and I would guess in response to some video or another in which I used the word in passing he asked me what does it mean to you to be an intellectual what is the meaning of being an intellectual in 2018 I got my best girl Melissa off camera if you wonder what I'm looking at buddy it's not like I'm looking at notes I've written down from Berkeley or something not looking at my script you know okay I have like six different things to say here and none of them are logically linked together so one of the first things ever say I was chatting with Tcat recently and he met this in a totally positive way but he said jokingly he said you know aisel stop calling yourself an autodidact he said that's one of those laughable things that makes everyone cringe like if you call herself an autodidact he said this was his joke or what he was saying it's like calling yourself an entrepreneur you know now I get the joke he's making but this is one of those things wearing a cowboy hat isn't camp and isn't a costume if you're actually a cowboy if you actually work on a ranch with cows it wouldn't mean wearing Spurs on your boots it's not a Halloween costume if that's you know if that's what you actually are and you know I get the joke he's trying to make like there are people who call themselves an entrepreneur maybe especially on YouTube maybe especially within the vegan movement or maybe especially just maybe in Fitness or something maybes thinking if some weather I guess that's true the fitness youtubers they make an e-book or they say giving Skype coaching and they they call themselves nightmare okay once in a while people using that word is it's maybe cringe-worthy but what about the people who really are entrepreneurs or people who really aspire to be people who are studying hard and working because that's that's really how they they see their their career path and what the reason I mentioned this though is they're really sort of snide undercurrent which I think prevents a lot of people from even thinking through what it means to be an intellectual whether or not something they aspired to be in the past or present or future because for a lot of people it's maybe selling you toyed with as a teenager and that's something you come back to later in life when you have some more some more time and leisure or something after a period of desperately trying to make rent money um you know this this culture that exists on the Internet and to some extent in real life of you know kind of denigrating people for any any pretensions you know they may have and on the other side of that you know okay look we've all seen movies that depict people who have ridiculous potential pardon me people are ridiculous pretensions and become the butt of the joke you know in the movie or what have you but having ambition and having the vulnerability to say openly that you have that ambition you know whatever it is you know it's it's not such a terrible thing for someone to want to be a poet you know should they really be the butt of every joke and you know at the same time there are so many pretension it's in our society we're all supposed to take you know so tremendously seriously white American culture is like that the idea of the dream don't don't puncture someone's treatment so on there are certain forms of I don't know affected innocence you know being a dreamer that are that are culturally valorized and protected and there are others that are always kind of you know the butt of a joke ozone so look just just to dispense with that that example you know briefly when I say I was an autodidact in learning lotion the Lao language I mean I had no teacher I had no school I had no college I went to the library I you know in some cases I did in effect like make my own resources and textbooks I remember going to one library where they had photocopies of handouts that were used in United Nations refugee camps you know for the language education materials and looking at that you know okay what's useful here and French colonial dictionaries dictionaries the language in the French colonial period you know lotion the French and then figuring out the writing system had changed from that period to the modern period and figuring out how the spelling system worked and documents from different eras I I was a an autodidact than every possible sense of the word maybe you know for you maybe 40 cat watching this or someone's watch this you know maybe you think it's a joke for someone to call themselves you know an autodidact maybe sometimes it is ridiculous when people call themselves a cowboy you know okay but what about when we're talking about people who actually wear that hat or wear spurs on their boots for for a reason you know at some point the kind of endless cycle of I mean undermining other people's you know ambitions that's real we're talking not pretensions but ambition you know to know when it's some at some point it has to stop at some point we have to start living in earnest and living without you know really irony for the sake of irony I mean the other question I raised this comes up in all kinds of contexts is the issue of not making excuses for yourself and I mean this is almost you're saying the same thing but inside out that you're not making excuses yourself and you're not making excuses for others I think that's what it what it leads to you know no it was me so you know if you get an a-plus in history you can get an a-plus repeating complete mythology about history you know I mean you can you can just get an a-plus ok let's let's pick our not too provocative we were talking recently about Thomas Jefferson you know so you can write a hit you can get an a-plus in high school University saying that Thomas Jefferson was the greatest president United States what about First Nations what about American Indians what about the indigenous people I mean I think exactly the point is you know you not making excuses of yourself you're not making the society you live it if you were real intellectual you're not going to be satisfied with reading a textbook that just says Thomas Jefferson is the greatest president for reason is Quincy or even writing your essay repeating this kind of this kind of propaganda getting a-plus you're never be gonna have that that dissatisfaction you're going to hold yourself to a higher standard and then when you find out that other side of the story now you're going to be looking at your history professor you can be looking at your school you're gonna be looking at the political system and the country you live in and you're gonna be you're gonna be holding it to a higher standard also it's it's that you're not making excuses for yourself and you're maybe not accepting the socially sanctioned or socially celebrated excuses that that exists you know I think this is one of them where do you think that comes from how can you expect a kid who goes through education the same education system as parents that don't really emphasize yeah independent independent learning no look it's it's a great question but I don't have an answer