Genuine public intellectuals on the decline

We are in dire need of genuine public intellectuals who would shape public opinion and steer it towards the truth. They would create space for dialogue to embrace diverse opinions. This need becomes all the more urgent and relevant in the age of algorithmocracy – of the algorithm, by the algorithm, for the algorithm – which has left people starkly divided intellectually as they become increasingly digital narcissists. Welcome to the age of pseudo intellectuals!

The question is why our world has gone sterile of genuine public intellectuals.

Journalist and writer Ghazi Salahuddin, while speaking at the Sindh Literature Festival 2025, laments: “Among the losses in our lives that are evident at this time, the greatest loss, in my view, is that of intellect and wisdom.” Though he attributes intellectual shallowness to the doomscrolling and lack of dialogue, he also blames politics, whose ubiquitous frivolity on the mainstream media has benumbed the public’s cognition.

He gnomically summarises his lament, countering the theory of the knowledge economy: “We don’t need dollars as much, nor do we need stability in politics and the economy as critically as we need knowledge and the ability to think – to cultivate an inner sense of growth.” He rues the insufficient number of intelligentsia to bring about any intellectual revolution. We are still fingers-crossed for a Renaissance — the movement that birthed modern intellectuallism – to happen in our land.

At the same event, Iftikhar Arif, the renowned litterateur, extended the thought that intellectuals become public intellectuals only when they strive for the welfare and reform of the public. Noam Chomsky was basically a linguist, but when he expressed his candid opinions on world issues plaguing the world public and when he raised the voice of dissent against the suppression and exploitation of the truth, he was placed on the highest pedestal of public intellectuals. A writer or historian, Iftikhar Saheb asserts, cannot be branded as a public intellectual if they confine themselves only to their literary pursuits.

Socially, a genuine intellectual, while sitting among people, listens to them more than dictating to them. He doesn’t listen to contradict. He always resists the temptation to assert intellectual authority and superiority. Contrastingly, a pseudo-intellectual speaks with the intention that whatever he says will be agreed upon then and there. He speaks to be noticed. He expects accolades to be showered upon him because of his “novel” ideas. From here springs his self-assertions, leading to self-deception. Intellectual condescension inflates the social hubris of a pseudo intellectual. A genuine intellectual is beyond all the pulls of subjectivity.

Another thing that hogties an intellectual from becoming a public intellectual is their stick-in-the-mud attitude that what they know is the reality. In psychology, this cognitive pattern is termed ‘naive realism’ – the common tendency to assume that one’s perception of an object or event is an accurate reflection of its objective properties, not a subjective interpretation or construal. This often entails the concomitant belief that because one’s own perception is veridical, what one perceives oneself should be similarly perceived by most everyone else.

However, the steep decrease in the reading habits and shrinking memory span among the youth have erected hurdles against tolerating the intellectual dissertations. The intellectuals have to keep their produce exhaustive to bring home to the audience their point comprehensively. In America, a study highlighted that what columnists in The New York Times write actually brings about shifts in public opinion.

Intellectualism is a cumulative process. Newspaper and book reading has to be promoted at the early levels of education. Teachers must not exercise their sacred professional authority and the self-claimed superiority of their knowledge to shield themselves against the students’ challenging questions. Students’ right to differ and dissent must be acknowledged. Parents should promote family debates instead of building a barrier of obedience and authority. Light banter can involve children in the dialogue to help reduce their digital screen time.