Pseudo-intellectuals and their features

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

To begin with, let's note the difference in concepts such as mind and intellect. These concepts are quite close in meaning, but not identical. If reason means the very ability of a person to think, then intellect is an external manifestation of reason. If the mind and the level of its development are an internal quality of a person, then intelligence is an externally observable ability to solve certain problems that require the use of the mind. It is clear that intelligence, which we can evaluate by external manifestations, will largely depend not only on the person's own rationality, but also on the type of tasks performed, on the person's experience in solving them, on the knowledge he has and simply on perseverance and motivation. … Therefore, according to external manifestations, one cannot directly judge the actual level of intelligence.

It happens that a person is able to successfully solve certain problems, because he is trained in the method of solving them, is able to express correct judgments on a certain topic, because he has knowledge in it, but when he goes beyond the boundaries of a well-studied, his methods begin to amaze with their clumsiness, and judgments reveal an inability use elementary logic. That is, we can say that a person has a developed intelligence in a certain area, but an absolutely undeveloped mind.

And this phenomenon is very common in modern society. There are many reasons that contribute to this, first of all, the system of formal education, which requires memorizing knowledge, mastering the course, but not understanding what is being studied. But formal criteria dominate not only in education, they are widely used in professional activities, and in business, and in public administration. Modern people often evaluate even themselves and their own activities according to formal criteria. Against the background of all this, the overwhelming majority of even those people who are engaged in mental work and have received higher education develop a perverse idea of intellectual activity, thinking, approaches to solving problems.

So who is a pseudo-intellectual? This is a person who considers himself smart and educated, associating these qualities with external manifestations of reason (based in his case on other people's knowledge and experience), but is not capable of genuine independent thinking, does not seek to understand things and has not rational, but irrational motives and a system of values.

Features of thinking and behavior of pseudo-intellectuals

In general, the features of the thinking of pseudo-intellectuals are the same as the previously described features of the thinking of emotionally minded people. They are characterized by irrationality in thinking, lack of striving for truth and simply denying it, unsystematic and piecewise representations, etc. Below are several features that can be identified and described in more detail for pseudo-intellectuals.

1) Formal knowledge instead of understanding. A thinking person, receiving some information, including in the learning process, tries to understand what is being told to him, to put everything into a single integral system of ideas about the world, to correlate and connect with what he knows. The pseudo-intellectual has a different approach - "it is so, because it is so." He does not try to understand what is being explained to him at a sufficiently deep level, to think about it on his own. It is enough for him that there are some irrational criteria that speak in favor of the plausibility of knowledge. For example, the opinion of authoritative specialists, well-known personalities, that many adhere to this point of view, etc. At best, the justification includes several particular examples that give indirect confirmation. What does this lead to? First, pseudo-intellectuals are not able to independently assess the correctness of knowledge, relying only on irrational and indirect confirmation. Therefore, on the one hand, they can be "taught" to anything, including the most absurd theories, on the other hand, they are not able to perceive the most obvious arguments if they do not see significant irrational evidence behind them. Secondly, they do not understand deeply even in the area to which the generally correct acquired knowledge belongs, and if they try to independently draw some conclusions in it, solve non-standard problems, then they do it very badly. Having left the path trodden by others for them, they reveal their complete incompetence. Thirdly, pseudo-intellectuals are not only extremely dogmatic and persistent in following dogmas, but they are also convinced that such a position is natural and correct. They do not see the difference between dogma and reasoned judgment and do not show interest in trying to find out the truth in a dispute (for them, an argument is only a means to prove their point of view).

The adherence to formal knowledge leads to the fact that for a pseudo-intellectual the synonym of rationality and scientificness is not correctness, validity, meaningfulness, but formal certainty. If it is easier for a thinking person to perceive the explanation of some new idea in a popular form, in a natural language, then a pseudo-intellectual will certainly begin to demand an unambiguous formal definition of all terms, building a formal scheme specific to this idea. Having received a formal description, he will calm down and add your idea (without understanding its essence) to his catalog among many others.

2) Formality of knowledge is combined with a formal style of thinking. In the reasoning of a thinking person, a clear thought is visible that pursues a certain goal. A thinking person knows that he wants to explain, where to come, what question he is considering, and he singles out what corresponds to the main goal of this reasoning. A pseudo-intellectual, if he tries to reason, usually does so aimlessly. He does not know what he wants to come to, what questions he sets before himself, does not separate the main line of reasoning from the secondary points, although more often this main line does not exist at all. Starting independent reasoning on a certain topic, he gets into the jungle and begins to wander, constantly clinging to some secondary issues, to artificial problems that have no meaning. The trajectory of a pseudo-intellectual's thought is similar to the trajectory of a Brownian particle - it also tends to constantly twist in a random direction. As a result, he does not come to anything, does not draw a single useful conclusion. A pseudo-intellectual can successfully demonstrate reasoning only in the style of sophistry and scholasticism.

If a pseudo-intellectual writes some scientific, philosophical, etc. articles or works, then from the very beginning they force one to strain in attempts to understand their meaning. They do not leave an impression of clarity, it remains unclear what, in fact, the author wanted to say, what he came to, what conclusions he drew. At the same time, pseudo-intellectuals in their style of presentation are very fond of using specific terms, abstruse formulations, references on the topic and not on the topic to the most different opinions of other authors and other ways of artificially adding "scientific".

3) For a thinking person, acquiring new knowledge increases his rationality, understanding of things. For a pseudo-intellectual, acquiring new knowledge can increase his competence in a narrow field, in a separate issue, but in general, it reduces his rationality and ability to understand things. The reason for this is that knowledge accumulates haphazardly, remains divorced both from each other and from the ordinary idea of things based on simple common sense. As a result, with a large amount of scattered knowledge, the thinking of a pseudo-intellectual simply on the basis of associations begins to cling to this knowledge and sidetrack even when considering the most obvious question. This feature is aggravated by the fact that the pseudo-intellectual is not able to distinguish between particular and general concepts, features, laws and therefore invariably tries to explain the general and fundamental through the particular and the minor, thus reducing his level of understanding of reality.

4) If a pseudo-intellectual thinks about something that is not connected with work, with professional activity, then this mental activity for the pseudo-intellectual plays the role of a "hobby". This means that he does not pursue the goal of understanding something, understanding something, finding the correct, best solution to the problem, but is doing it for fun. For him, the process is important, not the result. Often he deliberately selects not real problems, but artificial ones, or changes the conditions in them the way he wants, if it seems to him more interesting. A thinking person is inclined to perceive some task or problem as an intellectual challenge, he will try to solve it in the most general form and with the best result, while he is more interested in more urgent, complex and realistic tasks. A pseudo-intellectual is inclined to perceive a problem or task as a kind of separate puzzle, the process of solving which may or may not be interesting for him personally. At the same time, tasks that are artificial and divorced from reality, but which give scope for fantasy and arbitrary variations, often turn out to be interesting for him.

In the ways of conducting discussions, the pseudo-intellectual exhibits the following features.

5) Departure from the essence of the issue. In the discussion, the pseudo-intellectual constantly turns away from finding a definite answer to the main question on which the discussion is being conducted, and, clinging to secondary points, to some associations that pop up in his head, he constantly jumps to them. He can also move on to fantasizing, making conjectures, various speculations on a given topic.

6) Approaching the dialogue from a formal standpoint, the pseudo-intellectual constantly requires the opponent to "prove" any of his statements, to define the terms, and disputes the wording. Moreover, it is possible to prove the most elementary things to a pseudo-intellectual for a long time, but he still will not understand anything. This style is especially typical for pseudo-intellectuals with a technical or natural science education. They will stubbornly refuse to understand the most obvious explanations and arguments, demanding a deliberately strict and formal presentation, since they associate science and rationality more with scientific tinsel, and not with meaning.

7) Pseudo-intellectuals have no desire to achieve mutual understanding. Due to the inability to think independently, because of dogmatism and formalism, any, the smallest discrepancy in positions for a pseudo-intellectual means the need for a categorical disengagement from the opponent. Thinking people, finding similarities in fundamental issues, eventually come to a common opinion in private ones. The pseudo-intellectual cannot distinguish the fundamental and the particular in the similarities and differences.

8) A pseudo-intellectual, entering into a dispute on a certain issue where he has a definite opinion, is usually confident that he is right, the obvious superiority of his position over that of his opponent. Convinced that his point of view is authoritative, scientific, generally recognized, etc., he sees his mission in enlightening an unenlightened opponent, and he is trying to "prove right" in any way, including irrational. Provocations, insults, sarcasm, trolling, demonstrative self-confidence and arrogance, empty assessments and categorical statements about the position of the opponent and the opponent himself are used.

9) The pseudo-intellectual resists any attempts to induce him to really think about something, to understand something, to introduce his reasoning into a constructive channel. He is much more concerned not with finding out the truth, coming to the right answers, but with demonstrating his intelligence, a high assessment of which is important to him. Therefore, he will rather resort to evasion, cleverness, speculative reasoning, than to show that he "went on about" the opponent.

People who gravitate towards a reasonable worldview can sometimes show in discussions some features inherent in the behavior of pseudo-intellectuals, but, unlike them, TPM always perceive competent arguments and show respect for an intelligent interlocutor.

10) Among the distinctive features of the behavior of pseudo-intellectuals are the following. The image is important for them, but it differs from the image of the usual emotionally-minded majority, it is a special "intellectual" image, within which they try to create an impression of themselves as smart, advanced, competent people. At the same time, arrogance, distancing from mere mortals, snobbery can be part of such an image. The pseudo-intellectuals themselves also generally judge people by their "clothes", by superficial impressions, and formal features. They make most of their assessments about people, certain phenomena in society on the basis of superficial perception through comparison with the cliches they know, without trying to understand the essence.

Another characteristic feature of pseudo-intellectuals is individualism. Even in their own environment, they distance themselves from each other. They have a claim that they have their own opinion, their own ideas and views on things that they are often in no hurry to voice, propagandize and defend, but, rather, are ready only to hint at their presence in order to show their intelligence and significance. They pride themselves on not being part of the "mass", believing that being independent, "on their own," is a natural state for any intelligent person.