Subtitle: The 1993 Reith Lectures, London, Vintage, 1994
Said
explicitely links back to Benda and Gramsci, and he creates a modern definition
of intellectuals based on some of those theories.
According
to Said’s interpretation of Benda, the main task of intellectuals in La
trahison des clercs is a search for truth. Said writes that for Benda
intellectuals are “a tiny band of super-gifted and morally endowed
philosopher-kings who constitute the consciousness of mankind” (p. 4). Said
goes on to say that what Benda indicates as moral betrayal of the intellectuals
is their attitude to compromise. Yet, despite the fact that Benda’s is
“basically very conservative work” (p. 7), “the image of an intellectual” as
generally conceived by the French author “remains an attractive and compelling
one” (p. 6), and “he does not endorse the notion of totally disengaged,
otherworldly, ivory-towered thinkers” since his intellectuals are “moved by […]
disinterested principles of justice and truth, they denounce corruption, defend
the weak, and defy imperfect and oppressive authority” (p. 5).
On the
basis of this analysis, Said’s own aspiration for intellectuals is that they
should act on the basis of “universal principles: that all human beings are
entitled to expect decent standards of behaviour concerning freedom and justice
from worldly powers or nations, and that deliberate or inadvertent violations
of these standards need to be testify and fought against courageously” (p. 9).
Even
though Said believes that there is a Benda-like “vocation” of intellectuals (p.
xiii), which consists in the search for truth and ethical responsibility, he
takes up Gramsci’s concept of “organic intellectuals” and states:
“Gramsci’s social analysis
of the intellectual as a person who fulfils a particular set of functions in
the society is much closer to the society than anything Benda gives us,
particularly in the late 20th century when so many new professions -
broadcasters, computer analysts, sports and media lawyers, management
consultants, policy experts, government advisers, authors of specialized market
reports, and indeed the whole field of modern mass journalism itself - have
vindicated Gramsci’s vision” (p. 7).
In
summary, with regards to the practical contemporary evidence of Gramsci’s
predictions, “today, everyone who works in any field connected with the
production and distribution of knowledge is an intellectual in Gramsci’s sense”
(p. 7).
So, both
Gramsci’s and Benda’s ideas on intellectuals, for different reasons, are
components of Said’s ideology. From these premises, Said develops his own
model.
Said’s
ideal intellectual is animated by “a spirit of opposition” aimed at the
establishment (p. xv); should resist the pressures of politics, hence “my
characterization of the intellectual as exile and marginal, as amateur, and as
the author of a language that tries to speak the truth to power” (p. xiv).
Intellectuals,
according to Said, should act individually. Individuality tells intellectuals
apart from “an anonymous functionary or careful bureaucrat” (p. 10). Such
individuality, in addition to uniqueness, is also synonymous of “loneliness”
understood as separation from the pressures of power (p. 17). Said’s ideal
intellectuals do not conform to the views of the powerful, they rather belong
“on the same side with the weak and the unrepresented” (p. 17). This does not
mean “opposition for opposition’s sake” but rather questioning of received
ideas and critical ways of thinking (p. 25). In this respect, one of the
metaphors used by Said to define intellectuals is the image of “exile”, a
“metaphorical condition” of “individuals at odds with their society” (p. 39).
Following
Debray [1],
and even though Said did not believe that what Debray discussed about France is
totally exportable to other countries, a discussion can be started on
intellectual agencies and their hegemonic eras. For instance in France, as
Debray shows, intellectuals were mostly Sorbonne academics in 1880 to 1930, and
after that, until about the 1960s, mostly gathering around journals and
independent agencies (as Sartre, Gide and Malraux did), and finally, since
about 1968, they became involved with the world of mass media as journalists,
talk-show participants, and so on. The latter development would apply to
intellectuals also in a number of countries other than France.
At the
time of writing the Reith Lectures, Said believed one of the main flaws of
intellectual life was “professionalism” (p. 55), understood not as the right of
intellectuals to have a profession, but as a deterioration of their own
societal role in terms of excessive “specialization”, a feature by which
intellectuals lose their sense of enthusiastic discovery (p. 58), “expertise
and the cult of the certified expert” (p. 58), and “drift towards power and
authority” (p. 59). According to Said, the intellectual should have a
“different set of values and prerogatives. These I shall collect under the name
of amateurism, literary, an activity that is fuelled by care and
affection rather than by profit, and selfish, narrow, specialization” (p. 61).
[1] R.
Debray, Le pouvoir intellectual en France, Cape Town, Ramsay, 1979
(English transl. Teachers, writers, celebrities: the intellectuals of
modern France, London, New Left Books, 1981).
