Thoughts of a Romantic on the Intellectual’s Vocation in a Posthuman World

Dearest Reader,

The modern era is one of crisis:

Crisis at home where abuse shatters relationships with loved ones. Crisis on our streets where schoolchildren are gunned down and workers fight for living wages. Crisis in places whose names we do not know but whose vulnerable flee to our shores, moving from one war or tyranny to the next. Crisis after crisis bombards us, threatening to destroy our belief in the good of human beings and in the possibility that things will—or even can—get better.

Those who attempt to seek shelter from these crises often withdraw into the shells of the communities that they know and the yet smaller shells of themselves, their problems, and their aspirations. Within these shells, familiar ideas and opinions drown out the voices of others, leading people to cast others’ problems and aspirations as insignificant or imaginary, compared to theirs.^[1] Meanwhile, the crises that trigger this self-isolation proliferate, seemingly without end. Is this state of being an inevitable part of modern society? Are humans condemned to a life of suffering and apathy?

Perhaps not—if we continue the quest of generations of intellectuals who came before us and seek correctives to this culture of self-interest.

At this point, you might call me an optimist, an idealist, or—my personal favorite—a romantic, but I believe that correctives to what Rosi Braidotti calls the “predicament” of “speedy transformations and persistent inequalities” exist and that intellectuals can help to bring about this change.^[2] A promising approach asks us to transform our (overly) specialized ivory tower of academia into an expanding collective of public intellectuals who can traverse disciplines and ways of knowing and draw the public into more empathetic and productive dialogue.^[3] Interestingly, the figure who led me to embrace this corrective is none other than a man whose name is often associated with the brutal self-interest of capitalism: Adam Smith.^[4]

During my senior year of college, a professor introduced me to an essay that Smith penned during his early university days, An Inquiry into the Principles which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries; Illustrated by the History of Astronomy. Almost immediately, I fell in love with Smith’s writing—not only for the cadence of his prose, but also for the many layers of commentary (scientific, economic, sociopolitical) that Smith could weave together in one essay. Smith proposes that our imaginations long for “connecting principles” that link our unexpected observations to known phenomena, and he recounts how generations of “philosophers” have sought to soothe this imagination by constructing and challenging connecting principles, or systems of knowledge.^[5] Because the intellectual’s work is to synthesize diverse phenomena and ways of knowing, intellectuals also have the ability—nay, the responsibility—to bring diverse peoples and their experiences together and build spaces for free thinking and constructive dialogue. Accepting this responsibility to the public allows intellectuals to help “introduce order into this chaos of jarring and discordant appearances” and “restore [society]…to that tone of tranquility and composure” that we inherently seek.^[6]

While this idea can seem rather romantic in our fast-paced lives (and Smith certainly acknowledges the necessity of having “leisure”), one must not lose hope in the potential of this corrective.^[7] To lose hope, to cease striving altogether for interdisciplinarity and interideologicality, is to undermine the freedom and creativity required for “the advancement of knowledge” and, with this advancement, the maintenance of an informed, empathetic, and civically engaged public.^[8]

May we therefore sustain our hope amidst the chaos. May we accept Smith’s invitation: to slow ourselves down, to listen to our sparks of creativity and the voices of our neighbors, and to lead the public’s crossing of disciplinary, ideological boundaries in pursuit of all that is good, true, and beautiful.

This is our vocation, and our society—more than ever—needs us to fulfill our calling.

Sincerely yours,

A romantic entering academia