On topic:
I fear my reply must be mostly anecdotal. As a long-term student and aspirant lecturer, this is an issue that has troubled me of late.
Having experienced life on both sides of the Atlantic, I find a prevailing anti-intellectual bias pervades Western culture. It is most notable in America. Athletic prowess, musicianship, beauty or skills at a trade are treated with reverence or even apotheosis. Academic/intellectual ability, however, is scorned and ridiculed, even by intelligent people, as a pedantic irrelevance pursued by (the ubiquitous) 'worthless layabout,' too indolent to bruise his hands with real work (presumably coal mining of breaking concrete).
Perhaps I am a dreadful pseudo-intellectual myself - even a cursory glance at responses my posts receive on a couple of other forums on which I post would suggest so. Use of words other than the fifty that form the vernacular, or mentioning of thinkers outside of Oprah or Homer Simpson is laughed at and mocked. Interestingly, this ridicule seems to stem from a belief that the intent is exhibitionist (it is not) yet, when taken to other fields, such as electric guitar playing, those who 'masturbate' with extravagant showmanship are often praised as heroes (Malmsteen, Vai etc).
During a recent air flight I sat next to a cantankerous old man who averred, upon learning of my desire to become a lecturer, that this constituted an admission that I had 'no practical skills whatsoever.' I can see the feigned incredulity mixed with scorn emblazoned on his brow how. 'Mercifully, I don't,' I replied, 'do you have any intellectual?' He pretended not to hear. I wondered if it might not be possible to have both. He looked at me as if there were something wrong with me when I told him that I would happily work for free if I were supported with food and lodgings. The real world does not want enthusiasm. If you reach out with something genuine, it recoils. People must be cynical.
For a long time I felt almost guilty about my hopes. These doubts were exacerbated by a growing realisation that, increasingly, academia is a self-perpetuating papermound of sophistry with no audience outside of its subject. I remember attending a nauseous seminar session two years ago at which I was told, 'make sure you keep certain members of staff on side (so they give you a good PhD reference) and, dont tell well known academics of your work in too much detail or they will steal it. What a dishonest system for the appraisal of ideas. What a sickening revelation of the egocentric nature of the field.
After a time, however, I came to realise that the consensus view of academia - out of touch, self-important, egotistical, useless irrelevance - does not curtail my interest in literature and philosophy. I wish to become an academic because I genuinely love my subject and feel it is a part of me. I wish to learn and teach and create new works. Even if it is true that all literature is useless for most people and, by such people, I waste my life, I am not afraid to make that mistake for the simple possibility of changing the part of the world that I am able to and supporting that in life which I love.
In short, even if intellectualism is despised, I dont really care, or if I do, I dont care enough to not find the work of intellectuals interesting.
