The birth of Google Intellectuals and Reclaiming the Intellectualhood

By Musab Iqbal

(Translated by me)

Mr. Verma, sitting in front of his computer screen, is busy searching for a file. The gentleman’s condition bears witness to his intentness and the indispensability of the file he’s searching for. Suddenly, silence of the room breaks: bing, a chat box appears on the screen: “Mr. Verma, Good Afternoon.” This gave a break to the gentleman’s search. “Good Afternoon,” types Mr. Verma. “If you can give me a few minutes of your time, can I ask you a question?” The statement pops in the chat box. This makes Verma scratch his head. He answers, “Yes. Go ahead.” The question was on the screen: “Mr. Verma, who is this Rousseau?” This question clears away Verma’s hours of laziness. With the speed of light, he minimizes the chat window, and with the blink of an eye, two windows appear before Verma. “Yes my friend,” types Mr. Verma in the questioner’s chat box. “Rousseau was a great thinker and philosopher of the 18^th century.” This statement of Mr. Verma appears on the chat box with all the intellectual enlightenment. “Rousseau’s interest was in music and education too.” He further adds, “He was an important thinker of the French revolution.” After a short break, he provides the questioner with this information too. “Further discussion on this can be possible when we meet.” After this statement, the inquirer feels relaxed and thanks Mr. Verma. He takes permission to ask another question. Mr. Verma takes a breath of relief and answers in approval. The question was in front of him: “Who was Voltaire?” Mr. Verma shows the same skills on the screen and astonishes the inquirer. “Mr. Verma, thank you so much,” the inquirer once again praises Verma’s faculty and memorization in the form of thanks.

“Mr. Verma one last question”

“Yes. Please ask,” types Mr. Verma with the pride of a conqueror.

“What is the basic difference between the thoughts of Rousseau and Voltaire? Were both in favor of the Aristotelian views and whether there was any impact of their thought on Kant’s writings?”

Mr. Verma, with the might of the mouse, starts attacking the screen, but this time the required answer does not pop on the screen with the blink of an eye. “Mr. Verma, are you there?” the question of the inquirer was crawling like a snake on the screen. “Dear, this question requires explanation; we’ll discuss it when we meet. All queries cannot be answered on chatting, and it’s also time for my office work; Good Bye.” Mr. Verma types the whole statement after taking a deep breath, and resumes his search for the file.

Later Mr. Verma is found in a gathering where he is the center of attraction for the group. People, encircling Mr. Verma, are trying to take some benefit by his knowledge. The inquirer appears. A gentleman, pointing towards Mr. Verma, tells the inquirer, “Do you know him?” The inquirer replies, “Of course! I know him. Thank God! Who is not familiar with Mr. Verma? He is such a great intellectual.” Another man replies immediately. By saying words in praise of Mr. Verma, he draws attention of everyone in the gathering towards him: “There is no doubt that Mr. Verma is the greatest intellectual in this group.” The remaining agreed in unison.

The extraordinary capacity and reach of cyber space has given birth to concurrently many such Mr. Vermas. Such quantity of Mr. Vermas is both a reality and a tragedy. It can also be said that this is an ‘intellectual tragedy’ of the cyber space. Collecting information at the click of a button through Google and from Wikipedia, and arranging the collected information in a particular order are being thought of as an intellectual exercise. From the birth of these Google intellectuals a number of questions arise: what is the work of an intellectual? Who is an intellectual? And what is the role of an intellectual in a society? In the same way another vital question arises: are information, information hoarding and its decoration any intellectual work? Is the job of intellectual only to accumulate information which is an easy exercise for any citizen of this cybersphere?

In the decade of 1970s, Italy was engulfed in a national crisis. The then prime minister of Italy called a meeting of all intellectuals, presented the problem in front of them and asked them to find a solution to the problem. Umberto Eco stood up and said, “Sir! The role of an intellectual is not to solve a crisis but to create one.” There is truth to this statement of Umberto Eco and a clear pointer in it towards the intellectual responsibility. Antonio Gramsci was a well-known Marxist philosopher and a political thinker in Italy. Mussolini had him arrested, and kept him in prison for the period of 1926 – 1937. During this period, he started reading and wrote a book, which became famous by the name of ‘Prisons Notebook’. In it, Gramsci spoke about the meaning and role of an intellectual in great depth. He writes:

“All men are intellectuals, one could therefore say, but not all men have in the society the function of intellectuals” (Prisons Notebook).

According to Gramsci, there are two types of intellectuals: one is a Traditional Intellectual, for example, a teacher, a pope, a lecturer, etc; who does only one job and teaches only one thing to a specific group of people for years. Contrary to this, another type is of an Organic Intellectual who is active in a society, and is busy in changing people’s minds and increasing their market. However, Julien Benda does not agree with Gramsci’s definition and explanation; and according to him an intellectual, actually, is that ascension of a philosopher whose mental and moral level have reached its peak, and who are conscious of humanity. He writes “those whose activity is essentially not the pursuit of practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice of an art or a science or metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession of non-material advantages, and hence in a certain manner say: ‘My kingdom is not of this world’” (The Treason of Intellectuals).

According to Edward Said, the real value of an intellectual can be judged on the basis of their honesty and their resolution for justice and this value should be on such a level that intellectual should not look like citizen of this world. As he says:

“Since what they uphold are eternal standards of truth and justice that are precisely not of this world” (Representations of the intellectual).

Said himself is an example here. Through his intellectual works he tried to bring the Palestinian cause at the center stage in the west, and also tried to prove that imperialism is the real core of the western civilization. After having demonstrated and having established this truth Said strived for it, debated intensely to the extent that in one of his lectures some Israeli students started shouting, “Said, you are a liar.” In this way he kept himself completely engaged with power and power center. For instance, he has written two magnificent pieces of work: ‘Orientalism’ and ‘Culture and Imperialism’, and has linked his theory with western imperialism and how it demonstrates its power in respected colonies. At one place he writes:

“Israel was a device for holding Islam – and later the Soviet Union, or communism – at bay. Zionism and Israel were associated with liberalism, with freedom and democracy, with knowledge and light, with what ‘we’ understand and fight for. By contract Zionism’s enemies were simply a twentieth-century version of the alien spirit of Orientation despotism, sensuality, ignorance, and similar work of backwardness.”

Also, in Said’s view, there is a strong relationship between text and its worldliness. Free market and the kind of mentality the market gives birth to have created a specific type of professionalism in which people are not ready to take up any sort of pain or effort to get to the truth and to present it to others. One type of this is ‘Google Journalism’ and ‘Google Intellectualism’. Robert Fisk has severely criticized such form of journalism and considers it as the worst peculation/fraud. Even Said has condemned such intellectualism. He calls it ‘professional intellect’: people with such intellect reach on time (to office/college) and start their intellectual work, and for that they are even paid, and when the office hours end, they gather their intellectualism and return to their ‘heaven’. The office of the intellectual is closed for the day till the next morning. Such people are not ready to take the risk to work for truth. Said writes that the market and professionalism have produced such intellectuals. He marks:

“The result is that today’s intellectual is most likely to be a closed literature professor, with a secure income and no interest in dealing with the world outside the classroom.”

It is obvious that the size of their classroom is decided depending on the faculty of an ‘intellectual’. In one case it takes the form of a university classroom, in another the pulpit of the prayer room, in some other as a gathering of Qur’anic discourse and in others as various religious meetings; where such intellectuals try to increase information of the people assembled there at a particular time, and then return to their ‘heaven’.

In such an intellectual thought neither critical insight is found nor is found even an element of society building in action. According to Said, an amateur is much better than a professional intellectual. He argues that an amateur comes into the field with a passion for pursuing truth not because of selfishness and material profit. In his words:

“The intellectual today ought to be an amateur, someone who considers that to be a thinking and concerned member of a society one is entitled to raise moral issues.”

Obviously, an intellectual not only speaks the truth out but also considers it as their obligation. The truth might high the general public as well. Intellectual spirit is to feel the truth, to speak out the truth and to struggle for it. This intellectual spirit can be understood through a writing of Arundhati Roy. She writes:

“…Some uncomfortable thoughts about money, war, empire, racism, and democracy. Some worries that flit around my brain like a family of persistent moths that keep me awake at night.”

It is evident that even if some slogans are cried against the war and the imperialism the discussion on capitalism and democracy cannot be a child’s play or a drawing room chat. The democracy is now rotting, the stench of which people apathetically or indifferently tolerate; in this period it is the intellectual duty to draw people’s attention towards this indifference and to criticize those who are responsible for it. Arundhati Roy raised some piercing questions on the Indian democracy which cannot and will not, in any case, be comfortable truths. The question that whether there is any life post democracy is in itself worrisome. Arundhati says that in this representative democracy, there is too much of representation and too little democracy. Is this not true?

.... to be continued