Attacks against intellectuals, the most popular sport of an unhappy country

Attacks against intellectuals, the most popular sport of an unhappy country
By Sonila Meço

This article has been written for Albanian Free Press newspaper and www.afp.al

What would an academic say in an authoritarian country, where the arrogance of power is the one to appoint the intellectuals and the media, which has been subdued by it, promotes it to the public with the same kind of arrogance?

The main concern, first of all, relates to the role of public intellectuals at a time of uncontrolled populism, because populism creates its myths, by claiming that intellectuals are a self-isolated category, living far from the habitat of “common people”. Therefore, politics doesn’t need them; it simplifies the language and it fuels the propaganda machine by claiming that intellectuals cannot understand life like people who are trying to make a future for them, can. At a time when social media and politics manage to disrupt people’s focus through propaganda, for intellectuals it’s almost mission impossible to try and find a window to express their views.

To be an intellectual doesn’t have anything to do with profession or the ability to articulate your thoughts fluently. To be an intellectual means to actively participate in the public life. Intellectuals can be found in each profession or social class; what differentiates them is their social function. They lead, organize, build, pursue goals and given causes. To be an intellectual means to invest in a particular concept of the world and offer new models of thought.

But, a message spread out by politics and assisted by social networks to be channeled like a hurricane, finds the masses ready to rise against everyone else, while believing everything it’s said. Although they’re convinced that they’re engaged in healthy debates, it’s hard to find convincing arguments among these crowds. Unarmed when confronted with facts, data and arguments, they attack everyone who enters the debate through insults, denigration and intimidation.  As a result, the intellectual, the spokesperson of public interest and not necessarily an expert, feels attacked, lonely, denigrated and unable to stand out amid those who don’t want to hear his voice.

But who are these people who do not want him? What sort of elites are in charge of policy making today, who control the media and public debate?

Traditional media are loyal to their editorial policies and have not left any room for intellectuals to become part of public discourse, because intellectuals are not invited in these debates as intellectuals, but as an instrument of gaining as much audience as possible.

What certainly characterizes public debate in Albania is the lack of ideas. Debates without the proper players, activists or widely accepted authorities, because everyone is either attacked by politics, propaganda or collective insanity of the crowds unleashed in the social networks.

It was enough to listen to a new MP, who was not used to speak in public or the unethical behavior of the representative of the people, to realize that concerns of an intellectual character, which affect the community, such as the migration of unaccompanied minors, the disappearance of Albania from the map of foreign investments and its inclusion in the map of the massive cultivation of cannabis, cannot overcome the aggressiveness of people who have divided into camps. People who have been seriously manipulated by the need of the people in power for propaganda. The intellectual concern was executed by the crowds in parliament and social networks.

We have recent cases which reflect how ideas are not able to survive in front of aggressiveness and censorship. There are two cases which reflect the fact that this country is not happy. This country is not happy because we don’t know how to love intellectual thought, we don’t know how to listen to the concerns voiced by intellectuals, we don’t know how to appreciate intellectual acts. If the intellectual doesn’t become spokesperson of the public interest, he is merely a paid speaker of the political class.

But there are also other forms, more sophisticated ones to make the intellectual a hated figure in the eyes of the public. One of these forms is by engaging them on unnecessary debates involving matters of personal authority and dignity and avoiding public interest. Also inspired by a need of the media to make noise over everything, this rhetoric which damages intellectuals, resembles more to an excellent tactic of the political class to remove attention from its problems and directs the aggressive nature of the public toward issues which do not have a direct effect on it. And this is done so openly, as if to say that “today, I also control intellectual thought, by weakening the authority of the one that cultivates it”.

Then, we also have the personal attacks that people in power make against intellectuals.

It’s not that they fear them, because they know they have killed their ability to have wide public access. They attack them because they cannot bear criticism, however small it is, because criticism is democracy in action.

But this is not something which the intellectual is the only one destined to suffer and the people in power the only ones destined to sin… the public is also destined to suffer and sin as part of this process. The public must learn how to seek information, to produce ideas and live among them, not to be part of a crowd and treated as part of the crowd. This is what universities, academies, research centers, media programs, in spite of their non-commercial nature, are for. But for this, I would need to start another analysis all over again. Ask yourself: are you happy in this country? There, you will also find the reason why we’re attacking intellectuals so much.

Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy

 

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