To an intellectual: Do you practise the knowledge that you derive from reading or understanding?

Answer 1

I'm kinda uncomfortable with that term too. How would you define an intellectual?

Anyway, I think the most important part of a liberal education is the actual act of learning. You learn how to learn, how to look at information critically, how to make a plan and follow it, to recognize the value of constructive criticism, to ask yourself the right questions, to analyze situations with logic when your emotions are chaotic and act accordingly, and to understand history (even if you can't remember all the dates) so you can better identify cause and effect. It teaches you how to look at the world and understand it. I forget who said it, but the more you learn the more you realize you don't know. You discover things you didn't know existed that change the way you look at everything.

Inevitably, we are all imperfect humans so we don't always logically follow the knowledge we have. However, I know that what I have read and learned has definitely changed the way I act because it has changed how I view situations. I recognize that there are many things left for me to learn, but I have already benefited. I think ahead and focus on the result of my actions. What will happen if I do or don't do this? Is there a better way to do this?

I'm not really an "intellectual," but I definitely value reading and knowledge.

Answer 2

Unfortunately by the time you get the understanding and knowledge and the ability to fully understand it it is hard to change the way you have been for so long. After gaining knowledge of things that are at complete opposites with what you have always known it is hard to accept. On the same note it is impossible for an intellectual of any sort to disregard the knowledge that they now possess and in that knowledge must do what is in their power to shine that beacon of intelligence on the populace.

Answer 3

All the time. Or though i read alot for pleasure and that ofcourse is mostly just reading books, so I can't use those. However sometimes i might be able to, I can pull morals and points of views from different stories that help guide me to being a more empathetic human, and altogether a greater person. Or there are those books that help me identify a bone, or a math question. To be honest I think everyone practices the knowledge they get from books.

Answer 4

Who are you calling an intellectual?