Give me some examples of being intellectual. 10 points best answers?

Answer 1

Using Shakesperian quotes in normal conversation ... or ...
thinking problems through with one's head rather than one's heart.
-MM

Answer 2

Now days, intellectual and common sense are synonymous, as the later seems to be annoyingly lacking. I believe being intellectual is the ability to carry on a conversation about random subjects, even if you are not familiar with the topic. You should be at least able to pose the correct questions to inquire without sounding like and absolute idiot. Being intellectual also means being able to fit into any crowd and not feel like an outsider. There are many people who think they're intellectual, but when it comes down to it, they're only knowledgeable and limited at that. Knowledge is more than pages in a book, it's life experiences and interpretations of the like.

Answer 3

An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas.

There are, broadly, three modern definitions at work in discussions about intellectuals. Firstly, 'intellectuals' as those deeply involved in ideas, books, the life of the mind. Secondly, and here largely arising from Marxism, 'intellectuals' as that recognizable occupational class consisting of lecturers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, and suchlike. Thirdly, cultural "intellectuals" are those of notable expertise in culture and the arts, expertise which allows them some cultural authority, and who then use that authority to speak in public on other matters.
Greek usage of the expression
In Greece the expression "Learn your letters" finds widespread use in everyday life, especially by the surviving older generations. Its meaning is equivalent to "Study hard" and "learn an intellectual trade". You often hear our elders say "Learn letters, for life is hard" or "Learn letters, become a doctor or a lawyer".

Because of the agricultural background of Greece, the term "man of letters" also signifies the opposite of the usual trades of builder and farmer. In this context, these hand-driven trades are often pointed out as an example for avoidance when parents suggest to a young person to "become a man of letters" in order to live an easier life.


[edit] Modes of 'intellectual class' in nineteenth-century Europe
Samuel Coleridge speculated early in the nineteenth century on the concept of the clerisy, a class rather than a type of individual, and a secular equivalent of the (Anglican) clergy, with a duty of upholding (national) culture. The idea of the intelligentsia, in comparison, dates from roughly the same time, and is based more concretely on the status class of 'mental' or white-collar workers. Alister McGrath in The Twilight of Atheism (2004) comments (p.53) that '[t]he emergence of a socially alienated, theologically literate, antiestablishment lay intelligentsia is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history of Germany in the 1830s', and that '... three or four theological graduates in ten might hope to find employment [in a church post]'.

From that time onwards, in Europe and elsewhere, some variant of the idea of an intellectual class has been important (not least to intellectuals, self-styled). The degrees of actual involvement in art, or politics, journalism and education, of nationalist or internationalist or ethnic sentiment, constituting the 'vocation' of an intellectual, have never become fixed. Some intellectuals have been vehemently anti-academic; at times universities and their faculties have been synonymous with intellectualism, but in other periods and some places the centre of gravity of intellectual life has been elsewhere.

One can notice a sharpening of terms, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Just as the coinage scientist would come to mean a professional, the man of letters would more often be assumed to be a professional writer, perhaps having the breadth of a journalist or essayist, but not necessarily with the engagement of the intellectual.

The Dreyfus affair in France at the end of the nineteenth century is often indicated as the time of full emergence of the intellectual in public life; particularly as concerns the role of Émile Zola in speaking directly on the matter. In fact the term intellectual as we now have it became better known from that time (and the derogatory implication sometimes attached). The use of the term as a noun in French has been attributed to Georges Clemenceau in 1898.


[edit] Societal role of intellectuals
Intellectuals have been viewed as a distinct social class.

Often significantly contributing to the formation and phrasing of ideas, intellectuals are both creators and critics of ideology. Australian writer Rhoderick Gates defined intellectuals as "priests in a secular society, whose role is to uphold Establishment truths and power" in Intellectuals, Society and Oligarchy, 1999, p.1. However some intellectuals in the Establishment could be described as dissenters against the Establishment, such as US linguist and writer Noam Chomsky.

In many definitions, intellectuals are sometimes perceived to remain impervious to propaganda, indoctrination, and self-deception. Due to the co-option of intellectuals by the Soviet Union, the Third Reich and by other regimes and ideologies, the question has been raised how and why intellectuals can be vulnerable to indoctrination in spite of their perceived intelligence. One suggested reason for this is the intellectuals' constant criticism of ideological systems in an attempt to improve them, which often leads to seeking superior alternatives in foreign models, due to the fact that foreign models are not seen in action and thus cannot be accurately gauged before implementation.


[edit] Intellectualism
Strictly a doctrine about the possibility of deriving knowledge from reason alone, intellectualism can stand for a general approach emphasising the importance of learning and logical thinking. As a philosophical doctrine it is usually termed Rationalism. Criticism of this attitude, sometimes summed up as Left Bank, caricatures intellectualism's faith in the mind and puts it in opposition to emotion, instinct, and primitivist values in general.

Answer 4

Saying NO to drugs.