Intellectuals have a duty to inspire others
THE TERM “intellectual” is as elusive as it is notorious. Like beauty, it has no definition. You know beauty when you see it. You know intellectual work when you see it. So, any attempt at defining who or what intellectualism is, is an act in futility.
Scholars such as Thandika Mkandawire regard intellectual work as “quintessentially the labour of the mind and soul”. But the question arises: “labour of the mind and soul” – to what end?
Miriam Makeba and Oliver Mtukudzi are two artists not necessarily identified as “intellectuals” but whose work and art had global reach and political influence and who both “spoke truth to power”.
With his painting The Spear, artist Brett Murray provided a critique of the president and started a national debate.
The form and content of intellectual work changes all the time. There are many ways of looking at intellectualism and its utility in society. The reference to society is deliberate, so that we can challenge at once the misleading thought that ideas exist in a vacuum. Our being, our sense of being and human existence and struggles happen in a given social context.
Social reality is shaped by human agency and powerful forces whose interests may not always coincide with the human right to life, freedom and happiness. That is why some people may be more concerned about the “black condition” than others. But it is also possible that consciousness exercises its influence to undermine one’s class position and interests; what others call “class suicide”.
Most would agree that the right to life, the right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness are some of the basic unalienable fundamental human rights. However, human history is littered with both freedom and oppression. Not only should we proclaim human rights, we should realise them in reality, or struggle to realise them.
Arguably, ideas developed through the evolution of culture and, in turn, influence human behaviour in relation to nature and social relations. All human achievements and struggles speak to the need to always expand freedom. Intellectuals of all hues, be they artists, musicians, researchers, academics, teachers, lay preachers, or philosophers, have a duty to ensure that whatever questions they ask, whatever answers they propose, humanity is able to advance onto a higher form of existence in areas such as sci- ence, technology, social relations. Freedom means exactly that: the ability to achieve progress and direct your destiny.
At the centre of serious intellectual work should be the ever present question: How do we improve the human condition?
What then should be the role of intellectuals in society? Intellectuals have to locate themselves in terms of their responsibility towards social justice and how they relate to power. They must always side with social justice, freedom, equality and fairness. But for anyone to be free, one must first realise they are unfree.
Paulo Freire’s dialogical approach to learning is instructive, as is his humanisation proposition which emphasises that nothing is more important than life.
To restore the human dignity of the oppressed in society is the most progressive thing to do in the teaching and learning process. Mental oppression is also another area that needs freedom.
When we talk about the need for intellectuals to question power, we are talking about all forms of power, starting with the state and related institutions, private capital, the media, civil society, as well as political parties. The tendency by some in South Africa is to concentrate on the dominant governing party and neglect to hold other forms of power accountable. Others neglect the relationships that exist between various forms of power.
In the end, we know that human beings have the ability to negotiate and expand their freedom and achieve progress.
Intellectuals have a duty to inspire people to be their own liberators. David Maimela is a researcher in Political Economy at the Mapungubwe Institute (Mistra). Tonight, a round table will be hosted by Mistra and Liliesleaf at Liliesleaf Farm on the role of intellectuals in the state-society nexus.
See www.mistra.org.za for more