Intellectualism in the time of Thuggery

Often intellectuals find their intellect completely superfluous in face of angry, stupid people. This is most commonly faced by users of public transport, e.g. trains, in the form of people talking loudly on phones or insisting upon partaking of dinner at midnight. Logic falls on deaf ears, and persistent arguments increases the probability of being flung out of the moving public transport, casting an abrupt and irreclaimable shadow upon, what could have been, a shining intellect. This aspect has been touched upon in the Panchatantram:

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Hubris and the Seeker

A wise friend once remarked, “When a colleague rests his / her rear on a seat of power the effect is felt in his/her brain. He / she, notwithstanding their training as academics, then confuse a combination of luck and sycophancy, and perhaps a dash of hardwork, with divine right. This right they then exercise, with hubris, in all sorts of wrong ways.”

Buried in that statement there is the recognition that academics like to administer. It being easier to tell others how to resolve their problems than solve their own.

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