The Epidemic of Pseudo-Intellectualism Has Come to a Head

A concise analysis of the spread of pseudo-intellectualism in our modern era in which the Internet connects the world together.

In the wake of the proliferation of self-development podcasts and self-help books, many have illegally legitimized their right to play the role of “intellectuals”. A dose of overconfidence, combined with a good-looking appearance and a reputation for powerful oratory, is the ingredient that we need to cosplay as intellectuals. We shall not forget that we all need a free platform on which we put our ostensibly wise words and pieces of unsolicited advice out into the world. An empty online platform is not enough as we also require a gullible audience who believes in every word we utter and action we take. Thus, we guarantee that our likelihood of stealing the title “ intellectuals” is disproportionately high. This means that we can easily attain our goals of earning more monetary gains, being catapulted into the spotlight of fame, and enjoying a sense of authority.

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Day after day, our influence in the virtual and real worlds becomes gradually so formidable and unparalleled that our followers and subscribers cannot help but listen to us and be indoctrinated with our implicit messages, which are mostly sugar-coated to hide our true purposes. Spending years filming podcasts and allegedly providing people with wisdom and enlightenment is the secret to winning the trust of credulous people, who are accused of misplacing their trust and taking what untrustworthy public figures and social media influencers do and say at face value. As a result, those who arbitrarily use and abuse the term “ intellectualism” can send subliminal messages to the virtual masses and enslave their minds to pull the wool over their eyes. The equation is done: a pseudo-intellectual plus pushovers equals a high social status and others' compliance. Pseudo-intellectualism is a common type of deception that leads our society to spiral downward morally and intellectually, for it causes us to compromise our critical thinking skills and downplay the importance of our individual agency. But before diving deep into how pseudo-intellectualism has invaded our lives in the first place, we have to break down the meaning of the compound word “pseudo-intellectualism.”

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What is the meaning of pseudo-intellectualism?

According to Wikipedia,” Pseudo- (from Greek: pseudés 'false') is a prefix in several languages, often to mark something as a fake or insincere version. In English, the prefix is used on both nouns and adjectives”.
“Intellectualism is the mental perspective that emphasizes the use, development, and exercise of the intellect and is identified with the life of the mind of the intellectuals.

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Between yesterday's respectability of intellectuals and today's acceptability of pseudo-intellectuals

To begin with, our restricted freedom to use social media platforms and our ability to gain followers and mobilize the public by bringing up controversial topics and sharing ostensibly useful content give birth to the unwelcome phenomenon of pseudo-intellectualism (pretending to have a high level of intellectuality that is superior to the average). Nowadays, there is no need to bribe someone in a higher position to allow your voice to be heard by giving you a golden opportunity to appear on a magazine cover, write a column in a well-known newspaper, or even present in a TV show. It was nigh impossible in the past to convince the public that you were an intellectual, for you would have to show your credentials and qualifications to be able to provide your incredulous audience with valuable insights and double-checked facts. It is worth mentioning that the facts and pieces of information that you would spread would be both correct and digestible, meaning you had no interest in using unnecessarily complex language and tons of jargon to mislead the public whenever you spoke.

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In the past, the shrewdness and perspicacity, not to mention wisdom, integrated into the well-developed personality of intellectuals prohibited them from looking at laypeople through a condescending lens. They were fully aware of the value of their knowledge that could revolutionize their community and enlighten the public. Yet, they would respect the limited depth and width of their knowledge, so they used to share what they were sure of. This specific respect, leading to humility, fueled their humble attitudes towards their mistakes and their clear acknowledgment of their ignorance of what would fall outside their purview. This explained why people would hold these intellectuals in high regard; because of their indispensable contribution to the common good. People would not try to better themselves up to intellectuals or put them on a pedestal under the pretext that the latter must be all-knowing. Of course, it is utterly unrealistic to claim that these intelligently gifted people would not pursue financial stability when they blessed people with their magnum opus. This is because being compensated for your work is one of the essential reasons for work. What also would characterize intellectuals in the past was their refusal to allure their loyal people into buying a certain product or signing up for a service. Things looked more honest and meaningful decades, if not centuries, ago.

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Pseudo-intellectualism has invaded our lives

Now, let me move to the fundamental point of my essay, that is, pseudo-intellectualism. By reflecting on the mainstream media and social media, we can easily infer that playing the role of an intellectual becomes effortless and almost free of charge. Anyone who can put their hands on a camera/phone and have access to the internet, can build a community, get dressed like a smart person, and publish misinformation and misleading facts under the pretext of “sharing experiences with others” and “ democratizing the very ability to get access to knowledge”.

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Needless to say, behind their innocent faces, thick-framed spectacles, and articulate speech lies their shady reputation and malignant intentions_harmful interior motives. You notice that pseudo-intellectuals try to come across as interdisciplinary scholars who know everything about different subjects and disciplines, along with the connections between them. Overconfidence is clear in their power to master the art of eye contact and body language: standing straight with their shoulders back, having a clear voice, looking people in the eyes, putting on an innocent smile, being in control of a sudden desire to fidget, and walking at a moderate pace. Their fabricated appearance fools people into believing that these wannabe intellectuals are genuinely talented and worthy of the high position they occupy.

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Moreover, pseudo-intellectuals tend to mislead the public with false facts, ahistorical accounts of certain past events, or unscientific theories. All of which may result in people being deceived and deprived of their legitimate right to be equipped with authentic facts. Unfortunately, we notice that the public may not be educated well enough to distinguish between revered intellectuals and fake ones, and this increases the chances of falling prey to those who perform the deception and obfuscation and obscuration of real facts. Hence, it is hard to catch pseudo-intellectuals red-handed and hold them accountable: their cosplaying as respectable intellectuals makes them untouchable public figures and makes their words more believable. Here comes our duty to call forth our critical thinking skills and our intuition to help us filter invented facts out and check those of potential correctness.

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Unless we comprehend the potential reasons that motivate people to get involved in the crime of pretending to be intellectuals, we will never be able to solve the root of the problem. Some people are well educated and are, to some extent, skilled at public speaking and creative writing, so they shut their conscience down and exploit these two powerful tools to add an aura of importance and authenticity to their existence. The fact that you have expertise in your domain does not qualify you to be “the knower of all knowledge”. It is easier in this day and age to create a new account on one of the social media platforms and upload videos and publish posts about any topic under the Sun. The recipients of this shoddy content are too distracted to focus on the validity and accuracy of the passages they read or the videos they watch. They, to put it clearly, take the bait and become blind to any mistake on the pseudo intellectuals' part. Some people go as far as buying products and services recommended by wannabe intellectuals.

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The trio that motivates people to become pseudo-intellectuals

Three motivators feed some people's desire to disguise themselves as true intellectuals: Authority, popularity, and wealth.

Authority

Adopting the authoritative mindset as a result of feigning entitlement to a high rank in your field or domain is a symptom of the malady of pseudo-intellectualism. The danger of claiming authority in the case of pseudo-intellectuals lies in their propensity to disseminate inaccurate and invalid information, with the guarantee that the public will inevitably believe in everything. It is a series of shameful lies: You malignantly attribute the superpower to know everything to yourself, cultivate a sense of authority as a prize for “ your sea of knowledge”, become popular and admired due to your knowledge and power, feel free to publish any piece of information despite its value or quality, and finally enjoy the public acceptability of your words. Gaining more public support, along with a public consensus on your compatibility, does not reveal your malignancy as much as it exposes the public's credulity. People, more or less, are accustomed to being enslaved by anyone whose personality entails the magic of authoritative power, for they feel that they are too weak to resist any power that transcends theirs and therefore are expected to be obedient. And this common attitude towards people with authority is what feeds, among other things, pseudo-intellectuals. It is as if authority conceals any possibility of making mistakes or getting involved in trouble.

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Popularity

When it comes to popularity, which always goes hand in hand with authority, pseudo-intellectuals over rely on their allegedly clean reputation whenever they put a new bit of information out into the world. Fame and power and knowledge, in some people's infinite wisdom, are nothing but three formidable walls of protection against practices of falsification, misrepresentation, and distortion of certain facts. This is a horrible misconception that hurts the public's sense of rationality and wisdom. Speaking of the public's wisdom, pseudo-intellectuals amass enormous wealth as a result of shoving ostensibly good products and services down the financially unwise public's throats. We shall not forget that some of them shower their audiences with perspectives and insights that may sabotage their lives and plant selective ideas in their minds. Thus, pseudo-intellectuals continue to build their reputation and wealth and public agreeableness at the expense of deceiving and manipulating us. The misplaced respect and admiration, combined with the splendid appearance of pseudo-intellectuals, can lead people to idealize them. The idealization of those who wear the flimsy mask of intellectualism increases their wealth and perfects their prestige.
More often than not, pseudo-intellectuals are found on social media platforms, given how easy it is to create your virtual community and sell people flowery words on the internet. The vast majority of people end up victims of such irresponsible figures, mostly because the amount of time people spend online reduces their attention span and weakens their sense of good judgment and discernment.

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Wealth

Pseudo-intellectuals take advantage of this weakness and push forward with their hidden interests, which leads them to risk becoming fake intellectuals in the first place. Money, fame, and power aside, most of the online pseudo-intellectuals are ready to sell their voices and minds to prestigious political figures in exchange for bucks. We cannot deny the brutal fact that the real owners of social media platforms are, against all odds, the Western political elites and tech tycoons, who decide what should and shouldn't be available for public consumption. It is clear, then, that pseudo-intellectuals are not dangerous only because of their misinformation but also because of their readiness to indoctrinate the public with thoughts that have political undertones. They may nudge people in the direction that is in favour of a certain political entity or agree with an ideological thought passed by a political elite. Since social media users are too busy scrolling down their feeds and are not interested in focusing on the messages delivered by their virtual world, pseudo-intellectuals can effortlessly sell their spiel and yield satisfying outcomes as a result. In addition to misleading the public and offering them incorrect information, pseudo-intellectuals are accused of being the tools that the world's most totalitarian government implements to brainwash people and incentivize them to hyper-focus on themselves and turn a blind eye to the critical global issues because “ individuals” should not try to solve problems or adopt a new mindset that may be outside their boundaries or the traditional Western norms. Some pseudo-intellectuals may implicitly encourage people to vote for a certain political party, stop the public discourse of a sensitive topic from furthering, believe a set of distorted facts, or basically swim with the current.

To be continued…..

With love, Marwa 🌹 ✨