6 The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Yousef Miller

The calm before the storm, a fitting saying for what it feels like during the summer of 2022. After the hurricane of unprecedent situations but none the less has happened before, of a deadly pandemic, invasion of Ukraine, Republicans attempt of taking over the government, and growing concerns of China’s rise to power. It is these concerns that led me to Noam Chomsky’s “The responsibility of intellectuals”, feeling as though his concerns had come true but if only, we had addressed his concerns correctly we would have had easier solutions. Although there is much more resources and diverse conversations happening today than in the very social media reaching scale of speech in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s. Although the effective power of people today seems to be more limited. As Noam Chomsky said, “For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us.” (Chomsky, 1967, p. 1). In this essay we will examine some of the questions Chomsky addressed 60 years ago, and specifically look at methods individuals can use to improve our society for a healthy country, and hopefully a healthier world society.

The responsibility of the intellectual is to from conclusions with as much data as possible to explain the difficult nuances that exist in everything and report it as so. Especially in a society were we have the right to freedom of information. Without context a lot of the scenes of the invasion of Ukraine specifically Kiev looks horrifyingly similar to the scenes of the American invasion of Baghdad. Although they are two different circumstances, without the necessary information we would come to same conclusion. There is a lot of similarities of a small nation being invaded by a world power. Would doing the exact thing we condemn one nation and doing to another only show’s a bad example and show us to be hypocrites? If a nation expresses an authority on morality, should they not be held to the standard? Would authority not be questioned if we ourselves are not strict within our own actions? I ask you to ponder what it means to have a responsibility. With having information and a claim of moral authority would we want contributing to what we know as bad actions when we condemn another nation of the same actions.

With these circumstances of same action occurring but with two different moral opinions, the media plays an important role in maintaining outside opinion of America but also educating our people. The media which is seen first as a business first and foremost, at times, it’s also necessary in its role of educating the people. Intellectuals, ones with higher education and or high level of critical thinking, often are the ones managing and reporting the news to many media outlets. The responsibility of these intellectuals managing, and reporting should do so as honestly as possible and critically or are these intellectuals who are being educated by western schools being taught to do something different? If we are being taught to be honest and factually as possible it must certainly lead to foster a healthier society. With reversals in decisions like taking down the breaking news banner on CNN which has barely been removed from any news story since 9/n shows that the direction of negative business practices cannot survive in long run and with positive critical business practices can lead to a healthier successful business but also lead to healthier society without feeling the stress of the news in daily life. We have high profile media personalities like Tucker Carlson saying, “If you’ve been watching the news, you know that Putin is having a border dispute with a nation called Ukraine,” (Post, 2022) downplaying a full-on invasion and war, although on brand with American Ideology very concerning morally. Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson was one of the highest watched correspondences that means his rhetoric is popular and can influence at least some people. I encourage you to think does having high viewership encourage mass opinion change or are most people highly unbiased and self-critical in our society. CNN the other top news organization reporting in 2003, claimed George Bush said the goal of Iraq is to “rid Iraq of weapons mass destruction” (YouTube, CNN, 2003) which is of course necessary to report what the president said. But what was not reported often was the contrary information to President Bush’s statements by retired U.S. General Wesley Clark saying, “the presence of petroleum has sparked great powers’ involvement” (YouTube, People Over Politics, 2013) with no necessary reason to invade Iraq. As well as CIA analyst saying during interrogation Saddam Hussein saying he had no weapons of mass destruction, it’s hard to believe the world’s top intelligence agency had no prior knowledge of weapon abilities to the country they’re invading, or do you think the American intelligence was not accurate?

Either the information the President was given was incorrect or intentionally lying to the public. Either way it is either intellectually failure to give false information or morally dangerous to lie to public and invade a country on false pretenses. General Clark also claimed Department of Defense initial goals were to invade 7 different countries Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Libya, we can see that there could be truth to this as America or other great nations have been involved in these countries and regime changes in the last 20 years. As every situation is different it’s important to look at each issue as such, without giving up the overall context. But so that we do not make baseless decision without full context we must examine each situation. For example, the deployment of troops in Somalia by President Biden in 2022, which is non-combat troops advising local leaders on fighting against al Qaeda linked terrorist group, al Shabab. This action from outside could seem further involvement into African, middle eastern countries specially with the newfound oil in Somalia. The difference is the President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud asked for troops to dispel an aggressive group of terrorists. This was not the case in Iraq and Syria. It is actively important that the media provides the information to accurate show the distinctions so that people can be informed accurately what is justifiable. Unless you think you can accurate judge where to help troops without information on the peoples or their regions desire or without any context on their situation from their perspective.

With the two-party system currently in place we must be careful in messaging and planning as one message can severely sway one person’s opinion to another. The Republican who are a minority party still have majority supreme court votes, and continue to have power in the senate, house, and white house often. This party although filled with many hypocrisies continuously in the party has maintained power simply by effective messaging and tactics. Although the hypocrisy will surely allow the party to disassemble quickly, their other long-term tactics have shown to be successful with the power they maintain today. How they plan their moves and messaging clearly are far ahead as many of their policies continued to get enacted despite having smaller voting base. Having a solid agreement is fundamental, being incorrect is far more detrimental to the American society more than anything. Or do you think that we can have a successful society while being ignorant and stagnant. Imagine a new drug comes out and it turns out to have huge catastrophic effects like giving people cancer. Many would wonder how a drug wasn’t tested enough, how the American government didn’t have enough information to protect its people. Being critical and patient is fundamental, doing so in politics means having a sound argument and having the wisdom to effectively employ the information. For example, saying “My body, My Rights” is a good effective saying and policy, but having the complete opposite view on another scenario that it could also be applied to seems hypocritical. Although it may not be hypocritical too have two different viewpoints on two different scenarios it is when having a slogan be the platform you run on.

The issue with “My body, My Rights” is, it’s your body and your right to choose to have a baby but when it’s your body and you right to have choose medicine it was completely disregarded during Coronavirus vaccines. It is factual true that vaccines help lower deaths and severely help with lower spread. But to not have a choice with what is put into your body is complete hypocritical of the slogan that democrats use for abortions. On the same vein republicans should be wary with being the party of freedom and then being the first to support suppressive voting rights and being anti-abortions. These types of hypocritical messaging will lead to both party’s trust by the people lowering and allowing for essentially two parties who don’t have specific platform other than being the opposite of each other. Having a healthy society requires honesty, effective tactics, and critical thinking which can be done with the resources provided in the western society, free society. It is the duty of intellectuals who are in these top positions to steer everyone around them to a healthier living.

To have a healthier living is a responsibility of an intellect, we know that to have a better world we must focus on ourselves, to help yourself is to save all of humanity. Even the smallest, good decision can be tremendous on changing someone’s life. That is why having self-control in the interest of yourself and a responsibility to yourself You may be wondering how self-control is a responsibility of an intellectual. An intellectual should lead a life based on knowledge, this is wisdom. Think about it, if you indulged on bad habits, would you not indulge in unhealthy thinking? Self-control allows you to accurately judge your strength and weakness and allow yourself to either tip the scale of balance more so in the middle. If you have self-control to work out every day, eat healthier, accurately judge your biases, would that not lead to healthier mentality in choice making every day? “Although more choice is typically assumed to be better than less choice, in principle, sophisticated decision makers can improve their future happiness by voluntarily eliminating options they would otherwise have available in the future.” (Angela Duckworth, Katherine Milkman, David Laibson, 2018, Assc. For Psychological Science) Shown in this study that having self-control, will lead to better decision making, this decision making leads to happier life. I encourage you to think as an intellectual does eliminating bad habits lead to productive healthier mindset. Good habits do not lead ultimately to good decisions, although they allow you more flexibility to determine a good action and choose to make that good action. For example, if you can do pull ups it allows yourself to use your strength to climb a mountain. Not that you cannot climb a mountain without strength, but it allows you more options than someone who has no strength to climb a mountain, this all stems from self-control.

In order to find the true answer within any problem, it requires open-mindedness, I mean are you truly right on every situation? If you are not right in every situation and problem, then you must need to be open minded in why you are wrong and why you thought you were right. If you are not open to why you were wrong, then you must think you are correct unless you are comfortable with being wrong. Being open-minded requires one thing, and that is empathy. To truly find a true solution you must have empathy for yourself to realize everyone makes mistake and you don’t double down on your mistake. Empathy allows for you to be open minded in listening to someone and trying to understand them from any position they are in. If you ignore someone’s comments, are you truly understanding? If someone tells you something, you know is wrong, but they firmly believe to be true are you being open minded? “Modern education is premised strongly on materialistic values. It is vital that when education our children brains that we do not neglect to educate their hearts, a key element of which has to be the nurting of our compassionate nature” (14th Dalia Lama, Twitter, 2019) A recent example of this not being effective is how companies today are effecting the individual lives of Russians in order to denounce the Russian government. The Russian government currently does not care about its people, it has shown multiple times the complete disregard for its own people’s lives, to contribute to the atrocities the Russian government does on its own people by American companies for example not allowing the football team on FIFA only hurts the lives of the players. The Russian government will continue its actions, and the lack of empathy for the individual citizens is a concern as it may be morally inappropriate for an intellectual.

We must educate our intellectuals who are also the ones who will be leading many business practices, and government positions. Education on open-mindedness, empathy, and critical thinking not only on individual level but also in political and business practices. While looking at current politically and business practices and analyzing what I may think those practices will lead too, you may critically analyze the information I provided and maybe understand my conclusion. These practices on individual level will surely lead to societal change although that isn’t always the case the time may be needed when your practice will surely effect positive change if you continue a path of enlightenment and wisdom.

Yousef Miller is from Pasadena, MD and is a Philosophy, Law, and Ethics major looking to develop his understanding of our community.