”I have read that this and the other person is an intellectual. I too want to be an intellectual,” wrote Mr X to the Mail & Guardian some years ago. ”What do I need to do? Are there specific books that I need to read?” One empathetic reader suggested that he move in certain circles, another highly recommended he include Das Kapital on his reading list. He should have just asked a writer — any writer. Writers, if you must know, consider themselves to be, at worst, incidental intellectuals, cleverly appropriating an identity not necessarily their own, just because both, at least superficially, operate in similar spaces and write. I do find it odd, however, that anyone would desire such wayward ordination. The title of academic or scientist, writer, poet or book collector, sure. But an intellectual?
All communists and black consciousness proponents consider themselves intellectuals. It simply wouldn’t feel right if the average capitalist tagged himself as such. One has to be at least a little socially disgruntled to qualify. It works best if one has deep-seated issues, ideally traced back to one’s childhood, and is appreciative of Freud’s efforts. What sort of intellectual cannot articulately deconstruct their childhood? Do not toy with the idea of forgiving your mother of father completely, though, as that would likely nullify the required feelings of discontent and the ensuing creativity.
An intellectual, one who supposedly offers original hypotheses or a canon of work on various matters, has to be accurate or vindicated by time. Too many intellectuals have just been too wrong for too long. So it is that they seek corporate careers by the tail of staid thoughts. Many are sycophants of previously established dictum and have made no significant contribution towards its development, as Engels did on Marx for instance. Steve Bantu Biko must be heaving in his grave. ”African renaissance” proponents consider themselves intellectuals, as do Afrikaner theologians. People with lifelong allergies and environmental phobias could make the leap. A great entry-level confidence booster is to look like a beaded granola bar — women should wear very long skirts and avoid lipstick, and men should appear as unkissable as Fidel Castro or Yasser Arafat.
Putting my bookshelf in order, carefully distinguishing between New Age self-help books and ”proper” literature, I struggled with allocating Paolo Coelho. I like him, so he made it to my top shelf, where he couldn’t be pinched by the bothersome borrowers of other people’s books, the ones who never return them. Damn the unrepentant book thief. I discovered a monumental tear-jerking theft when looking for something more explicit, seeking to help a desolate friend, and couldn’t find the successfully restrained biography of a French nymphomaniac, The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
Millet, as Mae West attested for herself, lost her reputation young and never missed it. All books on sex are intellectual. Proudly, I managed to hang on to The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency following a visit by my cousin. Basically, the character, Mma Ramotswe, does for a living what most women do for free: spying. Cool chick, that, and a smart bloke for penning it. I still prefer the thoroughly self-indulgent 20th-century writers who weren’t trying to help one with anything per se, nor looking to ”put women on the map” as the younger extroverts state, even before their first book review. My cynicism may relate to basic envy or from a sense of caution best described by West, who said her life was an open book — all too often at the wrong page. Women make for natural intellectuals.
Ask any intellectual: making a living from one’s writing can be harrowingly discouraging when not utterly demeaning. To write a best-selling adults’ book in South Africa one has to appeal to the pockets of only 5 000 people and wait up to a year for one’s paltry 10% royalty fee. Advances are generally unheard of. To top that, book publishers now strongly suggest one walk through their door with a sponsor in tow. Writing has to happen somewhere in between sealing deals, fulfilling requirements for university tenure, reviewing others’ self-flagellating novels or ghostwriting self-help books for a living. No wonder there is a dearth of intellectualism. Long live intellectuals, Mr X.