Intellectualism, loneliness, leadership and Aliya…

There is a not inconsiderable assumption that the thought represented by the intellectual must always be in conflict with the society's general beliefs and that, for this reason, he must always be alone. While this assumption works as a normative judgment about the role of the intellectual, it also creates an expectation about the intellectual.

Under this assumption, the intellectual who is expected to be odd and marginal is, interestingly, in fact pushed into a communal relationship whose behavior has been determined in advance. For this reason, always being an exile and always being marginal in society has become almost a norm in modern society. But this norm has also easily become a field of exploitation for an attitude that is entirely irresponsible toward, indifferent to, and wholly alien to the cultural values of one's society.

Yet marginality or isolation is not a condition that the intellectual himself aspires to and that is indispensable. Moreover, marginality is something that can arise as a result of an objection to the general course of society and of the reflex the society gives to this objection, and it generally has nothing to do with a marginality stemming from indifference and irresponsibility.

Still, there can be many reasons for the common marginal quality of the common intellectual type in modern times. A kind of snobbery produced by an enlightenment-minded arrogance toward society has represented a marginality that grows unlikable the more it belittles society in the name of enlightenment, and that can never be reconciled with the society's fundamental values.

A position that produces for itself privileges above society, with self-appointed ranks based on certain labels (such as shares in symbolic or cultural capital, educational or society affiliations), although it does not possess a superiority arising from having receivers truly more sensitive to the truth.

This position is of the kind that can lose value as it is shared by too many people. Therefore, there is no mission of conveying to others the truth witnessed from this position, or rather the knowledge produced and shared. This attitude alone shows that the marginality of intellectuality points, in many cases, not to the authenticity of a claim to truth but to a concern for maximizing a symbolic, cultural and even economic profit.

Still, a truth that is noticed, witnessed and sensed, even if conveyed to people, may not receive general acceptance, may arouse an antipathy in society, may put the person who conveys it to great trouble, and may leave him alone in his claim to truth. It may bring great hardship.

The intellectual, of course, does not have a mission to approve everything his own society or community says, or to produce a theory, justification or thought suited to what it does. (Isn't it interesting enough that, with regard to the intellectual who takes on this mission, a jargon of authenticity, taking its origin from common sense, comes into play automatically? Otherwise, what definite universal criterion can we speak of regarding the genuine intellectual?)

By contrast, society generally expects from its intellectual an idea or practice that conforms to its own tradition, or at least does not clash sharply with it. The work of an intellectual who has grown up within the tradition of his own society and is charged with the mission of reproducer of his own tradition can be very painful even when it concerns updating the tradition.

Here a historical difference emerges between the attitude of comfort-loving community intellectuals, who leave in place everything they find, even if they know better, and those who do not shrink from undertaking necessary renovations even if it costs everyone's comfort. It is precisely with this difference that intellectuals, in the periods they lived in, may indeed remain marginal, exiled and foreign, in Edward Said's typology. Moreover, the commonly recurring tragedy of the intellectual is that, usually after his death, at the time he is understood or appreciated, the context of what he said has been lost.

Undoubtedly there are also intellectuals who were appreciated in their own time, whose words were listened to, however change-minded and however comfort-disturbing they were, who found their community, who formed a community. In this case we need to see that the typology of the intellectual as a marginal, an exile and a stranger is not exclusive.

Today there are reasons, not always counted in favor of the truth, for the depiction of the intellectual with this kind of marginality or exile. The idea that the intellectual must always think against the masses leaves no place for the intellectual's mission of leadership, and by feeding even further the intellectual's elitist arrogance that belittles the masses, it in any case has the effect of leaving no possibility for such a mission.

In this way, intellectuality increasingly ceases to be an ascent away from the cheap interests of the masses because it has come closer to the truth concerning reason, thought or political stance, and turns into an elitist culture that merely provides, supports and sustains distance from the masses.

Because this elitist culture possesses more of the cultural capital in society thanks to economic and political positions, this foreignness increasingly becomes an instrument of a systematic belittling that produces nothing but gloom upon society.

Moreover, the manner in which this same cultural capital is, by its nature, appropriated and reproduced also gives rise to a grouping that requires a certain class belonging. Even in this respect, the loneliness of intellectuality begins to point, through a cultural coding, to another communal bond.

In sum, of course there is no deed that guarantees that this communal bond is closer to the truth than the values of the society one lives in. And again of course, cases in which a good intellectual has led successfully are very rare.

Without doubt, as one of these rarities, we commemorate Alija Izetbegović on the anniversary of his death with mercy and gratitude. Would it be fitting to add the following to Dino Merlin's famous song "Aliya, if it weren't for you"?

"Aliya, if it weren't for you, we would not have seen in this world the example of the philosopher-king that even Plato spoke of but could not achieve"