what is a "culturally responsible intellectual" — 3017amen

This is an appropriate question and an important one. A culturally responsible intellectual is an intellectual that uses their mind, not merely to advance themselves in culture, but to impact culture in the direction of social quality for the broadest possible amount of people. Intellectual responsibility is not a matter of being good at playing philosophical games, it's largely a matter of focus, courage and concern for the well being of the species.

One of the most frightening things about class awareness is how many intellectuals don't have it in any shape or form. This essentially renders them advocates of the oppression contained in their own cultures, though they view their conformity as intelligence or attunement with reality. No doubt, conformity is not negative in itself, but the possibility of such a determination proves that one is already, to some extent, outside it. The world doesn't need more philosophers or academics, it needs more culturally responsible intellectuals.

So the social price of non-conformity is that you are free to do anything you want, so long as it doesn't break that constraint of collectivity. At worst, society is going to be indifferent to your difference. — apokrisis

With all due respect, this merely tells me that you have not thought very deeply about social resistance and its ramifications. You are probably an American, which means you are part of a young political system, but most of all, you manifest a complete ignorance of any form of class awareness in your consciousness. This is a problem if you are indeed striving to be an intellectual. It literally means you cannot have (make contact) with adult conversations, it means you live in a kind of cultural Matrix without any distinction... perhaps worst of all, it renders you the ignorant victim of idealism.

I will not debate this with you because I have more important things to do with my time, but what I will do is discuss Lukács, History and Class Consciousness, if you are serious. (That means you need to read the book).

I am saying the reality of these things cannot be hammered into the limited confines of scientific knowledge. Science can not explain these things so we have to find a better way of coming to terms with them. — EnPassant

Allow me to take a bit of a different approach here. You strike me as honest and sincere, at least as much as any of us can lay claim to it, and I respect this. It's truly a hard truth that, not only are we contingent creatures, but that our so-called "higher forms" are also contingent. Can you see that it frightens us and depresses us to realize they are not "higher," that they are not "eternal," that they do not correspond to any transcendent realm? It is important to see this because it's the psychological motivation behind our drive to prove their transcendence, and this motivation stops us from comprehending reality. But we must comprehend it, we must learn the courage to look its terror in the eyes and resist it! This is the only way to stop manufacturing delusions and start cultivating quality. Run toward the negative, learn to go through it, that it is the secret to transforming thought into a great power!

We can either embrace something like idealism (or positive change) or succumb to something like cynicism (or stagnation). — Outlander

Embrace idealism or cynicism? I think not. Resistance is a matter of dialectical intelligence, it is not, a matter of succumbing to the false authority of Aristotelian categories. All quality is dialectical!

The problem with professional intellectuals is that they get paid. — Hippyhead

This must certainly factor into the equation. Non-conformity nearly always seems to come at a social price. The thinking subject is really only making progress at the point where he becomes aware of the social conditions that determine and undermine his quality. This is the awareness that really matters.

Art is really there. So is music, religion, consciousness. — EnPassant

I agree, these things do exist. You ask, what do they mean? This is a strange question, because you seem to be assuming some extra-dimension to which they correspond? They proceed from man and will die with man.

Can you restate your question? — EnPassant

I think it was meant to be rhetorical. I mean, you are free to prove the existence of "higher things," if you can? I'm all ears.

It is naive to think that the science of the primitive could answer questions concerning higher things — EnPassant

Did you just assert the general existence of "higher things?" Well this is certainly proof of a strong, Primate imagination.

This are some important points here. I like the direction of your thinking.

It is not philosophical. — A Seagull

Strange that one would see this as an objection. My only concern is what takes place in terms of life and its concretion, I could care less about the abstract world of forms -- that is, until idealism starts distorting reality. Then it is necessary to intercede on behalf of intelligence.

Such general wisdom as "there are terrible, horrible, no good, very bad people" I can easily do without. — SophistiCat

Translation: where reality is negative there I bury my head in the sand.

If you don't identify the target of your invective, it loses whatever bite you think it has. — SophistiCat

This is false. Such a criteria will rob you of much general wisdom.

yet you use similar objective reasoning — 3017amen

So say you. You are of course, free to explain why reasoning has to be "objective" in order to have value? This is not my assumption.

So I would say non-sequite this... how do you reconcile your paradox? — 3017amen

The only paradox here is the one you have created with your loaded premises. This line of reasoning is a waste of time.

In order to make math intelligible one has to use other languages besides math.

The irony and/or paradox for some (atheists, etc.) is that they rely on objective reasoning, yet deny the significant implications of Platonism/mathematical truth's. — 3017amen

This is a non-sequitur. "rely on objective reasoning" is your own confusion, false premise. Clearly you have an agenda bent in the direction of some form of supernatural idealism. Plato's desire for a spiritual world is not significant, it is psychologically common and primitive. Bottom line is that human's, in general, cannot handle the contingent nature of reality. I challenge you to be a serious thinker and forgo the temptation to retreat into the comfort of idealism.

True enough, but mathematical symbols are not the only thing that accounts for the cyber world and computers, other symbolic structures (and social structures) are involved. Mathematicians have a convenient way of forgetting this.

Humans assume the world is mathematical, I think, for two reasons. 1) Because math is powerful in terms of approximation and 2) because it makes them feel like reality is full of order and that it can be controlled. It always gives me a laugh when I meet a mathematical supernaturalist. They just can't handle the fact that numbers are simply useful symbols and concepts. They want more, they want to turn math into a kind of God. Pity one always has to use another language to make math intelligible.

I just got done attempting to discuss something very close to this thread post with a Christian author. Surprise surprise, trained at the University of Notre Dame, the distinguished fella ran away. He would not shoulder his burden of proof, namely because he sensed where it might lead, and he wanted to keep hold of his happy idea of God. When Marco says, "The existence of God naturally explains all these and gives a purpose to existence." He has equivocated on the word "explains." Therefore, I advise all serious thinkers to depart from this conversation and move onto things that matter. If the complaint is that science or physics fails to explain, then one's idea of God (posited as explanation) must do, in exactly the same way, what science and physics failed to do. If this is not the case then one has equivocated on the term. So much more can be said. In my humble opinion this is not a serious conversation.

I would like to save intelligent young people some time. You can forgo Heidegger, he was essentially something very strange (a philosophical mystic?). Can't say that I ever encountered this before him. If it's an aesthetic intellectualism you're after, by all means dig in and enjoy yourself, but I do not advise it for those who are trying to go somewhere with thought. Read Adorno or anyone else from the early Frankfurt School, but leave Heidegger to the mystics. (Also, Adorno has two books on Heidegger, one is a set of lectures).

This post strikes me as ignorance on a whole other level. Clearly the author of this thread has never studied, even the most introductory texts on sociology (or psychology for that matter). The presumption that wealth is simply a matter of will power is an error left over from the dark ages. Human beings are part of complex social systems and their ability to thrive in those systems, depends far more on the functions of the system, than it does the individual component. Further, all that makes up an individual proceeds from the system into which the individual is born. The downright vicious logic of this post implies that communities of poverty are responsible for their plight. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is exactly how privilege asserts itself in the world: by fallaciously normalizing its advantages.

The question of the "justification" of property is interesting. However, a distinction is in order, private property is not a problem per se, it is a very specific kind of private ownership which constitutes a social problem. The idea of property, in concrete terms, is a strategy to monopolize power. Individuals require space to produce all forms of qualitative existence. To hoard these free spaces (as no libertarian can claim to have engineered them) in the name of idealism is a form of tyranny and control over the species. The question is not where does the power lie, but how does social control work? This is the direction a concerned thinker must go. The justification of private property is first of all an act of social indoctrination and social deprivation. What one thinks of slavery, for example, depends on the cultural mechanisms that have been used to frame it.