How to Become an Intellectual

There’s an interesting piece on Ernest Hemingway on Slate, worthy reading for anyone who wants a glimpse at the development of arguably the 20th century’s most famous novelist (you could almost title it “Portrait of the Artist as a Neurotic Young Man”). Nathan Heller does a fine job of peeling back the layers of Papa’s projected machismo to reveal the vulnerability within.

Time inevitably strips intellectual giants to their public essence: a few memorable books, perhaps, or merely a handful of unforgettable lines. The longer the years between them and us, the easier to forget that their great works came only at the expense of titanic struggle and, often, messy heartbreak. But they were human, once, with their own share of mistakes and regret.

Of course, you could also disregard all that and simply choose to embrace the legend, as HBO’s new film seems to do in Hemingway’s case:

“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”

– Leonardo da Vinci, arguably the world’s most famous polymath, painter of Mona Lisa’s smile, peerless doodler, and conceptualizer of both the helicopter and the tank centuries before their time.

A rather excellent animated video that mixes a generous helping of Hunter S. Thompson with an equally heavy spoonful of Franz Kafka. (And yes, it’s ultimately an ad. But it’s an ad for books – specifically, online bookseller Good Books.)

The University of Chicago Magazine’s March/April issue features some choice excerpts from three chapters/maxims: cultivating a few choice eccentricities (Maxim 3), quoting Shakespeare sparingly (Maxim 16), and the best places to pick up an intellectual date (Maxim 61). It also features a nifty image of a lobster, in reference to the French essayist and poet Gérard de Nerval walking around town with a pet lobster on a leash (some eccentricities have the side benefit of also being delicious).

If you want your intellectualism a little bit early (i.e., by this weekend), Amazon.com has apparently started shipping the book this week.

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”

– Oscar Wilde, who always did have a way with words.

How to Become an Intellectual also has a Facebook page and a Google+ page, complete with excerpts, rare images of some of history’s most famous thinkers, and other fun stuff.

   “A hyena that wrote poetry in tombs.”

   – German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche lets  everyone know his true feelings about Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

There’s one heartwarming thing about being a member of the intelligentsia: when the revolution comes, you’re always one of the first ones up against the wall. I know that doesn’t sound fantastic on the surface, but it’s actually a complement of sorts, an acknowledgment that a big brain, buzzing with information and drawing its own conclusions, is a powerful thing—perhaps the most powerful thing on this little rock we call home.

What is an intellectual? In rough brushstroke, someone who digests incredible amounts of information, runs it through those three pounds of organic computer stuffed inside their skull, and outputs new thoughts and theories that (with a little bit of luck) change the world, or at least affect how others think and act. An intellectual can be a writer, scientist, artist, engineer, programmer, musician, filmmaker, or academic: in short, anyone who produces some product of his or her mind.

But Intellectuals (or those who aspire to be) sometimes fall into the trap of embracing a tired old stereotype—a caricature, if you will, that results in the world at large thinking of “intellectual” as being roughly equivalent to “elitist,” “pompous,” and “pretentious.” Yet there’s far more to being an intellectual than writing obfuscatory articles for obscure journals and calling one’s detractors inflammatory names. Other qualities and characteristics—call them “maxims,” because that sounds suitably impressive—define the intellectual. This book explores many of them.

How to Become an Intellectual is at once a how-to manual and a glib walk through several thousand years of science and culture, complete with cameo appearances by everyone from Plato and Socrates to Freud and Marie Curie.

Available April 2012 in bookstores, as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.