lunalum
Super Senior Member
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2008
- Messages
- 2,706
- MBTI Type
- ZNTP
- Enneagram
- 7w6
- Instinctual Variant
- sp/so
Like OrangeAppled mentioned already, I was always under the impression that a pseudo-intellectual was someone who liked the idea or appearance of intellectual discussion, but really could not care less about the topic in any genuine way. So, someone who discusses some political or philosophical issue just to show to everyone that they are intellectual, not because they are curious or actually care about the topic, is a pseudo-intellectual.
I hope that this is the real definition of it. It concerns me that some people here are instead trying to claim that a person has to be intelligent to be an intellectual, and that a person who isn't that bright but desperately wants to be able to discuss intellectual matters is somehow fake.
I've made this point many times before, and probably will make it many more times: higher-than-average intelligence isn't required for intellectualism. All that is required is an intense interest in intellectual subjects.
For example, it is almost sort of a given for INTPs to be intellectuals of a sort (the thinker, the philosopher...) But where in the type description does it say that they are all amazingly smart? Maybe in some of the descriptions, but the good ones are supposed to be purely about personality, not about ability. It is an unfair thing to have a very intellectual personality but to have to add a "pseudo" to that because of weak reasoning abilities, flawed logic, etc.