In primitive societies there are no Intellectual leaders---there are only Witch Doctors.
A grand, sweeping statement with no foundation in fact. My study of relatively "primitive" cultures indicates that there are just as many "intellectuals" and other talents in these communities.
Any social network (including just one family) can be primitive, or, it can be advanced.
By what standard?
By the practical standard of a life well-lived: Prosperity, health, education and improvement.
The chief benefit to bonding with a group to form a society is the multiplying of individual strengths to magnify outcome of application.
The purpose of any group is a measure of its philosophy. The leadership is key.
A primitive philosophy cannot produce education, wealth, health and morality. It can only produce servants, vassals and believers who are kept in a rut of faith in their leaders.
A dysfunctional family is a primitive society just as a dysfunctional nation is primitive.
The mean of well-being is the barometer of success.
A nation, society or family is the totality of the group and not just the highest 1 or 2%.
The Witch-Doctor is the embodiment of leadership by appeal to emotion and ritual. The Witch Doctor uses superstition, fear and an appeal to obedience to control the group dynamic and suck out a living by promising more than he can deliver.
A genuine intellectual applies workable philosophical strategies and improves life as a result of what they know.
I'd like to see you work up a more robust description of a "genuine" intellectual. Workable by what definition? Could an intellectual specialize, for instance, on an obscure branch of philosophy, with little practical application, and still be "genuine"?
A genuine anything matches its identity to its description.
A person who knows all the best information and yet lives contrary to its benefit is not a genuine intellectual. They are a second-hander.
What is a second-hander? A person who lives off the opinions of others rather than their own achievements.
A Jehovah's Witness must, often, live a double life pretending to be what the Watchtower tells them they must be. They know their own life is a mess--but, as long as they can live the lie convincingly--their success comes to them second-hand. Phoney reflected opinion they are in a brotherhood of genuine Christians, a paradise on Earth and ark of salvation. Their "accurate knowledge" isn't genuine intellectuality, it is primitive because they must function with the approval of their Witch Doctor.
Your personal philosophy is your software program that runs all your applications. For a philosophy to benefit you it must be workable: it must have practical applications in your daily life. You must come out ahead. You must prosper. Otherwise, your strategy is wrong.
Must a genuine intellectual necessarily improve life based on their new learning? Or is it enough to study and to leave the application to others? Is a genuine intellectual obliged to share what they know?
A genuine intellectual must live their own life, possess their own identity, create their own prosperity and succeed at proving their own philosophy is practical, workable and beneficial.
People who study and know things and live a life that is a crumbling, pathetic, mess are not genuine anythings but genuine second-handers. Why? They seek to put on a false front of intellectuality so they can puff up their self-image with OPINION rather than substance.
The Anointed are second-handers. The Governing Body are second-handers. Their claim to fame is the OPINION of others. Nothing intrinsic about them is real. Jehovah's Witnesses as a group are second-handers as they bask in the approval of their elders and pretend to fit the idealized descriptions of what they must be in the Watchtower.
An individual is only individual by becoming the living, breathing embodiment of their own philosophy.
Your LIFE is the proof of your philosophy.
Or, your life is the DISproof of your philosophy, intellect and genuineness.
