Intellectualism
One of the many quite serious illnesses that affects modern man is intellectualism. The same things can be said about this evil as about other diseases: that it attacks a certain type of people, under certain conditions, and usually appears at a certain age; the cause is unknown, and the medications used in the process are undergoing testing, with alternating successes and failures.
As always, the illness begins with the decay of a part of the body. When the mind starts functioning without order and meaning, when ideas become obsessive and accumulate, leaving no space for other aspects of life, the disturbed mind suffers from intellectualism. What was once a healthy exercise in more or less developed mental abilities turns into an uncontrollable desire to gather more and more data, more and more numbers, to find a cause – whatever it may be – that is inexplicable, to dwell on the incomprehensible, to scorn anything that does not pass through the sieve of intellect.
Such a sick person is deformed. “Gl “ava” is growing disproportionately, while all other aspects are simultaneously shrinking: feelings are cooling down, faith is extinguishing, willpower is weakening, the body is becoming numb. Anything that cannot be rationalized does not deserve to be alive.
We speak about this strange and terrible illness because more and more people are affected by it, and unfortunately, philosophy is often blamed as one of its causes. In this context, philosophy is imagined as an intellectual exercise in which all kinds of concepts, from concrete to abstract, are combined, and where words hold much greater value than the concept itself. The preferred way of expression for the intellectually trapped individual is an incomprehensible, extremely complicated language, in most cases devoid of meaning, but very impactful, sonorous, and categorical to the extent that it prevents any response or desire for further explanations.
Due to all of the above and the alarming increase of such an epidemic, we wish to once again emphasize the authentic value of philosophy as a comprehensive activity that seeks to Developing an authentic individual in all their expressive capacities.
Thinking and speaking cannot be discarded, on the contrary, they must be connected with appropriate action and feeling. Intellectual abilities are useful if they provide a good means for harmonizing the human being. The body must receive appropriate attention, feelings should be nurtured with the same care as ideas, and the will should be driven towards concrete achievement of noble aspirations.
The mentioned illness, therefore, stems from ignorance, regardless of how much the mind is used. And the most effective antidote is wisdom, in which all human powers unite to achieve the full expression of each of them.