Thanks for this article, Joshua. I would argue that in an authoritarian society, intellectual curiosity disqualifies a person from joining or remaining within the professional-managerial class, because that curiosity is considered at least problematic, if not dangerous.
I believe the essential requirement for joining that class is a willingness to work within the system, even if that work is to actively dismantle the system. For example we have people working in maternity hospitals arguing that men can breastfeed babies, while drawing a good salary for doing so. If they were genuine intellectuals, they wouldn't have so much confidence in dogmatic, counterfactual claims. Their curiosity would require them to ask "Is that really true?"
Thanks for this article, Joshua. I would argue that in an authoritarian society, intellectual curiosity disqualifies a person from joining or remaining within the professional-managerial class, because that curiosity is considered at least problematic, if not dangerous.
I believe the essential requirement for joining that class is a willingness to work within the system, even if that work is to actively dismantle the system. For example we have people working in maternity hospitals arguing that men can breastfeed babies, while drawing a good salary for doing so. If they were genuine intellectuals, they wouldn't have so much confidence in dogmatic, counterfactual claims. Their curiosity would require them to ask "Is that really true?"