Intellectuals and cultural trauma

Abstract

As opposed to the intelligentsia, a historically specific group, and the professions, those who perform intellectual labor, the intellectual is here understood as the performance of a social role, one which involves the articulation of ideas communicated to a broad audience. This implies at least two distinct ways of speaking about and studying the intellectual. The first is to look at the way various social actors take on the task of articulating ideas in public discourses. The second is to study how particular persons aspire to the intellectual, a role whose meaning they inherit as part of a tradition which must be interpreted and reinvented. Through an analysis of six assassinations, the article shows how intellectuals can act as carrier groups in what is called a cultural trauma, a public discourse in which the foundations of collective identity are brought up for reflection. The six assassinations are Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the United States, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands and Olof Palme and Anna Lindh in Sweden. The article concludes with reflections on the changing nature and position of the intellectual in contemporary society, especially in the light of the prevalence of the media and the new digital age.