If I should ever call myself an intellectual, may the Earth swallow me up!

I have never been comfortable with the idea of being an intellectual (as opposed to being intellectual; the latter is, in my mind, synonymous with cerebral, to which I confess my guilt), predominantly because I associate the word with the concept of the Ivory Tower--isolated and inexperienced in the realities of the world, blind to one's own short-comings. Yet, from time to time, I have to wonder if being an intellectual is a thing to be avoided, and my discomfort the product of my middle-class origins; a prejudice that I indulge solely for appearances sake.

I find the following from John C. Wright to be piercing in its clarity:

A central conceit of any intellectual condescension toward the lives and philosophies of the world is that the intellectual alone is clear-eyed enough to see the falsehoods that have deceived the common man. An intellectual is defined by this one characteristic: he is a man who thinks he is smarter than all his neighbors, instructors, and forefathers, and sees through all their sacred beliefs as contemptible falsehoods. The leitmotif of all intellectualism is contempt.

Contempt--a function of pride. Pride is the most dangerous sin of all--for it most readily leads to the Fall.

No wonder Socrates spurned praise, and admitted to knowing only that he was an ignorant man--it was a far safer course for his soul.