Vai Ouvir um Intelectual? Leve o Chicote

O Reino Unido está repleto de intelectuais de primeira grandeza, mas os repudia. A França, pelo contrário, está cheia de picaretas, ignorantes e boçais que são idolatrados pelo público. Como explicar esse paradoxo? Part of the problem is that our stereotypical image of the public intellectual is a continental one – and largely embodied by Jean-Paul Sartre and his long-time accomplice, Simone de Beauvoir. The fact that (as we discovered after their deaths) they were devious, manipulative, hypocritical and – in Sartre's case at least – ludicrously credulous about authoritarian regimes has tarnished their lustre somewhat.