Symbolic production and power : intellectuals as a class

Bibliogr. s. 62

Intellectuals have built an extremely edifying image of themselves: that of a pure and disinterested elite, which seeks solely the Truth and the Good. Presenting themselves as members of a "contemplative class", they have obscured the political role that they played in the class wars that accompanied the dramatic formation and development of Modernity. In reality, the intelligentsia constitutes a social class, with its specific political and economic interests, and like any other class, it aspires to power. In order to achieve this purpose, in different historical phases, the intelligentsia has set itself above other social classes.