I read this essay with such pleasure, chuckling—I hope appropriately—at clever phrases that reveal genuine introspective insight, and mainly identifying with your conflicted response to the elitist or misanthropic expressions that one encounters (more in Schopenhauer’s key, for me). But if you are seeking a real-world corrective to the contemptuous posture that was (perhaps predictably?) reinforced through your experience among philosophy groundlings, you might consider signing on for a task that entails hands-on involvement in a project. The obvious contender here would be a house-raising event, such as you could volunteer for through Habitat for Humanity. In that kind of structured environment, where the social element is secondary to the labor-intensive mission at hand, you will work alongside carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other trade specialists who will competently assess and direct the resolution of problems that invariably attend any building project. While such an excursion might not temper your ultimate stance regarding the intellectual character of common people faced with critically demanding cognitive challenges, it might instill a modicum of clarifying respect (or even humility) in countermand to the misanthropic temptation that bedevils intelligent seekers.
I read this essay with such pleasure, chuckling—I hope appropriately—at clever phrases that reveal genuine introspective insight, and mainly identifying with your conflicted response to the elitist or misanthropic expressions that one encounters (more in Schopenhauer’s key, for me). But if you are seeking a real-world corrective to the contemptuous posture that was (perhaps predictably?) reinforced through your experience among philosophy groundlings, you might consider signing on for a task that entails hands-on involvement in a project. The obvious contender here would be a house-raising event, such as you could volunteer for through Habitat for Humanity. In that kind of structured environment, where the social element is secondary to the labor-intensive mission at hand, you will work alongside carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other trade specialists who will competently assess and direct the resolution of problems that invariably attend any building project. While such an excursion might not temper your ultimate stance regarding the intellectual character of common people faced with critically demanding cognitive challenges, it might instill a modicum of clarifying respect (or even humility) in countermand to the misanthropic temptation that bedevils intelligent seekers.