Intellectuals are the conscience of society

When watching Xiao Han's "Seventeen Tones of the Hammer", the first famous Western case was the Dreyfus incident. When Xiao Han commented on Zola, he generally agreed with the views of the Austrian writer Zweig in The Rights of Heretics. That is to say, behind Zola, not only "there is an invisible army-the admiration of all Europe and the world as a backer", there are also many actual supporters. In 1898, Zola published "I Complain! "One article, Zola was already a prominent person in the French literary world. Moreover, in the movie, we also saw that when Zola gave this article, there were many supporters present, and the newspapers also actively published it. It can be seen from this that Zola is not fighting alone on the road to defending justice, and he does not have to face threats to his life. He has to give up more of his reputation and enjoyment of life. This is very different from Voltaire risking his life to defend the Huguenots. Although both are for justice, truth and human rights, Voltaire's danger is even more severe.
Therefore, I prefer to call Zola an intellectual, rather than a martyr of justice and truth, even though he was still fighting for the just cause of mankind with the tip of his pen before his death. In the movie, Zola returned to France from the United Kingdom after Dreyfus was rehabilitated. Unfortunately, he died of carbon dioxide poisoning the night before the rehabilitative ceremony. This is because of the plot setting of the film, and history is often not so merciful. In September 1899, the President returned Dreyfus' freedom to quell popular anger. In 1902, Zola died of carbon dioxide poisoning. It wasn't until 1906 that Dreyfus was truly able to redress the grievances. Zola did not personally see him for so many years of justice arrived.
But it was also after Zola that France produced the concept of intellectuals. According to Lewis Coser’s view in "The Idea Man", he believes that intellectuals are different from intellectuals. Intellectuals are not "all people who create and spread applied culture", but "idea people." Birth is not based on ideas. This points out two characteristics of intellectuals.
First, intellectuals should "have certain clear and relatively stable values, specifically justice and truth." In other words, intellectuals must have an inner spiritual level of cultivation, and have a lofty belief in justice and truth.
Second, intellectuals must unite knowledge and action. In the western definition of intellectuals, one of the necessary conditions for intellectuals is to put ideas into action for those with factual behavior. This is quite different from the view of my country's traditional law. Our traditional view is that juren, scholars, champions and the like can be called intellectuals, and its measurement standard is whether they have a certain level of knowledge or are engaged in related occupations. Moreover, our so-called intellectuals pay more attention to formalism, and there has always been a pure study school who "keep a deaf ear to things outside the window and read only sage books", but the West pays more attention to positivism. Pay more attention to the importance of practice.
A new article has been added to the current concept of intellectuals, public intellectuals. Public intellectuals is a term that has emerged in China in recent years. Since 2005, Southern Weekend has selected the most influential public intellectuals of the year. Such intellectuals are political right and left economics, including various industries, law, history, literati economists and so on. Wiki’s standards for public intellectuals are: intellectuals with academic background and professional qualities; actors who speak out to society and participate in public affairs; ideals with critical spirit and moral responsibility.
Hugo has something to say: The sewer is the conscience of the city.
In a word, intellectuals are the conscience of society. A society or a country with a group of intellectuals who have a strong sense of justice and courage will be a sharp sword against evil black claws.

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