Does the UK still have an 'intellectual class'?

[NormaSnorks]

Not sure if this is politics or society really, but I found myself thinking about this after a couple of social events.

I'm in my 50s and have a group of friends and when we meet I'd say we are are 'intellectually curious' - interested in the news, literature, the arts etc and happy discussing and debating things. We can have very different individual views on things, but we'll be respectful and remain friends at the end of the day. I find our discussions interesting, sometimes challenging and occasionally I change my view about something as a result.

But I don't see this kind of approach around me in other social groups, or in my adult children's friends, or even much in the media? It seems people are either unable or unwilling to discuss anything of substance and become deeply uncomfortable with disagreement?

Is it just a generational thing? Where and who are the young intellectuals?

OP, you might enjoy this article https://unherd.com/2025/05/the-flattening-of-the-human-mind/. (Well, "enjoy" may not be the right word.)

The first big brother was actually interesting - they chose random people and they all had to interact.

After that they began deliberately selecting “interesting” people who would interact and cause conflict. It declined rapidly.

Hard agree with @Orangemintcream. The contestants were also more educated - I can only really remember Mel. It was such a groundbreaking show at the time.

One hopes not!

Otherwise one is going to get into a bit of a quandry, and one is not allowed to chop orf people's heads these days. Gaffaw, gaffaw.

I'm only joshing,
Although open windows are a dangerous thing, don't you know?

@Orangemintcream

"After that they began deliberately selecting “interesting” people who would interact and cause conflict. It declined rapidly"

I think Rizzle Kicks caught that trend in "Lost Generation " with the lines:

"Oi big brothers in the house now yeah
I said screw the voting and talking
I just wanna see
People fight an have sex"

The first series of BB started off well and was quite interesting: they completed proper team building tasks and interacted quite normally for that kind of situation. It began to go downhill with all the 'Nasty Nick' hype that set the president for what was to come. NN's antics aside, the interactions were delightfully subtle and hark back to a simpler time before everyone lost their minds.

This! I watched the beginning of the next few in the hope that they would have some interesting characters leading to good discussions. Nope, all dumbed down.

I studied philosophy at university and was so shocked at what went on with Kathleen Stock. The idea that students would criticise lecturers for wrong-think would have been unthinkable then. The thing that bugs me most about the trans "debate" is the fact we're told not that we have to act in a certain way, but we have to believe what we're told to believe. Haven't they read 1984?

I think this is true.
Add it to a culture which has always been suspicious of 'intellectuals' and you get a lot of really boring conversations!

V interesting discussion.

I wouldn’t say I am a great intellectual - I like all manner of things including football and Take a Break magazine - but I do live in a cultural wasteland - a reasonably affluent suburb but one in which the only person I’ve ever had anything in common with is ds’s 80-year-old piano teacher.

Schools today: oh, you could weep. I don’t know where to start with the dumbing down. When a governor at the dcs’ primary school I tentatively suggested that the music offerings could vary a bit, eg a bit of classical/folk/jazz - all sorts really - rather than always mega-bland pop music in assembly/during lunch. The Head looked at me witheringly and spat, “The pupils cannot access classical music and it is boring and not fun for them.”

Why is it snobby? Fry can be very amusing but he is incredibly pretentious. IMO clever people get their information from a wide variety of sources both high and low brow.

The problem is that people have stopped being able to listen each other and disagree without it becoming personal.

Because if it not accessible then you are upsetting people or patronising them.

i think it’s a lot more patronising to reserve certain things for certain people which is what we have now. I think it is much worse than when my parents grew up, when there was not such a reductionist view about what people and children could understand. It’s vastly more elitist to not even bother but reserve these things for a certain class

@bombastix

Because if it not accessible then you are upsetting people

How is classical/jazz whatever music is not accessible? If anything, it is more accessible than anything else - YouTube is your friend and it's always free for classic, unlike some paid for videos. Also generally classical music concerts are way more affordable than pop. Excl Royal Opera you can get tickets for 15 quid. Taylor Swift on the other hand...

ETA - my DCs primary introduced them to classic from Reception. DCs are teens now, they are enjoying it more than pop.

I agree! But I mean accessible in the sense that if it is not a mainstream taste then it gets discounted. Basically it seems that unless children are already familiar or their families are, then the mainstream just says don’t bother.

It has changed. My school had regular outings to concerts and visits from musicians. My parents listened at home. Now m these things are mediated out of schools

Ok, completely agree then.
Which is a real shame because schools could plug this gap, but I guess it's level of some teachers at present...

Yes, I remember talking to a friend years ago and I used a word of more than two syllables and she commented "Ooh, big words!" Ffs. I've outgrown some friends & family because I refuse to pretend to be stupid to make them feel better/less threatened.

Our DC knows popular culture, does footie matches with friends but is very intellectual. He will just start talking about philosophy or French movies etc. He's not found it difficult to make friends as an adult or as a child. He's been interested in politics since he was about 7. So yes I do think there are people engaging with the past, the present and culture.

Not a UK thing this but I noticed the the weird NZ Jacquie from MAFS AU cast this year thought that 'intelligent people read non fiction' - just one of the many bizarre things she came out with.

We are currently looking to relocate and actually did a full about turn on moving to a particular commuter town due to the critical mass of eyebrow/eyelash/fake tan-related posts on the local FB group I joined (plus the appalling spelling and grammar). Dodged a bullet there I think; I very much doubt we’d have found our tribe there!

I very much agree with your premise OP and feel the same; even among the degree educated, professional circles we tend to mix in people’s eyes tend to glaze over if you attempt to discuss anything other than holidays and reality TV. Not a particularly recent phenomenon IME though; I’ve always found the anti-intellectualism tendency worse in women, and often end up in male dominated groups at parties and gatherings as I find them more amenable to discussing topics like politics or culture.

I think it’s being made worse at present by our education system, which often teaches to the test and involves a lot of direct instruction/spoon-feeding instead of promoting a culture of active questioning and debate. I’m seeing it already in DD’s state primary - bright kids are instantly shut down when they show interest and ask questions, as it’s ’not relevant’.

Late 30s and early 40s is me and my group of friends. We talk about everything and we discuss it with our older kids. The other day we were talking about the politics of abortion with my 15 year old niece. I think it’s not a generational thing.

Schools today: oh, you could weep. I don’t know where to start with the dumbing down. When a governor at the dcs’ primary school I tentatively suggested that the music offerings could vary a bit, eg a bit of classical/folk/jazz - all sorts really - rather than always mega-bland pop music in assembly/during lunch. The Head looked at me witheringly and spat, “The pupils cannot access classical music and it is boring and not fun for them.”

Absolutely this, and it’s one of the reasons we are removing DD from her current school. There is an absolute obsession with being ‘inclusive’ and ‘narrowing the gap’, which manifests as exposing children only to those aspects of culture with which they are already familiar. Promoting genres like classical, jazz or anything even vaguely alternative would be seen as elitist. Academically able pupils like DD are deliberately kept in a holding pattern and not challenged, as doing so would mean that the all-important ‘gap’ would never be narrowed for the lower attaining ones. It is all incredibly depressing and results in a dumbing down of the whole system.

My very ordinary state primary back in the ‘80s had a different genre of music playing in assembly every week, with individual pieces discussed in depth, at least two full-scale productions every year (The Hobbit; Wizard of Oz; Mary Poppins), two choirs and an orchestra. Nothing even vaguely comparable to that now.

Dh is also a governor of 15 years standing, and couldn’t believe that the new head is determined to chuck “excellence” off the school’s goals as it excludes less able pupils. Surely everyone can excel in their own way? Apparently equity is all that is important, and I suppose that’s easier to achieve by levelling down.

Anyway, I think this is all symptomatic of the disdain for traditional culture and, perhaps, the distrust and dislike of intellect.

@MaturingCheeseball Yes, ‘equity’ is the buzzword at DD’s current primary too (I’m a soon-to-be-ex governor there). And they’ve been quite open about the fact that achieving this goal will inevitably involve holding back higher attaining pupils.

Yes, I agree. I come from a working class background where state primaries provided these opportunities as the norm. I learned to play the violin and guitar at school: instruments were provided and no fees charged. I can relate to filing into assembly listening to classical music and participating in productions that were-actually-high quality. I remember being taught about Greek Mythology by one of our teachers, as well. Ironically, it's when I went to secondary school to one of those 'middle-class-green-leafy-naice-Mumsnet approved' type places that everything started to be dumbed down and learning became a chore.

Also, something I noticed is that everyone seemed to own a piano in working class households: this was definitely the case for my parents' generation and still commonplace when I was young. When I moved from Scotland to the south of England owning a piano was seen as the preserve of 'toffs' which I found a bit bemusing, at first.

I've noticed the drive towards equity in the education system and society generally. I suspect this explains policies towards independent schools whereby slapping VAT onto fees makes the smaller schools untenable, resulting in an exodus into the state sector. Ditto regarding further regulation of home education and SEND policy. It just seems like they want everyone to be the same and have no individual talent or flair. As we've seen, this results in a dumbing down of culture. In the future, it means, as a society, we will fail to innovate and thrive

Yes they are still there, it is just that they are drowned out in the media by the give them bread and circuses management instead of letting them share knowledge and improve the general intellect of the nation.