Reposted from the Cardus After Hours blog (RIP).

The very term “public intellectual” loudly proclaims a proclivity for pride and arrogance. Knowing something that you believe others do not know is fertile soil for a sordid array of grandiose delusions. The perennial critic is keenly tuned to every variance of error in current plans, systems and people. All misalignments are noted. Every inadequacy is expounded upon. All weakness is met with a wagging finger.

The challenge is that in order to be a thoughtful participant in public life you must be very capable of thinking independently. Parrots don’t make great thought or practice leaders. The critical distinction that can be missed by public good institutions and their leaders, however, comes into play when you know how things might be better than they are. Does that knowledge translate into a deeper commitment to serve and work or does some of it become the oh-so-different spirit of self-importance that can attend that awareness. It is the difference between knowledge being used for the good of others and that knowledge being held as a matter of pride.

It doesn’t hurt to remember that experts have been wrong. Sometimes a lot and nearly always when discussions of the future are on the the table. And the future is very much of interest to public square organizations if for no other reason than that they are angling for a better one. Experts may be called on (flatteringly) to render their thoughts on various topics, including the future. But the state of affairs over the next hill mockingly recedes with each advance, defying control. The future keeps us humble. We are all inexpert when the whole ball of spinning blue wax is considered.

If we act with a spirit of arrogance and entitlement our value may be very limited and our position increasingly tenuous.

Pride and arrogance are the rust and corrosion in the beams and columns of trust and cooperation that are essential to robust social architecture.

While the communications revolution we are living in allows us to connect, self-importance wars against every one of the five deeper skills that Tapscott suggests mark the new way of working: collaboration, openness, sharing, integrity, interdependence. This is a human problem and technology won’t make it go away. It would appear that humility is increasing in importance if in fact new ways of working together become dominant.

Arrogance is a most difficult adversary—all flaming and hairy, tooth-laded and claw-rich, seething with indignation and saturated with smug disdain. The public intellectual works among people of power, intelligence and means. Pride relentlessly stalks the landscape of our labour like a sleepless, death-starved shade. The temptation to succumb is pervasive and we often indulge the opportunities that are presented. In their ever-changing forms, the twins of doom become the waterfalls, storms, mountains, rapids, grizzly bears, and tropical diseases that obstruct and seek to inflict mortal damage on our various common good expeditions.

We cannot hope to transect such terrain alone. It is only within the collegiality of a band of others that we stand any chance against the delusions of power and glory. It has often been observed that, however much we think of ourselves, a return trip home to dishes, a neglected spouse or room mate, and a list of incomplete responsibilities, will disabuse us of our visions of self-grandeur. Rightly so. We all have a lot more to learn than we think, particularly about ourselves.

The actual communities that we inhabit—family, workplace, church, team, or club—ought rightly to refuse toleration of our inflated selves; all puff and air and vapidity. In sharply chiding us, they perform a great service that can preserve us, sparing the sudden and cataclysmic crashes that occur when the acids of pride and arrogance finally sunder a beam.

Humility is the great ally of the public intellectual and we must welcome its company amid our various travels.