Over the weekend, a few of us indulged in a stretched-out debate. It started when one friend explained how she didn’t have the same conversations with her coworkers on the media and politics as she could in university. For her, environment mattered when it came to having intellectual discussions, which she found existed superfluously in Oxbridge bubbles.
However, it made me go on a wider tangent, as I wondered whether the people around us at Oxbridge actually were really intellectuals? And if they were, was it really due to their Cambridge education or were we overinflating its value beyond its international reputation?
Friend A argument
Yes, Cambridge’s supervision style, critical reading and demanding degree shape you into an intellectual. It allows you to think deeply in a way people from other universities can’t relate to, and so there is something special from that degree. Not everyone there would take in the education the same way and become an intellectual, but the degree itself does help shape your mind.
Friend B argument (who I met a few days later)
Cambridge didn’t help me in any way. Oxbridge has a sort of system where they farm the kind of people that just end up performing the way they do. I did well, but not because of Cambridge. My performance was inevitable due to the expectation from myself, which predated the commencement of the degree. Yes, you will have some intellectuals at Cambridge, but not because of the degree itself, just because it attracts the kind of people who would intellectualise these topics.
It seems there was a conflict or a binary: does the degree transform you, or does it simply select those already capable?
My argument
Cambridge students are not intellectuals by default regardless of how difficult their degree is or how hard they worked to get into the institution. The strongest intellectuals could also be from an institution-less background.
The online definition of an intellectual is: someone who relates to the intellect. I argue relating means going beyond thinking and reading critically, but additionally reflecting a practical, lived reality which adds more insight to the theoretical knowledge possessed.
I believe we as students may have a superficial relationship, and therefore it gives the illusion we are more intelligent in our appreciation of the topic than we actually are. For example, just because I understand the complexities of the Land Registration Act and the Torrens system which England adopted from Australia and then spread to South Asia during its colonisation period, it does not mean I am more of an intellectual than the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts who are navigating the colonial impact this system has on the cultural practices governing their land. They might not understand the history of the Torrens system, but it does not negate their ability to intellectualise the effect it has on their daily lives.
In advocacy of the exiled intellectual
Education can be described as an accumulation of knowledge, and knowledge is power. The more theory, arguments and facts you know about an issue, the more you are likely to be able to break it down and offer a solution. That’s why being an Oxbridge student comes with an assumption of intelligence, since these students are often given the hardest source materials and research to work with, and problems to consider. However, whilst I agree materials and exams may make a student knowledgeable and critical, well-intentioned and thoughtful, I don’t think these traits are enough to make you the best suited or strongest intellectual to create impact in that field.
In Representations of the Intellectual, Edward Said argues a nuanced, anti-imperialist take. He believes the core mission of an intellectual is to speak truth to power and challenge authorities and power structures, irrespective of how much doing so undermines their personal interests. He gives the example of the “public intellectual”, who could be interpreted as a professor or political leader, who engages with a wider audience and influences societal debates and discourses. Very academic core. However, he then shifts the perspective to “intellectuals in exile”. How being at the point of exile and marginalisation actually gives you a vantage point which sharpens your intellectual vision and fosters a deeper understanding of these social and political dynamics, through a lived reality.
Friend A argued: “I know that if an Afghan student had had the ability to have my education or be in my space in Cambridge, she would have gone much further than me or been much smarter than me. But inequality is something that is much bigger and difficult to resolve, and thwarts her capability.”
Subliminally, this comment connotes that one’s poor financial position or troubled geographical location can often undermine the extent of their intellectual ability, due to their deprivation from institutionally rich education. It argues she is less capable because she cannot access the essential institutions which could platform her as an aforementioned “public intellectual”.
However, I don’t think one’s privilege or institutional connections can be the most valuable determining factor in showcasing how critical and sharp their voice or ideas can be. The Afghan student could exemplify Said’s “intellectual in exile”, who doesn’t need to have someone’s Cambridge position to form critical and empowering thoughts or actions. Whilst an institution might give her an external image of intellectualisation and platform her voice to a certain audience, it doesn’t rebirth her internally. She could already possess an analytical ability to discern the value of her rights, regardless of her access to institutional readings on political freedoms and legal human rights conventions from an Oxbridge library, specifically because of the intersectionalist perspective formed from her geographical and political environment—which gives her an incomparable insight through inescapable lived reality, trial and error, and most importantly immersion, followed by reaction. By assuming her intellect would thrive under the Western education model, we are undervaluing her already lived intellectual labour (Freire) that may be better suited to understanding feminism from a more personal and niche lens than somebody studying HSPS at Cambridge.
Rewarding superficial skills
This is backed and influenced by Paulo Freire, whose piece Pedagogy of the Oppressed takes a decolonial approach to evaluating the effectiveness of education. Freire discerns the equal value of informal and formal learning, and how the classroom is not the best place for it. Whilst he admits dialogue is essential and classrooms allow the growth of knowledge, the banking model for education facilitated through the Western education system can also thwart it through its relentless assignments and competitive, hierarchical pressures. It often rewards you for learning a system (an exam board), rather than learning a skill or adopting valuable, independent thinking. For example, the Western education system reinforces the status quo and reproduces patterns of domination rather than emphasising mobilising action. Could I say as a Cambridge lawyer, I was fully immersed in the depth of the modules, or was I being relentlessly confused by the yearly changing exam styles and pressure, that is better tested by ability to type and switch tabs in three hours than understand law’s purpose?
I completely agree with Freire (reiterated by Stanistreet) when he argues: “Reflection on reality must always be linked to action and agency, and education that stifled this was oppressive and authoritarian.” If our Western education doesn’t foster this relatability, regardless of whether we get it from Oxbridge, it indirectly hinders our ability to become strong intellectuals and turns us into exam board fetishisers.
What is the value of this article?
Arguing whether Cambridge students are intellectuals or not isn’t just a point I’m making to degrade myself or humble my fellow Oxbridge peers. I feel like when you allocate and determine who in society is by default an intellectual, by empowering a few, you are dangerously disempowering others and worshipping false gods.
I think Western elite education is dependent on a broken, self-indulgent, meritocratic, exclusionary system. Although it does reward intelligence, the type of intelligence it rewards is so niche that I think it conflates its value. This wouldn’t matter as much if it was just about ego and pride, but the reality is, it goes beyond that. Employers, companies and other academic institutions alike have a strong liking to the Oxbridge type. It is the Oxbridge type that time and time again ends up in government, civil service or positions of policy formation. It is the Oxbridge type dominating our top law firms, Supreme Court and banks. Yet late-stage capitalism and a failing political and economic environment in the UK shows the Oxbridge type are not always a sufficient source of leadership. We need to start valuing and providing exiled, lived intellectuals with the same opportunities of power or influence; this may lead to perhaps better, well-directed social change.
Perhaps an argument that Oxbridge doesn’t create intellectuals may be too dismissive since it creates unnecessary binaries. You can be both a public intellectual and an exiled intellectual simultaneously, and I argue the strongest intellectuals, like Said and Freire, actually are. This is because lived experiences alone cannot create change if they go unheard. Institutions like Oxbridge act like platforms for voicing ideas through their money and connections.
However, I don’t think institutions like Oxbridge transform you or necessarily equip you in the way society adulates its ability to. They just get to select whose thoughts are given a platform and resources. Whilst that can facilitate whoever gets chosen, it doesn’t determine intellectualisation, since the niche selection process itself (as highlighted by Freire) is a hit or miss: prone to reproducing and voicing perhaps elitist, limited, recycled beliefs rather than the most intellectually enlightening ones.
