Letter to Menoeceus: Epicurus

Intellectuals are philosophers, are writers, are artists. They are all those people who work with their minds by questioning the events that touch them and that are touched by them. To recall a Plato's famous allegory, we can say that intellectuals are those who are able to look beyond the shadows and never take concepts for granted. However, some questions as what their role is and, more specifically, whether they should be engaged in politics are still unanswerable. Over the years answers and behaviors towards the engaged culture have been various and we can assume that the intellectuals who cannot separate the two live their lives actively for they want to be part of the events that surround them and let awareness win over apathy. On the contrary, we can assume that those who let apathy win are the intellectuals that look at politics and culture as two different and specific concepts and live a solitary life far from society. However, this is not an appropriate judgment because it would be difficult to consider to which extent solitude can be regarded as cowardliness and to which extent action can be regarded as consciousness.

The word intellectual used thus far does not absolve us, common people, from this dilemma and does not allow us to be devoted to the belief that we do not have any influence on the course of history.

As said before, this is an unanswerable question, but to find a few conclusions it would be essential to look back at what Epicurus thought of what was life all about and to look back at what Gramsci meant about be a partisan. Equally important, is to look back at how these two philosophies influenced literature and art, by reading Sartre's thoughts on the engaged writer and by recalling to our minds some i...

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... the echoes of intellectuals as Epicurus, Gramsci, Sartre and Picasso, though if we look at each of us more closely our actions do have a weight and consequences in the course of history. It is for this reason that we, as citizens and “not-organic” intellectuals, must try to find our meaning.

Works Cited

Art for Art's Sake: Its Fallacy and Viciousness. The Art World, Vol.2. May 1917. 98-102

Better Out Than In. 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

Epicurus. Letter to Menoeceus. The Internet Classics Archive, 1994.

Gramsci, Antonio. I hate the indifferent. Città Futura, 1917.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. What is Literature?. New York: Philosophical Library, 1949. Archive.org.

June 2005. Internet Archive. 12 Nov. 2013.

Smith, Roberta. "Mystery Man, Painting the Town. Banksy Makes New York His Gallery for a Month." The New York Times. Web. 30 October 2013: C1. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.