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Overview
organic intellectual
Quick Reference
An intellectual or someone of professional standing (i.e. a doctor, lawyer, or priest) who rises to that level from within a social class that does not normally produce intellectuals, and remains connected to that class. In other words, the organic intellectual is the opposite of a yuppie—they are not upwardly mobile and their concern is for the conditions of their class as a whole, not for themselves. Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci develops this concept in his famous ‘Prison Notebooks’.
