The collapse of the intellectual climate and the responsibility of the intellectual

Modern societies are currently experiencing a profound crisis not only in institutional structures or economic systems, but in the very capacity for reasoning, critical thinking, and the responsibility of the intellectual. Historically, the Enlightenment tradition has championed the courage (sapere aude) of the individual to shed dogmas and use their own reason. However, in today's hyper-politicized and polarized intellectual climate, this ideal has been replaced by closed information pools and blind allegiances.

Even individuals described as the most educated, well-equipped, and enlightened tend to believe in the absolute correctness, moral superiority, and success of the group to which they belong. In parallel, the desire to prove the weakness, evil, or illegitimacy of the opposing group captures cognitive processes. While individuals accept information and interpretations in their favor without passing them through the slightest rational filter, they categorically reject facts that claim otherwise. This situation points to the collapse not only of institutions but of reason and the faculties of inquiry themselves.

SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES AND THE CRISIS OF FALSIFIABILITY

In today's public discourse, individuals tend to believe in unfalsifiable claims and cling to self-fulfilling prophecies to protect their own belief systems.

• Selective Perception and Confirmation Bias: While the individual accepts data that supports their preconceptions with great appetite, they ignore empirical evidence that would refute their thesis, rationalize it, or seek to explain it through conspiracy theories.

• Dogmatic Closure: The process of self-fulfilling prophecy, defined by Robert Merton in a sociological context, is a cycle where a false definition (or belief) influences behavior, eventually making that false definition real. Polarized groups pursue aggressive policies because they believe the other side is evil; when the other side reacts to these policies, they confirm their own prophecies by saying, "We were right, look, they are evil."

This mechanism constitutes the greatest structural obstacle to rational reasoning. A mind that has severed its connection with reality prefers to protect the comfort of its own beliefs rather than seek the truth.

WISHFUL THINKING AND TENDENCIES TO DECLARE SCAPEGOATS

Two fundamental psychological and sociological tendencies play a central role in the loss of the habit of rational thinking: wishful thinking and scapegoating.

WHAT IS WISHFUL THINKING?

Wishful thinking is a cognitive process where a person makes decisions not based on the reality of facts, data, or logical arguments, but based on what they want to believe, their desires, hopes, or fears. No matter how harsh reality may be, the individual takes refuge in their own fantasy world or the comforting narratives offered by group affiliation.

SCAPEGOATING

Instead of a rational analysis of social crises, failures, and fears, it is the act of placing all responsibility on a specific other group or individual. In René Girard's theoretical framework, the scapegoat mechanism functions to suppress internal social conflicts and keep the group together by directing collective unrest toward an external target.

MECHANISM OF MANIPULATION

When these two tendencies combine, individuals become easily manipulated from the outside:

1. Abuse of Fear and Hope: Manipulators trigger the masses' deep fears (insecurity, loss of identity) and hopes (salvation, superiority).

2. Cognitive Weakness: Because of wishful thinking, the masses accept the bombastic and unrealistic promises offered to them without questioning.

3. Creating an External Enemy: By activating the scapegoating mechanism, mass control is achieved through scapegoats shown as the source of all problems.

THE POLARIZING ROLE OF POLITICS AND THE ATROPHY OF CRITICAL THINKING

The institution of politics and modern political communication techniques, far from eliminating the cognitive weaknesses mentioned above, are building a system based upon them. In today's hyper-politicized and polarized intellectual climate, critical thinking is completely atrophying.

• The Ability to Take Sides Surpassing Rationality: In today's political culture, being a successful individual requires mastering the "ability to take sides" rather than thinking analytically or producing correct policies. Loyalty becomes the killer of truth.

• Constraints on Expressing Thought: Individuals cannot voice what they know to be true for fear of being excluded from their own political or social camps (spiral of silence). The public sphere has ceased to be an agora where rational debates take place and has turned into a digital arena where sides shout slogans at each other.

RECONSTRUCTING THE TRUTH BEHIND THE APPEARANCE

The reality behind the appearance clearly shows that reason, institutions, and intellectuals are in a deep structural crisis. Self-fulfilling prophecies, wishful thinking, scapegoating mechanisms, and extreme political polarization have distanced modern humans from critical thinking, reducing them to easily manipulated mass elements.

The only way out of this vicious cycle is to remember the responsibility of the intellectual, to make the principle of falsifiability dominant in public discourse, and to maintain a critical distance against all kinds of dogmatic affiliation. Reason will only be able to become functional again to the extent that it can question its own limits and weaknesses.