Intelligentsia is a loosely organized social group comprised of intellectuals. Edward Shils, in the article “Intellectuals”, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 7. (1968, p. 179) defines intellectuals as: “Intellectuals are the aggregate of persons in any society who employ in their communication and expression, with relative higher frequency than most other members of their society, symbols of general scope and abstract reference, concerning man, society, nature and the cosmos.”

Lewis Coser studied the role of intellectuals in American society in the book Men of Ideas (1965). He singles out five main types of intellectuals: independent, academic, creative, those in politics, and those in the mass culture industry. He believes that American society has become too bureaucratic and prevents the development of intelligentsia and ideas that could solve social problems. Intelligentsia is a loosely organized social group comprised of intellectuals.

Antonio Gramsci explored intellectuals in the context of his theory of hegemony. He believed that the survival of capitalist hegemony is not necessary. The capitalist society produces intellectuals who serve the interests of the capitalist class by spreading and justifying hegemony. Gramsci calls such intellectuals "traditional intellectuals." Traditional intellectuals are hierarchically structured in relation to their own function within hegemony. At the top are creative intellectuals who produce a view of the world, in the middle are the organizers, and at the bottom are the administrators. However, the working class and the communist parties need to gather a new type of intellectual, who will spread, among the exploited classes, a different image, that of the truth of the revolution. He calls such intellectuals "organic intellectuals," and they should fight for the needs and demands of the exploited masses. Organic intellectuals do not have to be only those who are highly educated, but they can be all those who have some organizational function within production, culture, politics, or administration. As hegemony is created and operates equally at the macro and micro levels, through actors (intelligentsia) who create new values, organic intellectuals have room to crack the dominant hegemony and provide space for critical awareness of the possibility of changing the dominant system. Withdrawal of creative intelligentsia from hegemony will cause an organic crisis of authority and social disintegration. Subaltern classes, to realize their interests, must consciously and purposefully create their own intellectuals, activists, and theorists to successfully fight against the hegemony of the capitalist class. The proletariat must bring into civil society its own values ​​and culture, which will work not only for the interests of the working class but for the interests of universal socialism. In that way, they will force the whole society, and finally, the traditional intellectuals, to actively accept the validity and historical necessity of the new hegemony and achieve the ultimate goal - the creation of socialist hegemony.

Karl Mannheim expressed fear that in the modern world, both ideologies and utopias are losing their strength; however, he had high hopes for the autonomous intelligentsia, as a group that has the potential to generate new ideologies. In modern society, the intelligentsia has become separated from its own class position, so it forms an autonomous group whose views of the world are constantly changing. This allows it to join and support different ideologies and political parties. Mannheim believed that the intelligentsia has the ability and mandate to understand the true condition of society and to interpret it for the rest of society; and that it has a special role in finding the right solutions, under which it will revolutionize society.

Pierre Bourdieu explored the academic world in the books Homo Academicus (1984) and State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power (1998, in French 1989). He examines the relationship between fields, habitus, and different forms of capital within the French university system. Special attention is paid to sociology as a discipline and its key authors. Bourdieu studies the social origins of these sociologists, what they published and where, their political engagement, the institutions with which they are connected, their media appearances, etc. This helped him make a map showing the forms of capital used, as well as how power and conflict take place within a French university. 

References:

Coser. Men of Ideas: A Sociologist’s View (1965);

Eisenstadt. The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (1986);

Gramsci. Prison Notebooks (Volumes 1, 2 & 3) (2011, in Italian 1947);

    -    The Concept of ‘Hegemony’ (2014);

Hofstadter, Richard. 1963. Anti-intellectualism in American Life.

Mannheim. Ideology and Utopia (1936, in German 1929); 

Mills. The Power Elite (1956);

Therborn. Science, Class & Society (1976).