THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF MACAO：THE HOLLOW HEART澳門的智性生活：空洞的心靈
This article proposes a critical assessment of Macao’s intellectual life from a deliberately “partisan” standpoint, articulating micro and macro perspectives on knowledge production and the role of the intellectual in the public sphere. The author mobilizes two contrasting theoretical frameworks: An...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
2014
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40048/2352 |
| Summary: | This article proposes a critical assessment of Macao’s intellectual life from a deliberately “partisan” standpoint, articulating micro and macro perspectives on knowledge production and the role of the intellectual in the public sphere. The author mobilizes two contrasting theoretical frameworks: Antonin Sertillanges’ individualistic conception of intellectual life, centered on humility, solitude, and reflection, and Edward Said’s notion of the public intellectual, oriented toward critical intervention and civic responsibility. Methodologically, the text functions as an interpretative essay, confronting normative criteria of “intellectuality” with observable evidence from local institutions and social practices. It concludes that intellectual life in Macao is partial, limited, and marginalized: while pockets of intellectual activity exist in higher education, in many domains it tends to be redefined as “self-improvement” for labor mobility and professional advancement, rather than as critical creativity. Concurrently, a “vast silence” is observed in public discourse on values, the common good, and cultural development. The article argues that the reproduction of conformity begins early in schooling, operating as a structure that curbs creativity and, in a small-territory context marked by the risks of dissent, weakens the emergence of a more robust sphere of public intellectuals. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |