Johannesburg — IN AN article in The Times that might have been titled "Brains for hire, or what the bank accounts of intellectuals tell us", Institute for Security Studies senior researcher Prince Mashele argues that Xolela Mangcu, Sipho Seepe and Ronald Suresh Roberts have sacrificed their intellectual independence on the altar of power.

Mangcu, according to Mashele, has done this by writing columns that extolled the presidential qualities of businessman Tokyo Sexwale in exchange for shares in his Batho Bonke share scheme.

On the other hand, Seepe - apparently gratis - is now speaking truth for Jacob Zuma's power, while Roberts wrote a book about the unrivalled native intelligence of Thabo Mbeki in which he " found not a single blemish in Mbeki's leadership" .

As expected, Mashele has got tongues, pens and middle fingers wagging. As is usually the case in these circumstances, we are now in the middle of another debate about the role of intellectuals. Part of this debate is about who should be regarded as an intellectual.

All I am prepared to say is that it is the quality of one's ideas and their impact on different areas of our lives which should proclaim one an intellectual. No amount of self-proclamation can change this.

I was reminded of this by a conversation I had with someone who said that none of us so-called public intellectuals me t the standards set by thinkers such as Frantz Fanon.

Fortunately, my aversion to being referred to as an intellectual until I am deserving of such a lofty appellation has insulated me from the pain some of my comrades must be going through.

Unfortunately, there is more pain and anguish. Paul Johnson, in his book Intellectuals, says that "intellectuals, far from being highly individualistic and nonconformist people, follow certain regular patterns of behaviour.

Taken as a group, they are often ultraconformist within the circles formed by those whose approval they seek and value. That is what makes them, en masse, so dangerous, for it enables them to create climates of opinion and prevailing orthodoxies, which themselves often generate irrational and destructive courses of action."

But this is not the kindest thing Johnson has to say about intellectuals. He argues also that: "The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, or worthier as exemplars, than the witch doctors and priests of old". Ouch!

This made me think of praise singers who, at a conceptual level, have become maligned because of the sycophancy of the Mbeki era and the neosycophancy of what seems to be the beginnings of the Zuma era.

Praise singers were respected because one of the roles they played was that of saying to kings and society things they would rather not hear about themselves. Intellectuals play many roles but one hopes they will learn from the praise singers of old. This is the challenge facing intellectuals today.

Intellectuals must perform their role with a humility that in part relies on the wisdom of those they regard as "ordinary people" because intellectual output must be the tool through which the lot of humankind must be bettered.

We must take intellectuals seriously, but not too seriously. Those who think of themselves as intellectuals must, in turn, not take themselves so seriously.

Matshiqi is a senior associate political analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies.