What do we mean by the term “intellectual” , and what is a “public intellectual”? It is an odd fact of English culture that it is largely a term of abuse and, when asked to name one, we almost always turn to the continent, particularly France. A typical intellectual in France, we think, will hold down a job as a professor – preferably of philosophy – have a column in a mass circulation daily newspaper, be involved in politics and appear on the cover of Vogue.

Our aversion to intellectuals, or to the term, may go back to when we were at school where nobody likes a “swot”. In fact, almost any kind of braininess is disparaged: scientists are mad-haired “boffins”, tech-savvy kids are “nerds”, and people can be “too clever by half”. Indeed, we would claim that we are
naturally practical thinkers and too full of common sense to produce such highbrows – a situation not helped by many of the people who we consider to be intellectuals denying the fact.

One problem is that of definition: what qualifications are required and what sort of activities does someone have to engage in before they can be called an intellectual? One possible definition is that public intellectuals should be independent of those in power and critical of received ideas. Furthermore,
he or she must be someone who raises embarrassing questions in public, contests dogma, and who cannot be persuaded to join governments or corporations.

Let’s take a thinker from last century whose theories still have an impact today and see if the definition fits: John Maynard Keynes was an economist who worked for the Treasury and wrote influential books on monetary policy, an art collector, and a member of the Bloomsbury group of writers, artists and intellectuals. Perhaps we need to adjust our definition slightly!

According to the text, which of the following are true of English attitudes towards intellectuals?

The flaneur is almost extinct now. It is not just that men – and they usually were men – no longer have the time or the inclination to idly stroll the city streets, taking in the sights and sounds at a leisurely pace while the crowd hurries to and fro about its business. Cities have changed their nature too and, for the most part, people today walk as little as possible.

Baudelaire, the 19th century French poet, was probably the first to describe the flaneur in his essay The Painter of Modem Life, and he himself would often saunter and loiter in the arcades of Paris absorbing the frantic bustle going on around him. The flaneur is the detached, ironic observer in the midst of the
crowd, rambling through the city seeing where the streets take him. There is no specific aim in mind; it is not like the evening promenade that still occurs in many Mediterranean towns, where the purpose is to see and be seen. Besides, promenaders usually amble arm in arm with a chaperone. The flaneur is a
solitary walker.

As mentioned above, cities have changed and are far less congenial for walking nowadays. Baudelaire’s Paris of arcades and narrow, crooked streets disappeared with Baron Haussmann’s wholesale redevelopment of the city. These days, despite the provision of public spaces such as parks, city dwellers
would rather go to the countryside, and hike up and down hills and valleys where the air is fresh and there are no crowds.

Which of the following words have the same meaning in the passage as “walk”?