Intellectuals are class-bound, not an autonomous social category

Evidence

One may detect here the methodological consistency of a criterion of historico-political research: there does not exist any independent class of intellectuals, but every social group has its own stratum of intellectuals, or tends to form one; however, the intellectuals of the historically (and concretely) progressive class, in the given conditions, exercise such a power of attraction that, in the last analysis, they end up by subjugating the intellectuals of the other social groups; they thereby create a system of solidarity between all the intellectuals, with bonds of a psychological nature (vanity, etc.) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 433

Categorization

• DEFINE: The method criterion itself: research should assume every social group forms its own intellectual stratum rather than treating intellectuals as independent.
• XREF: connects to: Kierkegaard’s moral universalism is class-bound bourgeois ideology, not genuine universality. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 178; Organic intellectuals form metonymic collectivities across class rather than shared identity — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2236; A ruling class lacking organic intellectuals cannot sustain hegemony — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1869