We are in dire need of genuine public intellectuals who would shape public opinion and steer it towards the truth. They would create space for dialogue to embrace diverse opinions. This need becomes all the more urgent and relevant in the age of algorithmocracy – of the algorithm, by the algorithm, for the algorithm – which has left people starkly divided intellectually as they become increasingly digital narcissists. Welcome to the age of pseudo intellectuals!

The question is why our world has gone sterile of genuine public intellectuals.

Journalist and writer Ghazi Salahuddin, while speaking at the Sindh Literature Festival 2025, laments: "Among the losses in our lives that are evident at this time, the greatest loss, in my view, is that of intellect and wisdom." Though he attributes intellectual shallowness to the doomscrolling and lack of dialogue, he also blames politics, whose ubiquitous frivolity on the mainstream media has benumbed the public's cognition.

He gnomically summarises his lament, countering the theory of the knowledge........

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