That way it will be easier for the rest of us to recognize them for the pirates they are. For most people, I think, the word refers to people who work in literature and the arts, not the hard or even the soft sciences. As you work your way through the entry, though, things do not go so well for the literary types. The abduction metaphor goes further.
Intellectuals are now to be found only on the campuses of colleges and universities.
Ten years ago cultural historian Russell Jacoby argued in The Last Intellectuals that the day of the independent intellectual, a learned person without a university base who wrote for a general, if intelligent, audience was over. Universities had abducted the intellectuals. In the 19th century, he said, Shakespeare companies toured the nation's small and medium-sized towns as well as the cities, and it was not uncommon for ordinary citizens to be as familar with the works of the bard as many Italians in all walks of life are with opera. The professors were able to make Shakespeare intimidating, a subject open only to those with specialized training, he charged, scaring off the rest of us. Then there came in 1995 The Third Culture by John Brockman.