There are two senses of what it is to be an intellectual.
In the first sense, intellectualism is a dedication to the pursuit of activities and skills that typically require a high degree of knowledge and practice. It is the equivalent to intellectual craftsmanship, in the same sense that a carpenter might be committed to his work. It is the view, spoken or otherwise, that there is value in such things.
In the second such sense, intellectualism is pretentious. It is the view that simply being able to comment on something, without being able to do it yourself and without having any relevant expertise or experience, is something valuable. It is the cliche version of the first sense. The court eunuch commenting upon how the king should get laid. It is the sort of viewpoint held by the sort of people who would state, "we see further by standing upon the shoulders of giants," while, at the same time, investing none of the effort that is actually required to climb up there.
In the case in hand, the reviewer is clearly not an intellectual in the first sense of the word. They make no acknowledgement of other viewpoints, they make no exploration of what else the work they are looking at might be taken to mean by its relationship to the audience, they don't account for any of the evidence in the game that supports any other viewpoints than their own and rate it purely according to its relation to their personal political agenda. That is not intellectualism in a sense that anyone ought to care about, that's not even good art commentary, that someone going off on a political bender with the presence of a game as an excuse. Heck, Nexus essentially disposes of, or give sufficient grounds to reject, the review's viewpoint in two paragraphs, which I may as well quote beneath:
nexus said:
Yeah, stellar review right there. I really came away with a greater understanding of the game. I've played the game for over 20 hours, and there are many things which this writer lies about or just fails to understand. Your job as a Division agent is not to "kill the poor looters trying to survive", rather it is to find evidence of the bioterrorists responsible for the outbreak, and to eliminate other terrorist elements who are literally going around burning everyone alive. In the meantime, you are tasked with helping people receive food and aid - and you routinely pass by "looters" who are not considered threats. You also routinely give supplies to the needy.
Furthermore, the charges laid on the story that the Division is just some form of statist propaganda, glorifying totalitarian agencies is nonsense. The plot goes on to show that the Division is flawed, and has too much power - a topic routinely discussed throughout the game's narrative, challenging the notion of federal agencies with unlimited power.
Now, most people do not seem to me to be intellectuals in the first sense of the word, but they at least have enough sense to occasionally recognise the "intellectuals" in the second sense of the word, and to want little[footnote]Which may be by there are so few real intellectuals these days, it has become somewhat of a dirty word, and for good reason.[/footnote] to do with them. In that sense, gamers, as with most of society, are anti-intellectual. This is no great tragedy.
The tragedy is that the outward appearance of intelligence has been hijacked, without the underlying skills and ethics that rendered it in adaptive part of society, and allowed to tarnish the reputation of the general concept. And that when it is paraded out, people are expected to submit to this pretence because, "well, you wouldn't want to be against smart folks would you? You wouldn't want to be stupid would you? Clearly the smart folks know better than you do - sort of by definition."
I probably qualify as an elitist to most people. That's where my values are. And I'm all for going off an an elitist polemic. However, if I were inclined to do so I would choose my friend somewhat more carefully. I do not think this fella would be among them.
