'The intellectual establishment' suffers the same problems found in any bureaucracy. Inertia can keep bureaucracies of thought plodding along old ruts for millennia. One 'rut' I notice is the one found in the matter of free will. For example, here is an excerpt from Freedom & Neurobiology by John Searle.

The persistence of the traditional free will problem in philosophy seems to me something of a scandal. After all these centuries of writing about free will, it does not seem to me that we have made very much progress. I cannot give you a solution to the problem of free will but I hope to be at least able to state the problem in a precise enough form so that we can see what possible solutions would look like. What would the world, specifically our brains, be like if determinism were true and what would the world, specifically our brains, be like if determinism were false?

Apparently John Searle is highly regarded among neurobiologist (among others). Yet, here he is, on one hand lamenting how "scandalously" bogged down we are on the issue of free will, yet he himself is bogged down by the false notion that this is an either or issue, i.e., either free will or determinism. When you ask narrow questions, you get narrow answers which can never satisfy for long. (Oh, and there is "a solution to the problem of free will", if I do say so myself.)

We are a dumb little creature (relatively) who has an extremely exaggerated opinion of himself - we are blinded by our own 'brilliance'! And naturally so. Who is offering a counter view? And, even if there was a counter view, who would want to hear that we are not who we idealize ourselves to be, especially in terms of our 'great human potential' (spiritual or otherwise). Me thinks the 'emperor' really is naked, and clothes can't hide that fact. Hmm, I'm often harping on this, aren't I? I just feel that if we could see ourselves more as we are, rather than how we think we are, we would conform to the way a little more and contend a little less. Oh well,... alas, I care,... but I'm working on that!

PS: Yes, of course, I'm one of those dumb little creatures. ops: So to be sure, dumb is not 'bad' in my view. To paraphrase,... cleverness and dumb complement each other. I've tried clever and it got me into enough trouble. Finally realizing that I'm dumb helps me immeasurably learn to be without learning. Hmm, am I clever to realize that I'm dumb, or is that a little wisdom settling in?