organic intellectual

An intellectual or someone of professional standing (i.e. a doctor, lawyer, or priest) who rises to that level from within a social class that does not normally produce intellectuals, and remains connected to that class. In other words, the organic intellectual is the opposite of a yuppie---they are not upwardly mobile and their concern is for the conditions of their class as a whole, not for themselves. Italian Marxism philosopher Gramsci, Antonio develops this concept in his famous Prison Notebooks.