Maybe that would be the idealist version of it. But the definition I've seen of intellectual is grounded in the division of labour. The guy who uses complex chemicals to save millions of people at a water treatment plant is a manual labourer because he wears a boiler suit, and what's antithetical to that is so called intellectual labour. But I think it's just a way for eggheads to glorify their cushy jobs.

And sure, sometimes we need functionaries of different kinds, but what gets me is the air of superiority and pretence.