Free-floating intellectuals

Free-floating intellectuals or free-floating intelligentsia (German: Freischwebende Intelligenz) is a term from the sociology of knowledge that was used by the sociologist and philosopher Karl Mannheim in 1929, but was originally coined by the sociologist Alfred Weber. It includes the members of the intelligentsia, whose relative independence as a socially undefined class allows them to break away from the normative thinking of their environment and to act independently of social class conditions.

Source: Wikipedia — Free-floating intellectuals (CC BY-SA 4.0)