So the contempt is actually pretty easy to understand, and "intellectual" has far less to do with it than "elite." One other thing that amplifies the effect of this is the advent of mass communications, through which the mutual approbation between elites is transformed into a massive public relations campaign that validates the actions of the rulers. The public has very little real input to this process and that is as intended, the price that the media of communications pay for inclusion into that elite.
That is also the reason that mass grass-roots communications media such as the Internet and talk radio have proven so profoundly threatening to the system. Here the public may not be locked out, misrepresented, selectively quoted, manipulated. If the old ploy of bribery of the keepers of the Internet by inclusion into the New Class does not work (and it does not appear to be doing so at the moment) then we will absolutely see a brute-force attempt to control by legislation, intimidation, and coercion.
It can't work. Too easy for new people to keep springing up to fill the demand for counter-culture communications. Bribery only works when there are a limited number of slots to fill in communications. They can't bribe everybody.
It is very cool that I am now a member of the counter-culture, counter that is to the counter-culture of the '60s, which is now the dominant culture.