The attempt to assess the essential functions and aspects of the intellectual establishment in the modern and contemporary world occupies a prominent place in the social sciences and in the political philosophy of the 20th century. Antonio Gramsci was undoubtedly one of the philosophers who made the most heuristic and hermeneutical contributions, from his revisionist Marxist perspective, to understand intellectuals as leading actors and active political subjects, situated in the dilemma of favoring the preservation of the established order, in the case of traditional intellectuals, or in promoting their radical transformation as a program of action of the so-called organic intellectuals, who dedicate themselves at all times to interpret the needs and aspirations of justice and equity of the time and social space of which they are part, to endow it with concrete political content. Consequently, the objective of this scientific article is to examine the role of the critical intellectual with social commitment in the current complex context, marked by the systemic crisis of the current world order. Methodologically speaking, the document presented here was developed through dialectical hermeneutics and the documentary research technique. The findings obtained allow us to conclude that critical thinking is key to revitalizing democracies.