The conflict of intellectualism and experience is clear and present in the story "Everyday Use," though it is not quite as one-sided as it appears at first glance. The story details the conflict between Mama's two daughters. The first, Dee, is a young woman who has changed a great deal after spending time in college. She has changed her name to Wangero, leaving behind what she considers to be a slave name and heritage. She has become involved with the Black Power movement and requests that she be given the family quilts so that she can display them as art. Maggie, on the other hand, is quiet and demure, adopting a shy demeanor after suffering accidental burns in her childhood. She is happy with her simple and domestic lot in life.

In this situation, Dee represents intellectualism, while Mama and Maggie represent experience. While Maggie has had more or less the same upbringing as Dee, her experience with fire has given her a taste of suffering, and she understands the importance of keeping family close. Mama believes that Maggie will put the quilts to the best use, as she has the same values. While Dee's pretentiousness and dismissal of her family's feelings are certainly to be somewhat condemned, she can hardly be blamed for changing her beliefs and values when becoming familiar with new social theories. Understanding the plight of black people in the world at large has changed her, and she is struggling to find her new identity. Mama understands that Dee's heart is in the right place and is perhaps even proud of her passion, but she is upset by her insensitivity when it comes to her sister. It is perhaps this lack of care that ultimately prevents Mama from trusting Dee with the quilts.

In Alice Walker's, "Everyday Use," you could apply the intellectual to Dee and her boyfriend and experience to the mother/narrator and Maggie. 

This is not to say that Dee is an intellectual, although she may be.   But she can be seen as representing intellectuals and a movement among intellectuals that sought to transform the black experience in America, particularly the experience of black families.  I have read criticism that insists this is how Walker intended for Dee to be interpreted.  Adherents of this movement  saw the experiences of black families in America as lacking, as Dee does.

In contrast, the mother and Dee form a traditional family and possess their own kind of dignity.  They believe and the story suggests that they do not need anyone coming in from the outside and transforming their lives.  They possess their own traditions and history and have their own lives, and, again, their lives are filled with dignity.

In "Everyday Use," then, experience is revealed as doing just fine without intellectualism.