Carry on, Public Intellectuals

Public intellectuals are an interesting breed of people. On one hand they are suppose to be the “experts” of their particular field, but on the other they often know very little outside there area of expertise. Public intellectuals often are critical of people that do not fit the public intellectual description, and in doing so alienate themselves from the people that they are often writing for. This is what creates the big difference in ideas and opinions between the two. It has been talked about that public intellectuals are becoming extinct as a form of expression as John Donatich expresses in a panel on Public Intellectuals seen here. The reasons that this decline is apparently happening is that people have far more access to public intellectual work than in previous times especially through the internet. While many see this as detrimental to the future of public intellectuals, I see this as a very positive fact that public intellectuals can use to have even more influence.

Most people are only going to be interested in reading a public intellectual article or paper if they are interested in the topic that is being discussed. With new forms of sharing of ideas it is easier to find articles that are interesting. It has been written that Americans are hostile towards public intellectuals however I do not believe this to be true. More people than ever are attending college and are being exposed to those that used to and still do make up the public intellectual fraternity. With this new exposure of intellectual ideas and forums to a growing number of people, more people are in turn becoming public intellectual participants. To some that have been writing public intellectuals for a long time this is a threat since it is making what had been an exclusive group much more populated. Public intellectuals however do not have to be on purely academic ideas and theories they can also discuss practical matters that people are faced with everyday.

Public intellectuals in my opinion are far to concerned on who can carry this title and what qualifications one must have. Stephen Mack shares this same idea and explains it in further detail in his article “The Decline of Public Intellectuals?” seen here. Spending too much time ad energy debating who can be considered a public intellectual takes away from the main purpose of public intellectuals, which is to analyze and critique society. Richard Prosner debates in his book Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline that public intellectuals are becoming far to numbered taking away from the quality of the public intellectual forum. He argues that public intellectuals are not holding to the old expression of “quality over quantity.” What Posner tries to do is attack the most widely viewed public intellectuals to take away from the credibility of them strengthen his argument that there are too many public intellectuals and the quality is poor. This is a completely invalid way to analyze the quality of a public intellectual. This is like saying a movie such as Top Gun which nearly every American as watched at least once is more influential then great movies such as Citizen Kane, which many people may not have seen. Both have an effect on American culture however it is not valid to say all movies are poorly made simply by looking at the movies that are viewed the most and attacking what each of those have done wrong.

Public intellectuals must continue to diversify their subjects and people who write them in order to continue to incorporate new ideas. The internet is making it much easier to share ideas that many public intellectuals would have been hard pressed to share many years ago. This increases the amount of influence that public intellectuals can have in expressing their opinions to others.