The Future of the Public Intellectual

The Nation facilitated a panel discussion on the future of the public intellectual, although I doubt anyone other than a public intellectual is familiar with the term. I suspect this contributes to its decline.

The article had valid points, but I found that it was borderline verbal ejaculation. Perhaps generational changes demand a different language of intellectualism in order to keep the dialogue alive.

I would like to touch on two points the forum raised:

“Scholarship seems to start with an autobiographical or confessional orientation. The notion that every question has a noble answer or that there are reliable structures of ideology to believe in wholeheartedly has become, at best, quaint.”

The idea that there is one answer is very theory-of-forms: there is an absolute truth and it is knowable. I would say trashing the Plato nostalgia is more intellectual than anything else.

“When we’re looking around for who should get the blame for the declining complexity of public debate, we tend to round up the usual suspects. Politicians usually get attacked, and the media…But I want to lift up two other candidates here…The first is this triumph of the therapeutic culture, with its celebration of the self that views the world solely through the prism of the self…”

Interesting: self healing and inner discovery are hording reflection that might otherwise be engaged in public intellectualism. I suppose this summons a philosophic debate of whether one can truly engage in the outside without first conquering the inside. Who knows. But I do believe in therapy and mental health. This is sort of a question of the individual versus common good. Is it better to help yourself, or challenge the machine? Maybe it does not have to be one or the other.