How Intellectuals Create a Public
Corey Robin | January 22, 2016
As an archetype, the public intellectual is a conflicted being, torn in two competing directions.
On the one hand, he’s supposed to be called by some combination of the two vocations Max Weber set out in his lectures in Munich: that of the scholar and that of the statesman. Neither academic nor activist but both, the public intellectual is a monkish figure of austere purpose and unadorned truth. Think Noam Chomsky.
On the other hand, the public intellectual is supposed to possess a distinct and self-conscious sense of style, calling attention to itself and to the stylist. More akin to a celebrity, this public intellectual bears little resemblance to Weber’s man of knowledge or man of action. He lacks the integrity and intensity of both. He makes us feel as if we are in the presence of an actor too attentive to his audience, a mind too mindful of its reception. Think Bernard-Henri Lévy.
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| Source: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674012462 |
<more at http://chronicle.com/article/How-Intellectuals-Create-a/234984; related links: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674012462 (Public Intellectuals
A Study of Decline, With a New Preface and Epilogue. Book website) and https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1100-freelance-academics-as-public-intellectuals (Freelance Academics as Public Intellectuals. August 14, 2015)>
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