A list of people that I think are significant or note-worthy...
Sarah Palin
Kirk Miller
Pope Benedict
David Callahan
To name a few. I dont believe that this group produces "careless" or "mistaken" commentary as our friend Posner suggests. Each Public intellectual has their own agenda and has issues that are important to them or to their public, and wether or not we agree with them doesnt mean that what they're saying is careless or mistaken. I think Posner is "Careless" in his book by how quickly he is to point the finger of blame and judgement on everyone else. Im not that familiar with Posner, but I'd bet money that he's made some mistakes of his own and that not every word hes ever said has been 100% true, accurate, etc. I think part of what makes public intellectuals who they are is a common respect for other public intellectuals and an understanding that other public intellectuals are not the enemy, rather can be a sound board to bounce ideas and criticisms off of....a group of peers to answer to and challenge them to think further or differently than they have before. I think it was somewhat immature of Posner to make some of the claims that he did in his book, becuase a lot of those claims seemed to be making a mole hill out of an ant hill. If another public intellectual innacurrately predicts something or gets a few nu,bers wrong, is that diginificanlty and directly harming me? most of the time the answer would be no, so why does Posner make such a big deal about other's shortcomings? Is he perhaps trying to hide some shortcomings of his own???
Wow. You're the second person in the class to list Pope Benedict as a significant public intellectual. Surprising.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, you're right to ask whether Posner is perhaps hiding some shortcomings of his own. There some basic errors of fact in the Public Intellectual book itself. For instance, he misspells French author and former French Minister of Culture Andrea Malraux's name at least once. How this hurts you or anyone else is open to question...
I agree with the way that you identify the role that public intellectuals play in the lives of each other; there should be a common respect and understanding. That being said, it seems that when public intellectuals get involved with politics and take an active role in it, the media distorts the relationship between intellectuals so that they are displayed as enemies instead of a peers. It is hard to tell when the media gets involved if public intellectuals are working to improve each other’s understanding or attempting to tear one another down.
ReplyDelete