The Decline of the Public Intellectual and the Rise of the Pundit

Abstract

The author asks: "Where have all the intellectuals gone?" & answers this by saying that they have mainly turned to academia -- rather than to milieux like the Left Bank or Bloomsbury, as an earlier generation would have. However, there is something essentially contradictory & even self-destructive about the pubic intellectual living within the academia, for this blunts the public aspect of the role. Liberation from economic uncertainty should benefit the life of the intellectual as well as the intellectual life of the nation, but it has failed to do so. Those who write from the bureaucratic comfort of large universities cannot claim to be alienated from society. Neither can they spend all of their time on purely intellectual pursuits but rather must dedicate a considerable time on demonstrating the kinds of expertise that are required of academics. Beyond these problems is the fact that public intellectual requires a public audience, & this has in large measure disappeared. D. Knaff