What’s our debt to society? Pay taxes, vote, make a change
in the world?
What are Public Intellectuals debts to society? Public Intellectuals, people whose creation
and criticism deals with ideals, have a debt to educating and being involved
with the public concerning those ideals. Previous intellectuals exposed the truth, but
now, with the rise of the political sphere, intellectuals are needed for
evaluating, understanding, identifying, and articulating problems and truth.
Posner gave us notorious lists of top public intellectuals, and
I think anyone who reads them has an idea of additions that should be added to those
lists. For me, I believe contemporaries
Howard Gardner, Al Gore, Pope Benedict XVI, and Chinua Achebe should be added
to that list.
Now the key question: would Posner accept these public
intellectuals as possibilities for his lists?
Probably not. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t worthy public intellectuals of note, because as we know, and even Posner stated, his definition of Public Intellectuals is formed for him, and not a formed by public consensus.
I believe the four I listed are distinct persons who have a certain specialty. Not only do they have influence within specialties ranging from writing to teaching to cultural conflicts to climate crisis to religion, but these people also have the ability to communicate their ideas, educate, and create an influence about their ideals to the public—something I did agree with Posner on, regarding what defines a public intellectual.
These people possess key elements that elevate them to the role of public intellectuals, who in turn pay debts to society.
Interesting suggested additions to Posner's list, Krystina. I'd certainly have to agree with Gardner and Gore. And I love Achebe, though I don't think outside of Things Fall Apart that his work is well known in this country, I wonder, though, about Pope Benedict. He does write books and he does have a huge audience outside the US. Unlike JP II, though, he is not especially beloved by the masses and, perhaps more importantly, he is virtually ignored by the media in this country even when he makes bonehead, reactionary arguments about Islam or says fairly sane things about the relations between Catholics and Jews. But I'd have to say that in this country he is mainly known as the head of the Catholic Church and not for his commentary on political and ideological issues for a general audience. I'm unsure...
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about Stephen Colbert, but couldn't come up with a full rationalization, until I came across this. I like his humor about our views of public intellectuals.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/13/bernardhenri-levy-colbert_n_808531.html