The Responsibilities of the Public Intellectuals

 The Responsibilities of the Public Intellectuals

If you are going to assert that there is some foundation to our moral sense, minimally defined as drawing a right-wrong distinction, you might want to assert that there is some foundation to the social judgments of ingroups and outgroups. Some criticisms of morality claim that moralisms are simply convenient categories for classifying your enemies as evil, and therefore have no validity. If morality is substance, what is it? 

Why is argument, the pen, superior to the sword, violence? The issue is normativity, or why we are supposed to act or not act in certain ways, that is, why we must perform certain obligations. Concealed in the normativity question that we must do certain things and not others is the problem of illegitimate norms. Illegitimate norms are the untrue myths as false stories which we learn in childhood and have an inscribing and imprinting effect during our life. What makes a norm legitimate? This question is rarely asked or answered but it is often at the heart of social confrontations. The practice of reaction, of taking action come what may in public as a protest to a perceived insult or wrong, is considered the only effective way to produce social change, or change in policy, since the authorities, or those with power in terms of authorized and designated powers, police force/legal representation or majority opinion, will not adjust their views unless outrageous action is taken against them. Even though this same strategy of reaction is all too common in our interpersonal lives, on the public stage, reaction and not argument is believed to be the only certain course. 

One should have a certain logical and reasonable attitude to argue which is absent in most persons since most are 'emotional.' The designated persons who construct and disseminate the 'arguments' are called public intellectuals - writers, journalists, think-tank analysts, professors and especially politicians. These persons, there are only around 6000 or so worldwide at any given time, have the responsibility of investigating and reporting what is going on. So, the question of whether the pen is mightier than the sword depends on whether these persons are responsibly doing their job!

Sarocchi’s thoroughly unsympathetic definition of the intellectual provides the frame for “Julian Benda, Portrait of the Intellectual,” (1968) “In these days when every twenty-year-old who has read Marcuse or Mao confers upon himself the title of intellectual, it is pleasant to read someone who has not been taken in and who recognizes the contemporary intellectual for what he too often is, a destructive and unappeasable critic of the whole current of human culture and modern Western society, usually to the benefit of some undefined form of totalitarianism.”

Social media pundits project into the public consciousness reactionary cherry picked socio-cultural binary issues that are for/against something. Their motifs are supported by an aggressive concoction of westernized cultural malaise and armchair activism. The public becomes a set of audiences accommodate gratuitous cultural biases. The true motivation of the pundit’s positions, I hesitate to call them intellectuals, is the financial interests in getting published or attention in the media.

The modern public intellectual utilizes contemporary issues to promote their own individual agenda; it is self-promotion and marketing of the pop public intellectual.

For example, darling of hard right American polemists, Ann coulter is a prolific public speaker and author that possesses an adept understanding of how to exploit the very sentiments which appeal to her target audience within the parameters of Republican America. Her readers range from confederate flag waving, gun-loving, rednecks to the educated blue-blooded nationalist. If she attempted to write literary fiction or romantic literature, she would not be as successful as an author. Her formula aligns with FOX, Breibart, etc. She has made statements such as "we should bomb Islamic countries and Christianize them," it is obviously meant to provoke her target audience. However, it would be more helpful for everyone’s understanding if she, or anyone, would address the Islamic-Christian conflicts in the Middle East, the Maghreb and Africa generally.

Slavoj Zizek claims that "911 is the political fantasy America has always wanted.” Zizek attacks neo-conservative capitalism. Jordan Peterson attacks political correctness and LGBTQ rights especially. Saad attacks the neo- Marxists academia. Coulter attacks immigration. They all share the penchant for presenting their personal viewpoint which is too often unrelated to any facts or evidence or statistics.

What are the steps the public are supposed to take after they have understood these pressing issues? Can these problems be resolved? There is no intention to proactively resolve any issues only to publicly address, as Zizek said in an interview regarding his thoughts on utopian revolution, “The second step never comes” - it is not their responsibility.

The public is lured into watching debates which will supposedly resolve the issue one way or the other, but these debates, like the Zizek-Peterson debate, or the many debates involving Christopher Hitchens, the weekly William Buckley show, are mere hype and entertainment, like a reality show or a sports event. Does the audience learn anything?

Instead of William Buckley and Noam Chomsky, or Taibbi on ‘Useful Idiots,’ or ’60 Minutes’ having an in depth, animated conversation for the world to see we now have Ben Shapiro, Gad Saad, Tucker Carlson spewing shameless politically motivated versions of public intellectualism for fanboys and subscribers.

Journalists who report on events and reconstruct the identities, positions and statements of leaders and movements around the world. There are a handful of magazines: The Atlantic, Harpers, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Mother Jones, The Republic, time, Newsweek, etc., that report on events along with the major newspapers: NYT, WSJ, WaPo, etc. There is also You Tube which provides a venue for pundits, professors, and politicians. In the Zizek-Peterson debate, Peterson does not impress. Zizek won his debate in the first few minutes. Others have slammed Peterson who does not respond. Peterson is too obscure in his writing: Rules and Meanings. Noam Chomsky is the best. Ann Coulter speaks merely to draw attention to identity issues - binary wedge issues. The entire field of right-wing talk show hosts lack explanation and self-criticism. These shows amplify identity, and identicide. The real issues are interest positions, social position or rank and status, and power relations-structures, all of which are analogues of capitalism.

Zizek and Chomsky have one thing in common, they have serious written work that supports their position, but they are on opposite sides of the coin: Chomsky addresses realpolitik and political -historical events, in detail. Zizek addresses psychological and phenomenological theories and tries to apply them to social structures, groups, and current events.