The Public Intellectual (Part 2 of 3): The "Decline" of the Public Intellectual?

A second issue that the public intellectual faces is that of his status as well as role in today’s society. To be specific, I believe that the former may be unclear, but the latter remains firmly established. In the case of the former, there have been questions as to whether the public intellectual, as related to his society, has been respected and effective. John Donatich, in a panel discussion, stated:

In preparing for this event, I might as well admit that I've been worried about making the slip, "the future of the public ineffectual." But I think that malapropism would be central to what we'll be talking about. It seems to me that there is a central conflict regarding American intellectual work. How does it reconcile itself with the venerable tradition of American anti-intellectualism? What does a country built on headstrong individualism and the myth of self-reliance do with its people convinced that they know best? (John Donatich)

The issue he raises is an important one. Worrying about the effectiveness of the public intellectual, or the “ineffectual”, he raises the point that there is a tension that needs to be reconciled. That is, he points out the culture of anti-intellectualism in America as butting heads with the public intellectual, resulting in the latter’s loss of credibility. But Mack contends in his response to this that the myth of America's anti-intellectual is just that, a myth:

One, the fact that academic institutions wield enormous financial, technological, and cultural power—and the fact that, more generally, education continues to be the centerpiece of some of our most cherished social myths (i.e., “the “American Dream”)—are both powerful reasons to doubt that Americans suffer from some instinctive hostility to intellectuals. Two, what is sometimes identified as anti-intellectualism is in fact intellectual—that is, a well articulated family of ideas and arguments that privilege the practical, active side of life (e.g., work) over the passive and purely reflective operations of the mind in a vacuum. (Stephen Mack)

I might agree that this myth of the hostile everyman opposed to the aristocratic elite is just a myth, but I would say that the two reasons he states are exaggerated for effect. First, while "the American Dream" and the idea of education are well hallowed in America's society, it doesn't reveal the fact that even in this, there is a division of the haves and the have-nots in education. Some go on to be the public intellectuals, while others go on to be laborers, and to a certain extent, there will always be some discontent from the latter towards the former. After all, it was the founding fathers, the public intellectuals of their day, who founded America, not the farmers and uneducated. In fact, it was the latter who tried overthrowing the government multiple times in incidents such as Shay’s Rebellion. For Mack's second point, he might define the anti-intellectualism as something entirely something it claims to be the opposite of -- intellectualism. To be fair, some may have properly educated and rational set of ideas and articulations that govern their "anti-intellectualism". But on the other side, some may just be ones who harbor hostility to intellectualism out of spite and emotions and not much more. But, even if we accept that anti-intellectualism actually ends up being intellectualism, it doesn't necessarily show the myth of anti-intellectualism to be false as much as it shows those dogging anti-intellectuals to be unintentionally hypocritical.

Not only are the intellectuals facing hostilities from critics and public alike, but they experience their share of distrust. Jean Bethke rationalizes that “Democracy requires laws, constitutions and authoritative institutions, but it also depends on what might be called democratic dispositions". When she specifies on those democratic dispositions, however, she reveals "We find deepening cynicism; the growth of corrosive forms of isolation, boredom, and despair; the weakening, in other words, of that world known as democratic civil society, a world of groups and associations and ties that bind"(Jean Bethke Elshtain). So in this reality of skepticism and cynicism, which hasn’t exactly been helped by the Iraq War, the public’s distrust and hostility are often exacerbated. In essence, she says that a democratic system built on these dispositions on the part of the public crumbles when it erodes. And as a result, not only do the heads of the state and government suffer, but so do the public intellectuals, who are often seen in the same light as those very politicians.