Subject: Re: Public Intellectuals
From: Valérie Aron (miss_vertigo18@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Nov 21 2001 - 06:59:48 GMT
This discussion about Intellectuals is very apropos,
considering the 11th september turmoil and the war. In
France, we can see on TV a lot of 'meetings' between
Intellectuals, that is to say Historians, Philosophy
experts or writers, and most of them also write daily
or weekly articles in famous newspapers, although they
don't major in military strategy, or arabian
civilization . But we don't hear politicos that much,
as if their competences were not appropriate to have
an interesting view about the conflict.
I'd like to know how it is in the US. A few months
ago, I read an interview of Philip Roth, who expressed
his regret that the US (I guess, the U.S. media...)
don't pay attention to writers and their opinions
about public conflicts (he was especially referring to
the Monica Levinsky's affair). So, do your
Intellectuals give their opinions about the 11th
september and its meanings, or is it just a Bush-Bush
monologue?
Valérie
--- Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
> But I'd agree with your lament about the lack of
> public intellectuals in
> America. Stanley Fish is one, Noam Chomsky is one.
> Susan Sontag
> qualifies too, but her reputation (I understand) is
> a lot better in
> Europe than the US. But they're pathetically
> predictable in their
> opinions. I think American academia takes for
> granted that it's at odds
> with popular culture and settles into a mindset that
> refuses to engage
> it self critically.
>
> Umberto Eco wrote a pretty good essay about the lack
> of public
> intellectuals in the US and the reasons for it...I'm
> curious what he
> said (don't quite remember) and may try to dig it up
> :)
>
> Jim
> -
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