Public Intellectual Life
"Public intellectual" is a common term for an intellectual engaged in public rather than (or as well as) academic or other professional discourse.
Regardless of the field of expertise, as a public intellectual, one is addressing and responding to the problems of his or her society and thus such an individual is expected to "rise above the partial preoccupation of one’s own profession... and engage with the global issues of truth, judgement, and taste of the time." According to Edward Saïd however,
... real or 'true' intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society.
An intellectual is often associated with a particular ideology or philosophy, e.g., the Third Way centrism of Anthony Giddens in the Labour Government of Tony Blair. Václav Havel said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that responsibility for their ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. He said, "Therefore, it's best to avoid utopian intellectuals offering ‘universal insights’ that might, and have, harmed society, preferring instead that those intellectuals who are mindful of the ties created with their insights, words, and ideas should be... listened to with the greatest attention, regardless of whether they work as independent critics, holding up a much-needed mirror to politics and power, or are directly involved in politics."
Read more about this topic: Intellectual
Famous quotes containing the words public, intellectual and/or life:
“The designers [of the 1930s] were populists, you see; they were trying to give the public what it wanted. What the public wanted was the future.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“The American people owe it to themselves, and to the cause of free Government, to prove by their establishments for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge, that their political Institutions ... are as favorable to the intellectual and moral improvement of Man as they are conformable to his individual and social rights.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man’s subordination.... The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence—that, is, the individual—pure and strong.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)