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16 Sep 2007 01:41 pm
The 21st Century "Public Intellectuals"
They make Alias Clio shudder:
[T]he concept of the "intellectual" as a kind of all-purpose expert dates back to a time when far fewer people were literate, when there was much less knowledge to master, and when those few people who were both literate and learned, were much less specialized than they are today, and actually had a hope, even if a remote one, of a nodding acquaintance with all major branches of human learning. That hope is quite out of reach today: who can possibly master all the knowledge even within the narrow limits of their own field, much less those outside it? Thus it seems to me that anyone who claims the role of a "public intellectual" (even if he never uses that phrase about himself), is over-reaching from the start, no matter what he actually tries to say.
And how else would I earn a living?
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