Has anyone ever described themselves as an "intellectual," or given it
as the answer to the question, "And what do you do?"� The very term
"public intellectual"� sometimes affects me like the expression
"organic food." After all, there can't be any "inorganic"�
nourishment, and it's difficult to conceive of an intellectual whose
specialisation was privacy, at least since Immanuel Kant. However, we
probably do need a term that expresses a difference between true
intellectuals and the rival callings of "opinion maker"� or "pundit,"�
especially as the last two are intimately bound up with the world of
television. (I recently rewatched the historic 40-year-old ABC News
confrontation between Gore Vidal and the late William F Buckley at the
Chicago Democratic convention. The astonishing thing was that the
network gave these two intellects a full 22 minutes to discuss matters
after the news. How far we have fallen from that standard of
commentary.) Link: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10163

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