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Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline

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Many years ago, Voltaire said something to the effect that we should cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it. I was reminded of that caveat as I worked my way through this book. Posner defines a public intellectual as one of those "who opine to an educated public on questions of or inflected by a political or ideological concern" and asserts that many (most?) contemporary thinkers thus defined become academics and then, over time, specialists in their respective fields. As a result, public issues of various kinds are denied the circumspection they require from those once capable of providing it. In Part Two, Posner claims to substantiate claims made in Part One "and goes beyond definition to an explanation of the varied genres of public-intellectual expression, and deals in depth with some of the most interesting and ambitious, and not merely the typical, public intellectuals active in the United States today." He identifies the usual suspects: Robert Bork, Noam Chomsky, Paul Ehrlich, Stanley Fish, Milton Friedman, Stephen Jay Gould, Lani Guinier, Gertrude Himmlefaub, Christopher Lasch, Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty, and Michael Warner. He evaluates each, damning with faint praise, praising with faint damnation, or simply dismissing entirely as unworthy of serious consideration. In many instances, Posner suggests, these and other "public intellectual" wannabes embraced what Posner calls "false beliefs" (e.g. "collectivist public policies") and thereby rejected or simply ignored the practical implications and consequences of such convictions. (It is important to keep in mind that Posner sees himself as a "pragmatist.") Other reviewers have taken issue with Posner's evaluations of various individuals. Some suggest that he invalidates candidates for a position he himself wishes to occupy: in Gary Rosen's words, "king of the public intellectuals." Be that as it may, I found this book to be extraordinarily thought-provoking. It achieves what seems to be one of Posner's primary objectives, expressed in the final chapter: "...my hopes for this book will be amply fulfilled if it merely stimulates a wider recognition of the problematic state of the public intellectual in the United States today and encourages further study of an odd and interesting market."

This book is not what you think. It's not so much a U.S.News-style ranking of public intellectuals, per se. It's even less another of a never-ending stream of "dumbing-down" theses intended to convince us that things were so much better during the Roman Empire. No, it's not that. It IS an indictment of academic specialization.

More specifically, Posner uses a greatly oversimplified microeconomic model to show how the "market" for intellectual products forces would-be public intellectuals into the academy. Within the academy they are encouraged to specialize. Here's the kicker: Academic specialization undermines the intellectuals' ability and motivation to make meaningful statements about broader public matters. The results are a largely academic intellectual debate dominated by esoteric, jargon-ridden theses which fail to engage the general public and are frequently dubious in merit.

Worth a read if you're interested in such matters but, beware, the presentation itself is tedious and repetitive. The best bit is the chapter debunking modern, "jeremiad," decline literature. The polemical material of Bloom, Rorty, and Berman doesn't hold much credibility with Posner.

Mr. Posner raises the question: Why are we suffering from a lack of intellectual excellence? It's not hard to agree with his premise, ask any thinking person today to name a great mind in the public domain, and most people will be left scratching their heads. For centuries Western Civilization has produced talented people who have added to our intellectual tradition, ranging from Socrates (arguably the first "Public Intellectual") right through to George Orwell. But today, we seem to be at the mercy of a group of mental midgets and charlatans, people whose thoughts are geared more toward selling books and stirring up controversy than actually improving our intellectual landscape.

As proof of this, Posner quotes from intellectuals of both the political left and right. For example, in the Clinton impeachment, he points out that both sides put forth dire predictions which turned out to be wrong. Republicans predicted that failure to remove Clinton from office would result in moral chaos, while Democrats predicted the impeachment would bring on an era of sexual McCarthyism. As it turned out, the impeachment saga played itself out without any dramatic effects on American society.

More to the point, Posner rips into the rants of intellectuals from both sides of the political fence. He devotes the better part of an entire chapter deconstructing Robert Bork's "Slouching toward Gomorrah", but also spends plenty of time destroying the arguments of Dr. Paul Ehrlich and Noam Chomsky. He effectively argues that intellectuals who make dire predictions should be held accountable when their predictions fail to pan out.

In sum, this is not an easy read, but a very worthwhile one. If it has any weakness, it is that Posner provides no realistic remedy to the problem of intellectual sloppiness on the part of our so-called intellectuals. He suggests a Web Site that would keep track of their more bizarre pronouncements, but that really isn't the answer. What is really needed is a vigilant news media, one that will hold public intellectuals' feet to the fire and vigorously expose the frauds and charlatans among us.

This is a marvelous meta-book. Posner studies in detail the personalities and the arguments that receive prominence in public debate. The result is the solid documentation of a paradox: The public intellectuals that dominate the media are not particularly good. In a deliberative democracy, this should be of profound concern. Posner's thesis, in addition to being painstakingly proven, is not only disturbing, but also undermines our confidence in the quality of public discourse and, consequently, in the quality of this society's democratic decision-making. Like every one of Posner's books, this too is profound, thought-provoking, and unsettling.

One cannot resist thinking about the thesis further. In a way, the idea of inadequacy of public debate is trite. Distinguishing a high-quality deliberative democracy from a debasing kowtowing to crowd impulses and manipulation is difficult. The difficulty has been recognized since Socrates and Pericles; the history of Classical Greece seems a perfect case study of the issues involved. Is Posner losing confidence in democracy? Is this book a justification for undemocratic features of our governmental structure? One cannot help but be reminded of the unelected federal judiciary-of which Posner is a leading member-and the extraordinary secrecy in which the judiciary operates. If public deliberation is defective, a secretive undemocratic deliberative body like the federal judiciary is a highly desirable component in an otherwise very public and democratic structure of government. A constitutional structure that denudes this high-capacity body from material power-from budgeting and military authority-prevents its dominance and preserves democratic balance. Thus, disquieting as this book may be, my confidence the judiciary makes me find it agreeable. The question that follows is how confident we should be in the decision-making of the federal judiciary. The Supreme Court has severely reduced the role of federal courts. The confirmation process shows no signs of favoring profundity and scholarship over political preferences. When Posner shows the inadequacy of public intellectuals, it would be comforting to be able to rest assured that an army of secretive Posners will continue to populate the courts. Unfortunately, no such indication exists.

Posner also makes the very true observation that contemporary public intellectuals lack a quality monitor. He emphasizes that as fields become increasingly specialized, the lay audience becomes less able to determine the quality and accuracy of the speech of public intellectuals. As a law professor, I should reply that a significant fraction of legal scholarship consists of sieving through other scholarship and presenting the conclusions of a deliberated evaluation of a large body of scholarship.

Although I deeply admire Posner and his work, I must add that he is not immune from errors that he points out in others. The Lewinsky issue rears its ugly head: "By forcing these attitudes [of different private views about sex] into articulate competition, Clinton precipitated a rancorous Kulturkampf." (p. 109) The obvious transgression here is the attribution of causation. When private attitudes are in conflict but hidden, how does one more hidden act-rather than the revelation of the hidden act by those who are politically motivated-"precipitate a war of cultures"?

In sum, this is a much more important book than it lets on. Perhaps unwittingly, it touches the foundational premises of democratic society. The quality of public debate is central to the quality of democratic governance and to the success of our political system. Yet, in this book, a component of political debate that some might have thought was important, is proven to be mostly driven by sensationalism and its entertainment value.

PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS, despite trivial displays of political susceptibility (as the above Lewinski example) should be acceptable to any non-extreme political ideology. It joins other books of Posner that belong to the same group. These books are accessible social science at its best, and this book may not only be one of the leading candidates but also the one that opens the gate for one of the largest and most important research programs, one about the detailed study of the social foundations of democracy. To the extent voluminous scholarship is based on the assumption that public discourse is of high quality, it is roundly debunked.

If I would've been asked to review this book at page 200, I wouldn't have thought twice about giving it 5 stars. Problem is, at page 360, I'm debating whether it is worth my time to read the last 40 pages. Likely, I will not.

The book itself starts off great. The thesis is well presented- that public intellectuals, through over-specialization, snap-decisions and decreased accountability have become not only more irreverant, but also irrelevant.

The firt half of the book is analysis of the 'market' of public intellectualism as a whole; its problems and virtues. Reader be warned, you'll be taken through some exacting economic analysis on this one and as this half of the book deals mostly with abstracts, it can get difficult. Posner is a great explainer though and if you like this subject, you'll find you can't quit reading! Posner's main point so far is that public intellectualism is an economic market, but is closer to that of entertainment than information. In the same way no one seems to hold day time talk show psycic Sylvia Browne accountable for her zany predictions, neither do (or should?) most of us hold Noam Chomsky or Robert Bork for their just as off-the-wall gems. To its further detriment, unlike most markets,public intellectualism is deficient in quality controls. I felt Posner's point in all of this was not ho-hum pessimism, but to point out problems so as to hint at solutions.

The second half of the book is a concrete examination of the different areas of the market; literary criticism, law, public commentary, social satire. I've two problems with this half (a bit over half) of the book. First, If you were paying attention to the first half, unless you're that concerned with examples, everything's been said. Second, Posner talks only about a few examples in each chapter. For instance, instead of talking about the 'public philosophy' market as a whole, he uses the space to talk about Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty, never quite getting to anyone else. In his chapter on social satire, the discussion is EXCLUSIVELY on Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. While his examples are ammusing, most of us are familiar with the careers of those on which he speaks (if not, why would we be interested in the subject?) so they become a bit repetitive.

Still, due to it's bucking-the-convention theme, diversity of topics, and Posner's obvious flair with the pen, the second half is entertaining, just not so informative. You can still get your moneys worth out of this one though. If you find the second half not to taste, you can compensate by reading the first half twice! I'm sure it's just as engrossing the second tiime 'round.

Having read almost every book written by Richard Posner, I ordered Public Intellectuals: A Study in Decline expecting the usual vibrancy and encyclopedic knowledge on display in his books Sex and Reason and The Problems of Jurisprudence. The whit and fluency are here, but the book is a bit of a hodge-podge. What Posner faults the public intellectual for relying on, among other things, is the use of the anecodote as evidence. Though Posner does not soly use anecdotes, the book is short on any deep study on the role of the public intellectual. I expected Posner to expand on has nascent interest in sociology which was revealed in The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory, but there is little in the book actually describing the academic milieu, and how it has influenced public intellectuals for the worse.

Don't get me wrong. A so-so book from Posner is better than 99.9% of the stuff published, but there are some things missing in the book.

There are also a lot of things that should have been left out, namely, Posner's retelling of Dworkin's shortcomings as an intellectual. Does Posner have some kind of idee fixe? Dworkin's is a bit of a buffoon, but I already knew that from reading about his role in the Clinton impeachment, which was ably described by -- you guessed it! -- Richard Posner, in An Affair of State.

By replaying the Dworkin wars, Posner gives credence to the claim, which I am sure many will make, that the book is merely an excuse to attack Posner's ideological enemies. That does not mean the books no good, but it does mean that the reader should be suspicious about whether the theory is just true for him.

Nonetheless, it is nice to see gasbags like Chomsky deflated.

The prolific and erudite Judge Posner turns out books at such an astoundingly rapid rate that you'd swear the man has two brains. He is, without a doubt, one of the most notable scholarly writers of our time. It is too bad, then, that this initially appealing book, "Public Intellectuals," falls short of what I expected.

I first learned of this book during an interview with the author on C-SPAN's "Booknotes" with Brian Lamb. As the dust jacket correctly boasts, this volume "is the first systematic analysis of the contemporary American public intellectual." In Part One of the book, Posner's critical chronicle of how today's public intellectual is most often out of his/her league is right on the money. Modern public intellectuals are almost exclusively academics, members of an ever more specialized university culture. Because of this solid trend, the typical public intellectual has very little "expert" knowledge outside of his/her esoteric area of study, lending him/her little if any credentials to comment on the general subject(s) he/she so "authoritatively" tackles in the public media. Posner's arsenal of examples, evidence, names, citations, and footnotes (he is a legal writer, of course) makes his case clear and well-defended.

However agreeable his basic thesis is, though, it is his market approach to characterizing the problem that seems rather incongruent and almost far-fetched. In his effort to quantify the problem of the worsening American public intellectual, Posner draws heavily on economic principles to explain why public intellectuals today are no good--in terms of "market failure." He demonstrates this model in Chapter Five with a veritable data section, full of charts and graphs. Though there is no better way to fortify one's thesis than with scientific evidence, the model Posner chooses just doesn't seem convincing. Public intellectuals do not really participate in a consumer culture, if you think about it. So long as there is (and always has been) public media outlets, intellectuals (genuine and self-proclaimed) will write, comment, prognosticate, and critique.

Part Two of the book consists of five "genre studies" of areas where modern public intellectuals most often tread. Here, Posner takes a detailed look at key intellectual players and painstakingly criticizes and discredits each of them with what can only be described as an off-putting and perfectionist air--except for MIT's Noam Chomsky, who deserves it. From George Orwell to Chicago's Martha Nussbaum, Allan Bloom (whom he "outs") to NYU's Ronald Dworkin (his personal sparring partner), Richard Rorty to Gertrude Himmelfarb, Posner deals each writer a summary list of their shortcomings--and then thanks many of them in the Acknowledgments! Within these 150 pages, the reader is left with little to suggest that any of the prominent public intellectuals of our time retain even one shred of competence.

The Conclusion, the most potentially redemptive (but shortest) section of the book, mollifies some of the blows inflicted by Posner in Part Two. However, the remedies suggested by Posner on how to improve today's public intellectual "market" are so soft, implausible, and ineffective even if implemented, that he might as well just say that restoring integrity to the public intellectual is a hopeless endeavor. The reader can only conclude that Posner's book, enlightening though it is in recognizing and attempting to explain the problem of the declining quality of public intellectuals, falls short of fulfilling its promises in the end.

On the whole this is a very good and entertaining book by an extremely intelligent, widely-read, fair-minded writer. Posner here continues his pragmatic, Gary Becker-influenced economic approach to issues, and while some might find his quantitative methods inadequate (largely Google searching) I think they are as good as anything else one might come up with for such an awkward and hard-to-define topic, and in light of the increasing size and importance of the shadow-intellectual-sphere aspect of the web, including but not limited to the blogosphere, it seems particularly apropos.

Others have noted that Posner spends some time taking shots (well-earned) at various members of his target (pardon the pun) group, and while it may seem capricious of and unbefitting a supposed serious study, in most cases these shots are in keeping with at least the "humanities" aspect of this work. My main quibble is that a good deal of what goes on in the public intellectual sphere is talk-show punditry, of the "Crossfire" and "Hardball" ilk, and much of what's left is commentary in magazines and newsapers. What is communicated through these venues is more akin to legal advocacy than reasoned discussion, and obviously this environment selects for those participants most willing and able to display passion and often a loose use of what those of us who have not yet turned our backs on the classical tradition like to call "facts," instead deploying illogic and easily-refuted (if there was time) claims, or shifting to another argument. The point is that while Posner in the first, "social science" half of the book points out the entertainment (as opposed to educational, or information-disseminating) nature of the public intellectual market, he strains to avoid using examples from this end of the public intellectual arena, while overall still seeming to want an accountability superimposed on that world. Posner tries to avoid saying this, but clearly that is what he is aiming at.

An example: some kind of internet scorecard would be welcome for academics' legitimate writings and speeches, and if it helped to shut up the next Paul Ehrlich or Lester Thurow, great, but most people in academics know Thurow is a bonehead, and if Posner is disappointed at some influence Thurow might have on the public, why isn't he more concerned with those intellectuals who more overtly interact within the public sphere? I think that clearly Posner is aware of this, and knows that to in any way expect that scorekeeping would ever have any effect on the true entertainment segment of the public intellectual world is wishcasting, and disingenuous as well, so he avoids saying it.

And that gets to the real issue, that even if we could somehow force the appropriate intellectuals on to the carpet to account for their statements, they'd just say "Hey, it's entertainment," or "I'm being political," or quietly slink away. And they'd get away with it, because we all know, and don't care (or not enough) that ultimately it is not serious in the way academic work is. And as infuriating as the quality of much public intellectual content is, it is awkward at best to in any way group things like television appearances with serious publications. This would have been a better book if Posner had made it a main point of his book to emphasize this discontinuity, and wash his hands of it, but he can't resist trying to judge the former by the hoped-for standards of the latter, and it is simply silly to do so. And if he is not, then the entire book is a bit of a sham, because in this day and age any public intellectual worth worrying about operates via the mass media, and I don't mean the occasional book. Alan Dershowitz' books sell well, but only because people know him from his work as a TV pundit; and it is only because of this aspect of his public personality that he can, in the supposedly more serious world of books, get away with writing in a very heated, partisan fashion and at the same time sell in large numbers. Posner could have outlined his book with the idea that the farther one gets from the academic world, and the more "public" an audience one reaches, the lower the quality of discourse, which is certainly true. One can be an irresponsible pundit and a highly respected scholar. It is perhaps unfortunate, but it isn't going to stop being true overnight. One possible corrective is the blossoming "web" of professional and amateur commentary found on the internet, alluded to above, which in a sense is a bottom-up, decentralized version of what Posner proposes. We can only wait and see.

I don't understand the negative reviews; I thought this was a terrific book. Posner skews intellectuals on both the left and right who make wrong predictions, foolish statements, and even outright falsehoods. The roll call of distinguished people--many of them Nobel laureates-- Posner rips is extensive. Noam Chomsky, Stephen Jay Gould, Paul Krugman, Steven Weinberg, Robert Bork, Allan Bloom, and Paul Ehrlich are just a few of the targets of Posner's firm but fair criticism. Even the great George Orwell doesn't escape criticism.

Even-handed throughout the book, Posner manages to rip both supporters and opponents of Clinton's impeachment, right-wing and left-wing economists, and supporters and opponents of the controversial book The Bell Curve. Posner has written a number of terrific books; this is my personal favorite. I hate to use this phrase, but he is very fair and balanced. He's written a number of good books; this is my personal favorite.

In Public Intellectuals, Judge Richard Posner sets out to understand why academics, philosophers, and commentators in the American media have so little influence over public opinion. Posner finds that most debate is very good at mobilizing those who already agree with you, but has little impact on others. No public intellectual every really changes anyone's mind.

Posner gives several reasons for this decline. 1) Public intellectuals are now more than ever college academics. Their professional jargon and personal lives keep them out of touch with day to day affairs in America. 2) Public intellectuals make bold predictions that are almost always wrong. We were supposed to be poor and starving by 1975, according to some environmentalist intellectuals. We are still here, rich and full, but they won't admit they were wrong. 3) Public intellectuals usually get that title by publishing outside their sphere of expertise. Noam Chomsky, for example, is a linguist, but the media seek out his opinion in the area of foreign policy. Intellectuals are out of their league, and often don't understand even the most basic facts. 4) Intellectuals seek moral status, with very clear lines between right and wrong. Real life is not so clear, so the intellectual is not very helpful for the average person, or the average politician. Posner went to great lengths in another of his books, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory, to address this last point in depth.

Overall, historians and sociologists interested in studying academics and commentators will find this book useful and enlightening. Average folk will find it long winded and rather boring. After all, we already know that commentators and media personalities are clueless windbags, right?

I think this is the biggest weakness of the book. Posner looks at the marketplace for ideas from the perspective of the producer: the media and the intellectuals. If he were serious about trying to understand the decline of intellectuals, he would have spent as much time looking at consumers of ideas. Mostly, he looks only at other intellectuals as consumers, perhaps because they're the only ones buying. As a major figure in economic analysis, I thought it appalling that Posner did not spend more time on day to day consumption of these ideas.

As mentioned briefly above, Posner takes a lot of time in this book rehashing themes from his other books. He looks at morality and public policy, the Clinton impeachment, and many other subjects on which he has written quite extensively. It is nice that his ideas all fit into a unified framework such as this, but that doesn't mean I wanted to hear about these other subjects at length.

What does it mean that a public intellectual like Posner would write a book criticizing public intellectuals? Could it be that his ideas are not getting the acclaim that he thinks they deserve?