Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures [Paperback]

Edward W. Said (Author)

Book Description

Series: Vintage | Publication Date: April 2, 1996

A new collection of essays by the author of Culture and Imperialism explores the changing role of the intellectual in modern society, drawing on both current events and literary examples to support his arguments.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

In six essays delivered as lectures for the BBC, Said (The Politics of Dispossession, p. 537, etc.) makes the case that intellectuals should maintain a vigilant skepticism toward all received wisdoms. Said conceives of the ideal intellectual as ``exile and marginal, as amateur, and as the author of a language that tries to speak the truth to power.'' Some may find an exquisite irony in the spectacle of Said, a member of the Palestinian National Council, cautioning thinkers against allowing their ideas and reputations to be co-opted by patriotism, nationalism, and various forms of group-think. But Said sees the irony as well, and he struggles honestly in these essays to describe a role for the intellectual in which the moral authority of the prophetic outsider is not purchased by forfeiting all political and social engagement. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Edward Said is well known for speaking his mind on controversial issues. In this brief lecture series, he goes beyond speaking up for a cause or a social group to defend the act of speaking up itself. Hence the double significance of the title, Representations of the Intellectual: In representing an idea to the public, the intellectual also represents an image of what it means to be an intellectual. Positioning himself against the "expert" who provides "'objective' advice for pay" (to a government, corporation, or the media), Said articulates a vision of the intellectual "as exile and marginal, as amateur, and as the author of a language that tries to speak truth to power," by "bearing witness" to forgotten, ignored, or suppressed stories. Appreciating the postmodern anxieties that may arise from his bold claims about universal moral principles and the neat separation of truth from power, Said honestly confronts the problem of objectivity. He illustrates his idea of the intellectual with historical, literary, and personal examples, candidly confiding his heroes and villains, and revealing the beliefs and passions behind his own life's work.
Copyright © 1996, Boston Review. All rights reserved. -- From The Boston Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 2, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679761276
• ISBN-13: 978-0679761273
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High point in the history of the Reith Lectures, May 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (Paperback)

Edward Said's definition of the intellectual as someone who "speaks the truth to power" is hardly an original notion. As any literate person will know, it recalls and derives from the Greek concept of the "parrhesiastes", the truth-teller. Crucially, not anyone who speaks the truth is a "parrhesiastes". A grammar teacher, for example, may tell the truth to the children he teaches, but he is not thereby a "parrhesiastes". However, when a philosopher addresses himself to a sovereign, to a tyrant and tells him that his tyranny is wrong, the philosopher not only voices the truth but also takes a risk. It is this element of risk and what we might call disinterested courage that defines a figure like Socrates but also a contemporary like Noam Chomsky. Of course, both the Greek notion and Said's concept, equally, exclude those who serve the status quo. Henry Kissinger is neither a "parrhesiastes" nor an intellectual. A merchant banker may utilise or produce "ideas" but he is too bound to the dominant system to be capable of truly critical thought. What this book addresses, though, is not so much the intellectuals themselves as the way they are perceived in different historical and social situations. What value does this figure of the truth teller, the risk taker, hold in different polities? In totalitarian societies he is paid the grotesque homage of censorship and state violence. In the U.S.A. and many Western democracies, by contrast, he is usually treated with contempt or barely concealed irritation. I have seldom seen "intellectual" used favourably in the British press. It is, all too frequently, prefixed with "pseudo-" or "trendy". What Said's book demonstrates is that the idea of the intellectual has an ancient and venerable history, and that power and truth are seldom comfortable bedfellows.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Intellectual's Role as Critic, August 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (Paperback)

In this slim, yet thought-proking volume, Edward said attempts to provide an outline of the function and duty of the intellectual in modern society. Implicitly, Edward Said goes about the task of challenging the increasingly cozy relationship between the so-called intellectual, i.e., academia, and the political/military power structure that has developed in the wake of McCarthyism and the subsequent paranoia of the Cold War. Case in point, do you know where Napalm was "invented", not in the bowls of the Pentagon, but at Harvard University, by scientists (intellectuals) with a duty to expand human understanding and knowledge, not to be used as a means to power and destruction. That, Said would contend, is precisely the problem with the role of the intelelctual today. Au Courant the climate of the "expert" reighns supreme and almost completely in the cause of war--in whatever manifestation it is found. Unfortunately, this is a problem that has been ignored for far too long, obscured with baseless, yet effective, claims of a leftist domination of academia to which Said's subtle analysis provides a vitally important counter.
Using the example of intellectuals such as James Baldwin, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Viginia Woolf and Noam Chomsky as a model of intellectual vigor and concern for social justice, both in words and in action. In this vein Said offers a critically important meditation on the vital influence that such can have on public opinion and, more importantly, government policy. Thus, the intellectual in today's society, in Said's mind, has a duty and an obligation to be an agent of social and political justice--a radically dissident voice if need be--against the dictates of blind power.

For those who admire critical thinking, moral courage and a helthy respect for honest debate Representations of the Intellectual is for you. There awill always be those who seem to believe that ad hominem attacks and smear campaigns can replace critical thinking and objective analysis, both of which are only a substitute for intellectual vigor. Yet, many of his critics seem to be perfectly content with a system in which the main function of an intellectual is as a petty propagandist of pragmatic ideology, providing justification for the continued imperial wars of aggression, right-wing insurgency, political assasination and even genocide, carried out by Western powers since WWII. Those who ignore these facts are either grossly naive or recklessly misguided by their own historico delusions.
But, for those who want to get beyond the simplistic dualisms and vacuous black/white oppositions by all means, read Said's book--your view of the intellectual in Western society will never be the same.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A succinct examination of what constitutes an intellectual., January 24, 2000

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Bukkene Bruse (Iowa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (Paperback)

Said succinctly examines what constitutes an intellectual and what role he or she has in society. He represents the intellectual as someone who is an amateur, independent of special interests, and an activist willing to take on personal risk to speak the truth. But perhaps more important is the intellectual's reliance on reason and honesty as opposed to the constraints of dogma or ideology. This book is an important read for anyone whose work puts them in a position to affect policy or public opinion.