Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline

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 attitu

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) t

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.

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."

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.