progressivism, individualism, and the public ... - Telmarc Group

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PROGRESSIVISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND THE PUBLIC
INTELLECTUAL
intellectual one must also know the facts, one must be educated in them and one must
back up statements with facts. We will show that all too often the public intellectual gets
well ahead of themselves and that is when trouble begins. It is for this reason that we use
the Internet Neutrality example, it has strong technical content. Health Care is much too
broad, and Internet Neutrality is quite specific;
Second, if they are truly “sellers” of ideas, what should we as consumers of their ideas be
made aware of so that we can reliably assess whether we should accept what they are
saying as valid. What I mean by sellers is that all too often the purported public
intellectual is being remunerated by a third party and a party with some interest in the
policy debate. A recent example was Prof Gruber at MIT who had done many models for
health care and published many articles supporting the administration. It comes to be that
they the good Professor were a paid consultant to the White House which was using his
"unbiased" analysis to show how good their plans are. There are many public intellectuals
who are "sellers" of ideas. The "think tanks" are a typical example but not as blatant as
the Gruber one. ;
Third, if not from the current crop of Public Intellectuals, where else should we seek
information, namely is there any reliable information in these millions and millions of
hits on the Google searches. Is there "truth" to be found anywhere in cyberspace? The
answer is that with the wealth of information one should explore as much as possible
always looking for the basis and always looking to see who is "selling". The buyer
beware is always good advice.
The persons who we, the public, frequently seek advice and guidance from, is the Public
Intellectuals. These people are the class of Americans who frequently find themselves in
Academia or even in Think Tanks and who have demonstrated over years of writing and
lecturing and study that they are experts in some area which may be somewhat germane
to the public topic being discussed.
Thus, these Public Intellectuals may be Lawyers, Political Scientists, Historians, and in
such a technical area as Net Neutrality, they may be Engineers or even Scientists. Public
Intellectuals are, by their very nature, allegedly deep thinkers in their own fields, and
have been recognized by the Academy or some other vetted body of approval that they
have passed the peer review mechanisms that are so common in their fields. Further, their
ideas, their thinking process, and their prognostications have validity and merit 15 .
15 An interesting document that may help here is 509 US 579, Daubert v Merrell Dow, the Supreme Court case
describing what may be characterized as Expert Testimony. In the Daubert case the Court supports the US Code which
allows a broader interpretation of an expert. The expert testimony is no longer limited to peer reviewed works. This we
shall see is a critical change even for this topic. For example, the whole issue of access and interconnection in the peer
review literature is dominated by the Baumol Willig tautology which states that fees should be charged to maximize
public utility subject to the constraint that the initial incumbent has its profit maximized. By definition that accepted
standard denies any new entrant access.
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