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

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The Telmarc Group PROGRESSIVISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND THE PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL In his study of “Public Intellectuals”, Richard Posner addresses these types of questions in a broader political context. Posner is the head of the U.S. 5 th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, and is a well known jurist and author, and himself a Public Intellectual of sorts. In his work, Posner takes the Public Intellectual to task. When Posner discusses the Public Intellectual he also opens up the discussion of the Intellectual class in general. There has been great discussion of this class by many authors over the past century and Posner just adds to the discussion yet in a new and innovative manner 16 . Posner characterizes the Public Intellectual as: “To summarize, a public intellectual expresses himself in a way that is accessible to the public, and the focus of his expression is on matters of general public concern of (or inflected by) a political or ideological cast. Public intellectuals may or may not be affiliated with universities. They may be full-time or part-time academics; they may be journalists or publishers; they may be writers or artists; they may be politicians or officials; they may work for think tanks; they may hold down "ordinary" jobs. Most often they either comment on current controversies or offer general reflections on the direction or health of society. In their reflective mode they may be utopian in the broad sense of seeking to steer the society in a new direction or denunciatory because their dissatisfaction with the existing state of the society overwhelms any effort to propose reforms. When public intellectuals comment on current affairs, their comments tend to be opinionated, judgmental, sometimes condescending, and often waspish. They are controversialists, with a tendency to take extreme positions. Academic public intellectuals often write in a tone of conscious, sometimes exasperated, intellectual superiority. Public intellectuals are often careless with facts and rash in predictions.” This is a frightening characterization but is all too often totally the case especially in the domain of those who opine on the Internet Neutrality issue which we will soon get to. The last statement that they are often careless with facts and rash in predictions is to some degree holding the punch. They all too often opine on things which they do not have the faintest degree of knowledge of. 2.3 THE ACADEMY There are a multitude of Academics who one may look at as playing the role of Public Intellectual. The Academy is today filled with individuals who frequently want to take their thoughts and put them out to the public, whether those thoughts are well hatched or 16 See the books by Hofstadter, Anti Intellectualism in American Life, or Barrett, The Truants, Adventures Among the Intellectuals, or Johnson, Intellectuals, or the classic, Allan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind. The American Intellectual seems to be quite distinct from the French Intellectual, for in France there are many Public Intellectuals, but the French think for thinking's sake whereas the Americans think in response to financial sponsors, in many cases. Page 32
The Telmarc Group PROGRESSIVISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND THE PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL not. Many of the Academics so involved will not ever think of sending in a paper for publication without extensive review for fear of potential peer criticism, yet they will take ideas of the moment and send them forth to the Public as if generated on Olympus. They typically today are in Law Schools, and even more typically are devoid of any technical, business, or operational experience, and most likely even hands-on knowledge of the industries on which they are commenting. This is not to say that every Public Intellectual who is an attorney and at a Law School has de minimis knowledge, but one must look at what attorneys say and their approach to the topic as one which is inherently adversarial on the one hand and an advocate on the other. Posner is a true exception. Perhaps because he has spent so much of his time as a Judge seeking the best solution and not as an advocate. Thus, without impugning any of the current players by name, we return to the Internet Neutrality issue and present a current cross section of Public Intellectuals from the Academy who is working in the Net Neutrality space and they include some of the following: At University of Pennsylvania School of Law there is Christopher Yoo, previously at Vanderbilt, an attorney by training, and an academic by profession for most of his career with no stated technical competence or business experience 17 . Gregory Sidak is another, also an attorney educated at Stanford and in the Academy and in Think Tanks the totality of his career 18 . He is currently at Georgetown Law and Criterion Economics, a Washington Think Tank and consulting firm. Then there is Larry Lessig at Stanford and now Harvard Law, a Yale Law graduate, well know in intellectual property law on the Academic side, self proclaimed expert on the Internet 19 , albeit also with no apparent technical expertise or training and no business or operations experience 20 . Then there is Tim Wu at Columbia, a Harvard Law Grad and one who has clerked for Judge Posner herein referenced, and one who has claimed business experience in Silicon Valley 21 . 17 http://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/csyoo/ 18 http://criterioneconomics.com/who/sidak.php 19 http://www.lessig.org/blog/ This is Lessig’s blog and it appears as if this is a promotional site for whatever is produced. This is the Public Intellectual in full bloom. 20 http://www.law.stanford.edu/directory/profile/39/ 21 http://www.law.columbia.edu/fac/Timothy_Wu Page 33
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The Telmarc Group and the Progressi
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