ancient cities

398 Intellectuals
change has occurred through economic realities
rather than intellectual endeavor.
Are Intellectuals on the Decline?
Some influential commentators in the United States,
Britain, and elsewhere have argued that there has
been a decline in intellectual life evidenced by the
debased figure of the public intellectual and demise
of the humanist ideal in higher education. Fears
have been expressed that intellectuals, entrepreneurs,
artists, and innovators are fleeing Western
cities in the context of a modern global economy
driven by intolerance, poor education, inequality,
ineffectual government, and the allure of expanding
developing economies. Of course, such arguments
depend on the definition of intellectual
adopted, and fears of intellectual decline have been
expressed in various societies for centuries. It is
argued that many public intellectuals are merely
media commentators passing opinions on cultural
and lifestyle issues beyond their original
areas of expertise rather than making direct political
interventions.
Knowledge-based institutions such as universities,
especially in Europe, are now frequently
viewed as tools of government economic intervention
and motors for economic and social regeneration
rather than autonomous bastions of learning,
critical thought, and innovation. Despite the rapid
expansion that has taken place in higher education,
it is contended that there has been a decline
in the quality of intellectual life and the educational
experience offered in modern universities.
This is due to excessive politically motivated and
often contradictory governmental interference
resulting in the erosion of academic autonomy, in
student debt, and in the decline of the humanist
ideal. Hence, although large quantities of academic
work are being produced and universities are now
frequently one of the largest provincial urban
employers, a managerial instrumentalist and utilitarian
ethos now dominates, enshrined in targets
and public–private partnerships.
Can Intellectual Communities
Be Revived or Created?
Governments have sought to revitalize and transform
urban centers for political and economic
reasons by implementing measures intended to
foster the development of intellectual communities.
Some support for this has come from considerable
empirical work undertaken by economic
geographers and others investigating concepts of
the knowledge economy, learning regions, and the
role of universities in fostering developmental
strategies. Attempts have been made to replicate a
formula or set of conditions under which urban
intellectuals will thrive and help to inject vitality
into local economies.
Interventions have taken various forms in
different countries but have usually involved
institutional subsidies or tax incentive schemes,
partner ships between national and local government,
local businesses, universities, and community
groups. These attempts presuppose, to some extent,
an interrelationship between the arts and sciences,
and thriving artistic and intellectual communities
have often been associated with economic success
although, as studies of the knowledge economy
and learning regions has shown, such a relationship
is by no means certain. Societies experiencing
economic or political decline have experienced
an artistic renaissance.
The productiveness and originality of intellectuals
and creative individuals is partly the result of
their self-perception and status as a socially distinctive
or marginal group with alternative values
defined against dominant or majority culture.
Hence, intellectual or artistic originality has often
been associated with social distinctiveness or marginality
as defined in terms of gender, religion,
race, sexuality, or other characteristics. The homosexuality
of Gertrude Stein, Alan Turing, Oscar
Wilde, and Peter Tchaikovsky, for instance, is
often regarded as a major factor in their creativity,
casting them as partial outsiders struggling for
identity and admittance. Similarly, when Chicago
sociologists such as Robert Park and Everett
Stonequist analyzed the strategies employed by
immigrants such as Jews to preserve something of
their individual culture, they found that integration
into U.S. urban society was achieved through
attaining excellence in special fields of endeavor.
Recent work on the knowledge economy, learning
regions, the rise of a creative class, and patterns
of economic growth provides some support for the
idea that modern intellectuals are able to take
advantage of the special qualities of modern urban