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WHAT_PRICE_INTELLECTUALS

                                                      September 16, 2021

One of Jacoby's themes is that it's rough
supporting yourself as a "public intellectual"
in the modern world.  A central theme of              TANGLING_WITH_JACOBY
"Last Intellectuals" was that the hiring
spree of academic jobs sidelined them out
of the public view-- but now that the spree
is over with and getting an academic job has
become nearly impossible, there still isn't
any good alternative source of funding

    "The internet gives you a voice,
    but it doesn't give you money."


Russell Jacoby offers two
approaches typified by
Christopher Hitchens and          He calls Hitchens and Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn:               "Classic independent public
                                  intellectuals."

                                           Myself, I'd call them
  "Cockburn ended up living in a           classic, only occasionally
  very small rural community in            interesting light-weights.
  northern California, basically
  because it was very cheap."

  "Hitchens took a different path,
  sort of the 'bright lights'.
  Make it big.  ... even Hitchens
  was teaching at the New School
  at one point."



    John Tangney:

    "... funnily enough I interviewed one of the founding
    editors of 'N+1' last week, and he has an academic
    job, that's how he makes a living."



                         I'm of two minds          
                         about this one...     (The irony police might note 
                                               that I was just complaining 
                                               about Russell Jacoby's inability
                                               to take a definite position.)


                         There seems to be something a little funny
                         about complaining about "professionalized"
                         academics in one moment and obsessing
                         about financial support for non-academics
                         right afterwards.


                         On the other hand, people need to live
                         somehow, and if there's some vital
                         function "public intellectuals" serve
                         it would seem to be a bad thing if most
                         of them had to quit to find other work.

                            The questions though:

                                (1) do professional public
                                intellectuals serve some function
                                that volunteers can't serve,

                                (2) if they do need additional
                                funding, where will it come from?

                            Jacoby never makes it this far.
                            If there's not enough freelance
                            work to pay the bills, do we
                            have a government agency that
                            funds the work?  (Then what
                            happens to their independence?)

                              Jacoby looks askance at academia in general, so
                              he presumably wouldn't be impressed with things
                              like the crookedtimber bloggers: academics
                              writing unpaid popular work in their spare time
                              (or to promote other activities, e.g. to
                              advertise book releases).


                              (The best I can do is point at the
                              small donations non-profit model.)





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