ABSTRACT
Our basic proposal1 here is that the role which critical intellectuals fulfil in contemporary society, and the gravity attaching to it, are fundamentally determined by the positions they take up in public life, the discourses they engage in and the agendas they promote. The extent to which they can become agenda-setters either within the political culture or in cultural policy decisively depends on the degree of resonance and respect they command from the general public. In the Anglo-American world it has become customary to designate such figures as “public intellectuals”. While in England there are attempts to enhance the role of these, at least within the universities, by making them into objects of institutional study,2
there have been concerned musings in the United States3 about the decline of the “public intellectual” in the face of other communicators taking centre-stage: utopian proselytizers, sellers of religious redemption and rapture, fundamentalist ayatollahs, crusaders against evil empires, party ideologues, pseudo-scientific campaigners or dot.com messiahs. It is also argued, however, that now, more than ever, the “public intellectual” is needed, “to puncture the myth-makers … whether it’s those who promise that utopia is just around the corner if
we see the total victory of free markets worldwide, or communism worldwide or positive genetic enhancement worldwide, or mouse-manoeuvring democracy worldwide, or any other run-amok enthusiasm” (Elshtain 2001). Within the context of continental European cultures, and in particular that of Germany, the notion of the intellectual often implicitly refers to a figure of such distinct critical status that it renders the epithet “public” redundant. Indeed, during periods of lesser prominence the intelligentsia’s “silence” immediately becomes a matter for alarm in the Federal Republic.4 Intellectuals in a quite specific sense have come to be understood as those who, while enjoying a prominent reputation in their own areas of specialization, have demonstrated the ability to communicate ideas and influence debate outside of it, usually by dissenting or provocative intervention in matters of public concern.
