A Comment on Nicholas Kristoff’s Op-Ed in the New York Times

I tell him what I think Clark Kerr’s explanation would be for why there are fewer public intellectuals.  I also, comment on my own situation in trying to address important public issues.  Here is a link to his blogpost, which, in turn contains a link to his Sunday column.  I commented on his blog.

“I have two comments.  Actually, that’s not quite true.  I have one comment and the deceased academic and public intellectual, Clark Kerr has the other one.

In a 1994 paper, “Knowledge Ethics and the New Academic Culture”, Prof. Kerr described the new “academic nomads” who are part of a “me generation” that is only interested in furthering their career.  In other words, to paraphrase Mark Twain, they are just like the rest of society.  Most are not going to beome public intellectuals if it isn’t in their interest. That leads directly to my personal comment.

Rather than teach unscrupulously (at an “elite’ school), I decided to document the attempts of administrators to get me to do so.  That is, I decided to become a “public intellectual”, which in this case meant whistleblower and commentator on higher education itself – and ex-professor (though not by choice – I was an adjunct) To this end, I started a blog inside-higher-ed.com, where I describe in detail some of my observations and experiences.   From my experience of a quarter of a century in academe, it can be dangerous to speak out publicly. As Clark Kerr pointed out, there are few colleagues who feel enough civic responsibility to protect the speaker.

(By the way, David Riesman, another public intellectual, also wrote about unscrupulous universities in a 1980 book about how “student consumerism” was greatly damaging higher education.)”