"The God That Fails" - David Brooks

Last month, we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address in which he warned us of “the acquisition of unwanted influence, whether sought or unsought, of the military-industrial-complex.”

That speech joined the litany of famous speeches given by presidents that are forever remembered, and seldom heeded. However, not all comments made by presidents or in our case, secretaries of state, become part of the library of high level remarks.  

In 2007, GQ Magazine interviewed former Secretary of State Colin Powell. In that interview, Powell criticized the aggravation of our fears in the post- 9/11 world. He states:

What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?

He continues:

Yes! We are taking too much counsel of our fears.

This doesn't mean there isn't a terrorist threat. There is a threat. And we should send in military forces when we have a target to deal with. We should also secure our airports, if that makes us safer. But let's welcome every foreign student we can get our hands on. Let's make sure people come to Disney World and not throw them up against the wall in Orlando simply because they have a Muslim name. Let's also remember that this country was created by immigrants and thrives as a result of immigration, and we need a sound immigration policy.

Let's show the world a face of openness and what a democratic system can do. That's why I want to see Guantánamo closed. It's so harmful to what we stand for. We literally bang ourselves in the head by having that place. What are we doing this to ourselves for? Because we're worried about the 380 guys there? Bring them here! Give them lawyers and habeas corpus. We can deal with them. We are paying a price when the rest of the world sees an America that seems to be afraid and is not the America they remember.

The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn't do it to ourselves, and we shouldn't use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.

Powell goes on to outline a solution for the “terror” problem:

It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists.

Where did this most salient critique of the dangers of letting our society become too controlled by our own fear? Here, perhaps, in an expose by investigative reporters from the Washington Post, coined “Top Secret America.”

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counter-terrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

Last year, the government spent $80 billion on civilian and military intelligence activities, an increase of 7 per cent over the year before, and an additional $42.6 billion on the Department of Homeland security.

Further, commenting on this point in an Op-Ed published shortly after the failed terrorist attempt on the Christmas Day 2009, David Brooks highlights the most prominent foiled terrorist plots were foiled not by the Patriot Act, nor by the Transportation Security Administration, but by citizen initiative. Brooks’ argument is founded on a Libertarian belief in the spirit of the individual, but it nonetheless demonstrates our ability to be plagued by fear.

Essentially, Brooks is asking the question, “Are We Safer,” which, incidentally, is the same question asked by PBS and “Frontline” in an episode that aired last month.  It is a very difficult question to answer, but given the information of foiled terrorist plots since 9/11, certainly one can find it difficult to defend the need for the vast bureaucracies dedicated to our domestic safety, if not them, then at least the exorbitant amount of funds appropriated to them. Certainly then, the question is what is the value of our safety? If there is no cost, no limit to our nation’s spending in the defense of security, then there are no flaws with the current state of affairs.

Some might call my beliefs repulsive and inhumane, but is it that absurd to seek cost-effectiveness with our domestic security. Is everything that was exposed by the Washington Post and “Frontline” really necessary? Are we in fact safer? Hopefully, the answer is as opaque and obscure as the mission statement of the counter-terrorist industry. We should always remain cognoscente of the warnings of President Eisenhower. And remember:

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

“I don’t deserve any of this. And neither do you.” - Justin Hudson

A recent NYT article highlighted a commencement speech given by a student at a “gifted” school. His speech criticized one topic that I have struggled with, entitlement. Am I entitled to be where I am today? 

As I ponder how the sequence of events that have allowed me to reach the point where I am today, I ask if I can credit myself for everything that I have accomplished. And although the response is should be more nuanced than the limits of this letter, the reality is that I am and all of us are “victims” of chance.  Why have I had the opportunities those others in my community can only dream of?

I didn’t choose to move to Florida when I was young and it follows that I had no bearing of my mastery of English given that my environment enriched my knowledge of language and not my own “hard-work”. Similarly, although one could call my city under-developed and crime-infested, I was not in control over the arrangement of school districts.

Where it not for a freeway, my elementary education could have been much different. I could have been entirely different. I was able to attend kindergarten through sixth grade in the next town over, a predominantly upper middle class, white-collar community. Can I really claim that my hard work or motivations are the only reasons I have been able to attend college? It’s tough to say.

Equality of opportunity, as it where, is a figment of the imagination, even in our societies. We pride ourselves on our top institutions of higher education, yet many of the children in our neighborhoods cannot read.

Our educational system is as much at fault as us, the citizens, are. And it comes back to what I opened this letter with, the culture of entitlement. Do we deserve our accomplishments? My studies have taught me to be a realist. In fact, isn’t our world fueled by greed? Gordon Gekko says, 

“Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the    
evolutionary spirit.”

But, greed absent from equity fuels the gap between the “entitled” and the disenfranchised. I am a strict believer in equality of opportunities. Greed is not fair; our education system is not fair when the hare has a five-minute head start on the tortoise.

Epicurus

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence comet evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

"A pessimist in the intellect, and an optimist in the will." - Antonio Gramsci

In order to find whether or not Public Intellectuals are extinct in American society, one must ask if intellectualism is antithetical to technology? The answer is seemingly, No. If anything, technology allows an intellectual to be more productive, to comment on more topics, to research continuously and to interact with other intellectuals in a public forum, outside the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times or the Washington Post.

That is to say, intellectualism is alive and thriving then, if technology supports mental Ping-Pong and not inhibits it. Even so, one must not neglect holes in the “productivity breeds mental ingenuity” thesis. A recent New York Times Room for Debate article on education highlights the increasing “pre-professionalism” of the American university system. Higher education in the United States looks more like a European technocratic academy than the inheritor of the Greek educational tradition (of learning for its own sake). This contrasts with the “American Dream breeds intellectualism” thesis as argued by Stephen Mack. However, on the surface, this should not be a problem with reference to finding the “lost” Public Intellectuals, but a future problem to be dealt by academics and educators, alike.

The important thing then is not if Public Intellectuals are still in existence and carry influence, but where they are. And one of the problems people will undoubtedly have is finding these Public Intellectuals in the Blog sections for The Nation, Salon or Vanity Fair, considering the negative perceptions people have of new mediums of communication.

Daniel Drezner, a professor at Tufts University, elaborates on these mediums:

The growth of online publication venues has stimulated rather than retarded the quality and diversity of public intellectuals.[1]  The criticisms levied against these new forms of publishing seem to mirror the flaws that plague the more general critique of current public intellectuals:  hindsight bias and conceptual fuzziness.  Rather, the growth of blogs and other forms of online writing have partially reversed a trend that many have lamented – what Russell Jacoby labeled the “professionalization and academization” of public intellectuals.  In particular, the growth of the blogosphere breaks down – or at least lowers – the barriers erected by a professionalized academy. 

I think Drezner’s last statement demonstrates why Russell Jacoby believes in the “Death of the Public Intellectual,” because not only are all the “great thinkers” dead, but the barriers to entry into the “club” of intellectuals is lower. Hence, technology has made intellectualism democratic and the only requisites to becoming a Public Intellectual are that there are none.

Sure, one must be educated, one must be well written and one might even be intelligent, but certainly in the past one did not have to be a Ph.D. As it where, “the market” dictates who is and who is not a Public Intellectual. And as along as a market exists in American society for intellectualism, one can easily assume that Public Intellectuals will continue to exist and bare some influence whether ancillary or not.

So, who are these Public Intellectuals? This question is more difficult to answer than one would imagine. Drezner offers a scatterbrained list. Foreign Policy and Prospect Magazine have several lists as well. Hey, Christopher Hitchens even has a take on it. Resonating, Drezner’s earlier argument concerning the democratization of intellectualism, I think the answer to the question is open for debate for many candidates, however there are some human beings who stand out immediately.

One of these people is Noam Chomsky. Say what you will about his politics, but one cannot deny that the man, a linguist by training and activist by intrigue, embodies the spirit of Public Intellectualism in America as set out by Thoreau. The most important reason why Noam Chomsky is a Public Intellectual is that he is ever critical on what he writes and speaks. Chomsky makes it easier to judge his motives since he does not suffer from the “academization” of public intellectuals. In other words, he answers to no institution, since Politics and International Relations are not his disciplines, in other words he embodies "Intellectualism with Transparency."

In an interview for UC Berkeley’s Conversations with History, Chomsky articulates best why ideology, like intellectualism, need not be an elite effort. He describes a group of textile workers from Massachusetts who came up with Marxian thoughts on wage slavery, without knowing of Marx and Engels. And in this way, he resonates Stephen Mack by  demonstrating that intellectualism need not be an elitist affair.

Ultimately, what is most important for any intellectual not just a public intellectual is to resonate Antonio Gramsci and to be a “pessimist in the intellect and an optimist in the will.” But, what is dually important to note, especially when reading through these lists of Public Intellectuals, is to ask if intellectualism is truly needed for influence? Hopefully.

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[1] For a prior argument in this vein, see Susan Kates, “Emerging Technologies and the Public Intellectual,” Literature Interpretation Theory 16 (October 2005):  381-388.