Public Intellectuals and the Possibility of Building a Movement

Click to read the comments and original post on the Young People For Blog by: Matt Birkhold | Dec 03, 2007 |

Because there is an undeniable crisis in the US felt by the majority of residents, the question of how people become active is very important. The masses of US citizens are not convinced that the crisis facing the US is indicative of something profoundly wrong with the US system itself, only that there is something wrong with the people who are currently in charge of it. Given this reality, it makes little sense for people to take revolutionary action because the masses of people will respond to revolutionaries as if they are crazy because they do not see the need for revolution. In response, a number of prominent intellectuals who believe there is something wrong with the US system have assumed the task of trying to convince the masses of people that there is something wrong with the system itself, not just the people in charge. I will call a certain sector of these people public intellectuals because they have chosen to pursue this path through the use of popular media outlets.

Quite often, the tactic public intellectuals use to convince the masses of Americans that there is something profoundly wrong with the US system itself is articulating the grievances of the most oppressed groups in the country through popular media outlets such as appearances on CNN and various radio and TV talk shows. In an essay defending public intellectuals, Duke University professor of African American Studies, and self proclaimed public intellectual, Mark Anthony Neal has described such work as "the labor of those whose mode of activism is best realized via corporate media (including the publishing houses) and elite universities, and who leverage the resources of those institutions to do the work of social justice." There is no doubt that the best mode of activism for particular intellectuals can be realized through corporate media. However, if we are interested in building a movement for social justice we have to ask how effective these modes of activism can be.

In order to determine how effective the modes of activism described by professor Neal can be four questions must be asked. One, what are the conditions by which public intellectuals are given access to corporate media such as CNN or The Today Show? Two, by focusing on corporate media and elite universities, who are these public intellectuals targeting? Three, what does the target audience of public intellectuals say about who they see as agents of social change? And four, how likely is it that the targeted agent desires social change?

First, last time I watched, CNN was not exactly a hot bed of radical political thought. Because radical means "the root," and CNN only gives the average guest about three minutes of talk time, public intellectuals are prevented from explaining the root causes of the social problems they have been asked to discuss. Additionally, because CNN's revenue comes from advertisers, CNN will not air comments that have the potential to interrupt their flow of revenue. Because honest intellectualism may cost CNN revenue, if public intellectuals want to be invited back, they have to give up a commitment to complete intellectual honesty. Second, because elite universities are overwhelmingly white--and the nonwhite students that do attend tend to come from privileged class backgrounds--public intellectuals overwhelmingly reach people from privileged sectors of the population. Three, if public intellectuals are targeting largely privileged sectors of the population--if we assume they operate in good faith--we must conclude that they believe the greatest potential for social change lies in the agency of folks who have some level of privilege. Fourth, while this answer is certainly more complex than space will permit, the idea that people who are relatively comfortable will be a catalyst for change is pretty far stretched. While there is no question that ivy-league educated blacks will gain from social change or that wealthy white students were extremely active in creating social change when the draft was at the back of their neck, the weight of history clearly shows that significant social change does not come from those who are comfortable with the present organization of society. These answers lead me to pose one further question, if the modes of activism pursued by public intellectuals are not effective, what contribution can they make to the building of a movement for social justice?

In the wake of 1967 Detroit rebellion, theorist/activist/auto worker James Boggs asked the question, "What are the responsibilities of revolutionary leadership?" He concluded that activists had to form a political party that could advance the political development of the masses of angered, militant African-Americans and not just articulate their grievances--an act that is inherently reactionary because it does not propose new alternatives. Importantly, Boggs based his model on that of V.I. Lenin, the leader of the successful 1917 Russian revolution. Because we are not in a revolutionary moment, the development of a revolutionary party is not appropriate. However, the learning opportunity provided by Boggs' discussion of Lenin is the emphasis he placed on Lenin's tireless struggle to build a movement. According to Boggs, "Lenin rarely addressed himself to a mass audience either in writing or speaking, or appeared on the public platform. Instead, he concentrated his extraordinary abilities and energies on the task which he had concluded was decisive to the success of the Russian Revolution: the building of an apparatus of dedicated, disciplined revolutionists to lead the masses in the struggle for power."

Whether we seek revolutionary change or not, its not hard to imagine how great a movement for social justice could become if public intellectuals spent less time in front of a mass audience and more time developing the masses to lead the struggle for the power among the grassroots that social change requires.