But sadly in today’s information environment, this kind of conversation is on life support. Instead of a real conversation, we are reduced to sloganeering and “bothsidesism” that includes vile insults as well as calls for execution. Will it be by firing squad, or maybe just shot with an AK 47 and unrecognizably mutilated?
Someone posted on my Twitter account a clip of an animated Marjorie Taylor Green ranting incoherently about fake meat Bill Gates grew in a "peach tree dish." Surely a delicacy that will add to the wonders of Georgia. The woman is totally unhinged, yet she gets lots of coverage, and this is exactly what she wants, what the Right wants, and what her donors demand. This is the script: monopolize our attention, clog the airtime, and then move ahead with the other agenda, and we're not talking QAnon or some other nonsense. It doesn't matter whether MTG is an idiot or an Oxonian. She's just a pawn. Their Queen is about to checkmate our democracy.
If you did a survey--now at this moment, not yesterday before the Peach Tree idiocy--you’d find more respondents believe that Bill Gates is experimenting with synthetic meat and that it's finding its way to your neighborhood butcher without proper labeling. I’ll put money on it.
In the process, MTG has also heaped more distrust on the FDA and the entire expert class of technocrats who are ruining America. She’s also created an atmosphere where people who have done good work, gone to college and gained some standing in their communities for careful thought, attention to science and language are pilloried. Of course you don’t have to know a damn thing about scientific experiments to know that we’re being poisoned by fake meat. Actually the less you know, the more credible you are. There's not much of an audience for a man or woman who actually knows something about the real poisons that can infect the food chain. They’re just boring.
Who qualifies as a public intellectual and what is their role? Narrowly defined, they would be an academic, philosopher, economist, or scientist who devotes some of their time commenting on public issues, and, I would venture, subjects that a large number of people find interesting. In science both Neil deGrasse and Steven Hawkins fit the bill. The late Milton Friedman for all his faults would have to be included, at least as testimony that his or her opinions don’t have to be as solid as Euclidean geometry.
Who are the current crop of public intellectuals? In America, with less reverence for academia, Dan Rather comes to mind, but there are no philosophers such as Albert Camus or Bertrand Russell.. Rachel Maddow gets high marks; though she’s an Oxonian, Google calls her a television presenter. John Oliver and Steve Colbert are very bright, and in their own quirky way provide sharp commentary. Charlie Rose was in the running until he demonstrated that he'd disconnected his head from his penis. Susan Sontag and Gore Vidal are no longer with us. Thomas Friedman tries. No one today commands the respect of an Edward R. Murrow, but there must be people who could assume that role, yet as I survey the Op Ed page across America, brilliant voices do not speak out clearly and strongly for fear of getting mowed down.
We've always had crazies, even in very powerful positions. Sometimes the powerful maniacs have kept a low profile, or maybe they just didn’t stop taking their meds. But now after Trump in this era of Fox news, the Margorie Green’s of the airwaves flaunt their stupidity because the media will lap it up, and that’s key.
When I lived in the Upper West Side, an older woman installed herself every day on one of the benches set on Broadway's median divide, and spent her day screaming at the traffic. None of it made much sense, a 70’s version of Fake Meat and Peach Tree Dishes. But, my point--no one paid her any attention. If MTG were shouting her nonsense from the same bench, they'd have to close Broadway to make room for the TV crews.
The woman whom I used to see at 102nd Street has now been replaced by a silent public monument. She didn’t make the cut. Dan Rather has 2.5 million followers on Twitter. MTG has almost 900,000. Still behind but her brand of insanity is getting exposure. Lauren Boebert has 1.3 million! Watch out Dan. They’re coming after you.
If you can't shut her up, stop paying attention, stop giving her undue attention. Just stop it.
*Daniel Drezne made these nominations:
1) Ta-Nehisi Coates: Any book or long-form essay of his becomes the topic of conversation among elites. That’s influence.
2) Masha Gessen: I have found her thoughts about the Age of Trump, and the Age of Hysteria surrounding Trump, to be invaluable. She might even be right about Trump acting more like a teenager than a toddler.
3) Francis Fukuyama: An awful lot of people would have a hard time repeating something like “The End of History,” which holds up better than you think. Fukuyama’s latest work on political decay, however, has proven to be both prescient and vital.
4) Ron Chernow: I suspect some might not think of Chernow as an intellectual, to which I would respond by noting that Chernow’s biographies lead to reinterpretations of American history. If nothing else, reading Grant will cause multiple generations to rethink what we were taught about Grant — and Robert E. Lee — when we were kids. Since the Civil War seems to still play a role in current political life, that is no mean achievement.
5) David Autor: The hardest-working labor economist in the profession, and probably the least well-known name on this list. His research into the effects of technological change and globalization on the American worker guides much of the conversation on these topics in the current moment.
