[PREV - KADUSHIN]    [TOP]

HEIGH_YO

                                             August 4, 2010


   Charles Kadushin's
   "The American Intellectual Elite"        [ref]
    was reviewed in Time magazine
    back in 1974, by R.Z. Sheppard


    Sheppard commented on the high
    placement of Robert Silvers,
    the editor of the New York
    Review of Books:

       "Silvers is an able editor but an
       infrequent writer; it must be assumed         I don't doubt Sheppard
       that his ranking at the top [...] is          called this right,
       due to a power not unlike that of the         though if you wanted
       maitre d' of an exclusive restaurant."        to, you could argue
                                                     that being an editor
         It's interesting though that                is an intellectual art
         this was a ranking based on                 all of it's own.
         *anonymous* interviews.
         There couldn't have been any
         direct attempt at currying        EDITED_REALITY
         favor here.

               A kind of Stockholm Syndrome:
               sincerely taking the side of
               your captors.


    Sheppard makes the point that
    these are not really "leading"
    or "influential" figures:

       "The direct power of Kadushin's
       intellectuals seems limited mainly     It's a problem...
       to the ability to enhance or
       diminish each other's reputations."        One suspects that
                                                  Sheppard exaggerates,
          There's quite a gap                     though.
          between that view,
          and Jacoby's                            A picture has emerged
          "transmission belt                      in the intervening
          of culture".                            decades of the ideas
                                                  of intellectuals
              LAST_INTELLECTUALS                  gradually percolating
                                                  into the mass consciousness,
                                                  becoming a kind of menu
                                                  of possible responses.

                                                     If one side "fails",
                                                     then you look at
                                                     the other side.

                                                         And what are those
                                                         sides?  What do
                                                         they stand for?

                                                         The intellectuals
                                                         get to decide that,
                                                         usually long before
                                                         they become public
                                                         issues.



--------
[NEXT - TEXTS_IN_DECLINE]