Richard Posner - You're Joking.

Richard Posner needs his head checked.

Posner, an acclaimed legal theorist, published a book entitled Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. Throughout this piece of work, Posner draws heavily upon empirical research and findings according to the exposure of different public individuals. In Stephan Mack’s essay “The Decline of Public Intellectuals?” he describes the particular review of Posner’s book by William Dean, who raises the appalling fact that Posner’s methodology of ridding the system of the defects is essentially attempting to exclude the arts and humanities – public intellectuals who discuss public philosophies and attitudes from the realm of public intellectuals.

HOW can you even consider excluding those who are experts in those disciplines and pour their knowledge and passion into those topics from being public intellectuals? Sure, maybe when you are discussing philosophy, ethics, or religion there isn’t very much empirical evidence, and your arguments will often not be rooted in fact, but rather in theory and belief. Guess what?

THAT’S OK. There’s no need to get all hysterical if you don’t have your precious spreadsheet to back up every sentence that comes out of your mouth. I can’t stand people that are so rooted in needing factual evidence for everything that they undermine the importance, complexity, and difficulty of discussing and engaging in the humanities. I completely disagree with those who believe that theories and topics of discussion not empirically or factually determined (as in religion, culture, etc) have less importance to the public than disciplines such as science.

Actually, I would argue quite the opposite. While I will admit that political disciplines have great public influence and also can be empirically based, I believe that the disciplines such as philosophy actually have MORE influence over the public than the research based disciplines such as science and medicine. I would argue that the average American citizen is much more willing to read and engage in topics such as ethics and culture over reading extensive research about skin cancer cells or Siamese twins.

What would this world be like today without philosophical theorists? What would our society have for a framework without people to debate and guide us through moral and ethical issues? Perhaps on a more trivial level but still important, what would American culture, and the “American experience” be like without the credibility of those who research and present on art, dance, and theater?

Our arts and humanities theorists make up a massive and critical part of American ideology – they expose the American public to issues that matter in their everyday lives. Our society and culture would be empty without these scholars, and they absolutely deserve every bit of the title of a public intellectual. The have developed our society and continually step outside the box to push us to the next level, and have been doing it for years – to think that we would shun them from any sort of respectable title is grossly appalling to me.