The decline of political intellectuals tracks the decline of critical politics

Evidence

Implicit in West’s insight is the assumption that the disappearance of political intellectuals in higher education corresponds to the passing of critical politics in public life. The effacement of progressive politics from public life is forcefully demonstrated in the response of many liberals and conservatives to the rise of a group of black public intellectuals who have challenged the notion that dominant public spheres such as the university can be called race-neutral or race-transcendent. Many black academics have raised the volume of the debate on the public intellectual by reasserting the notion of racial justice into public discourse while simultaneously redefining notions of social commitment, politics, and equality. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2632

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: is the causal direction really from academia to public life, or the reverse?
• XREF: connects to: Freest intellectuals stopped writing for an imagined future audience; The MPS nearly collapsed over a split between political action and long-term intellectual goals — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1359