Russell Jacoby: The Last Intellectuals

Russell Jacoby's The Last Intellectuals (1987) runs the argument that post-war America down to the late 1980's saw a notable decline in intellectual life, the near-total extinction of the figure of the public intellectual. "The disappearance of general intellectuals into professions" diagnosed in the book is, however, no one-dimensional decline and fall - it reflects a much wider fracturing of the public domain, though it also follows an institutional logic of its own; unique to the story for Jacoby is a loss of political and intellectual nerve on the part of a whole generation of writers, thinkers and scholars located in and around cities and university campuses.

The argument may call for an update in view of 25 years of further developments - firstly in light of the growth of technology as an agent of radical social change - though equally in light of the by now almost totally residual presence within universities of the New Left - that generation of politically motivated students-cum-professors who, according to Jacoby, had by the late 80's taken decisive steps to accommodate themselves to routinised hyper-specialist academic life. Perhaps the thesis of The Last Intellectuals also calls for some adjustment to Australian conditions - though as it happens surprisingly little, since it was precisely from the late 80's that extensive technical, financial and administrative constraints were imposed on educational institutions by Australian governments - a rationalisation of the nation's universities that, coupled with rapid expansion, has since had so many irrational, demoralising effects analogous to those detailed by Jacoby - not least among them a decline in the public meaning of critical rationality itself.

From the point of view of 2010, Jacoby's 25 year-old book would seem to give pointers to an Australian future that is now a past - a past that many will agree has been far from salutary but that will only cease to show itself in the deceptive guise of unquestionable present necessities if younger generations of students, writers, thinkers and scholars turn squarely to face it. (CS)

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Academic freedom itself was fragile, its principles often ignored. Nor were violations confined to meddling trustees and outside investigators. The threat emerged, perhaps increasingly, from within; academic careers undermined academic freedom. This may be a paradox, but it recalls an inner contradiction of academic freedom - the institution neutralises the freedom it guarantees.

The New Left sprang into life around and against universities; its revulsion seemed visceral. Yet New Left intellectuals became professors who neither looked backward nor sideways; they kept their eyes on professional journals, monographs, and conferences. Perhaps because their lives had unfolded almost entirely on campuses they were unable or unwilling to challenge academic imperatives.

In several areas the accomplishments of the New Left intellectuals are irrevocable. Yet [their sizeable contribution to scholarship] is extraordinary for another reason; it is largely technical, unreadable and - except by specialists - unread. While New Left intellectuals obtain secure positions in central institutions, the deepest irony marks their achievement. Their scholarship looks more and more like the work it sought to subvert. A great surprise of the last twenty-five years is both the appearance of New Left professors and their virtual disappearance. In the end it was not the New Left intellectuals who invaded the universities but the reverse: the academic idiom, concepts, and concerns occupied, and finally preoccupied, young left intellectuals.

"Professors Woods, Perry and Hocking are moderately talented and enterprising young men with whom philosophy is merely a means for getting on in the world," declared Professor E.B.Holt of several younger teachers in his department. "I do not respect them; I will not cooperate with them; and I am happy to be in a position now to wipe out the stigma of being even nominally one of their colleagues." With this statement Holt in 1918 resigned from Harvard University and moved to an island off the Maine coast. . .

The latest research invention, footnote citation "indexes", encourages deferential and toothless scholarship. The Social Science Citation Index, a massive volume appearing three times a year, draws from thousands of journals the footnote references to particular articles and books. By looking up a specific author, say C. Wright Mills or Daniel Bell, one finds a list of the journal articles where Mills or Bell has been cited. In principle this allows a researcher to find material where Mills or Bell, or related matters, are discussed - or at least footnoted. However, this index is increasingly touted as a scientific method for identifying scholars who have impact in their field; it is also being used as a guide for promotion and awards. Presumably the more references to a professor, the greater the stature. Many citations to an individual's work indicates he or she is important; conversely few or no references implies someone is unknown and irrelevant. "If citation indexing becomes a basis for promotion and tenure, for grants and fellowships," comments Jon Wiener, "the implications for one's own footnotes are clear. In the marketplace of ideas, the footnote is the unit of currency. . . One should definitely footnote friends. . . and do what is possible to see that they footnote you in return. . . " Like any quantitative study of reputation, the index is circular. It measures not the quality of work but clout and connections. If used to evaluate careers, however, the lessons for the striving professor are clear: cast a wide net, establish as many relations as possible, do not isolate yourself from the mainstream. It pays not simply to footnote but to design research to mesh smoothly with the contributions of others; they refer to you as you refer to them. Everyone prospers from the saccharine scholarship.

The study of professions is itself an occupation; but inquiries into academic professionalisation [often] fail to guage [an] essential cultural dimension. It is frequently missed or understated: professionalisation leads to privatisation or depoliticisation, a withdrawal of intellectual energy from a larger domain to a narrower discipline. Leftists who entered the university hardly invented the process, but they accepted, even accelerated it. Marxism itself has not been immune; in recent years it has become a professional "field" plowed by specialists.

"The monastic cell has become a professional lecture hall; an endless mass of 'authorities' have taken the place of Aristotle," wrote John Dewey in one of his earliest essays. "Jahresberichte, monographs, journals without end occupy the void. . . .If the older Scholastic spent his laborious time in erasing the writing from old manuscripts. . . the new Scholastic . . . criticises the criticisms with which some other Scholastic has criticised other criticisms. . . "

Philosophy has proved almost immune to reform. Of course, the self-examination of every discipline proceeds at its own speed. Philosophic self-scrutiny, however, may well be the weakest, because American philosophy has promoted a technical expertese that repels critical thinking; its fetish of logic and language has barred all but a few who might rethink philosophy, an endeavour sometimes pursued by colleagues in political science, sociology, or history.

The Caucus for a New Political Science, founded by radicals in 1967, successfully democratised official political science organisations: it contested elections within the discipline; it set up new panels at conferences; and it established a new journal, Politics and Society. But it succeeded as a new professional group "not as a united intellectual movement or as a group of intellectuals seeking ties with a public outside the discipline itself. Indeed the Caucus's activities centred exclusively on the politics of political science itself." Eventually it "narrowed its goals to the concrete, material and limited demands of an interest group within the discipline. . . Polemics, critiques and political activity became an effort to educate and mobilise other professionals." ( ) . . . This is still generally true; the "politics" of academic life supplant larger politics. Of left professors, Marxist academics may be the most culpable, the most eager to embrace institutional imperatives (and benefits). From Marxism itself they inherit a sober scientific approach, discounting useless moral protests. To accept and utilise the university makes good political sense. Perhaps for this reason, no-nonsense Marxist academics frequently seek to establish not simply the credibility of their ideas but institutes and power bases, dense networks of professors, graduate students, publications, and foundation monies. They want institutional clout and prestige.

The final report on universities and the New Left is not in. The complexity and size of higher education forbid confident conclusions. The general tendencies, however, are clear. The academic enterprise simultaneously expands and contracts; it steadily [takes on the institutional forms of] the larger culture, setting up private clubs for accredited members. That it is difficult for an educated adult American to name a single political scientist or sociologist or philosopher is not wholly his or her fault; the professionals have abandoned the public arena. The influx of left scholars has not changed the picture; reluctantly or enthusiastically they gain respectability at the cost of identity. The slogan that was borrowed from the German left to justify a professional career - "the long march through the institutions" - has had an unexpected outcome: at least so far, the institutions are winning.

For Mumford, the academic enterprise had gone amuck. "Thus these [new scholarly editions of Emerson's] Journals have now performed current American scholarship's ultimate homage to a writer of genius: they have made him unreadable." A friend had begged him not to criticise this scholarly edition, since Mumford was an unaccredited outsider. "True," he wrote, "but I am a faithful Emerson reader; and, as it turns out, that academic disability is perhaps my chief qualification for writing this criticism. For who is to question such an authoritative enterprise. . . except those whose reputations and promotions could not possibly be jeopardised by passing an unfavourable verdict upon it?"

Edmund Wilson, born the same year as Mumford, shared much with him: an all-American past; a long and productive life of independent writing; a refusal to specialise. If anything, Wilson was more jealous of his independence and more suspicious of the university. After World War II, when he had acquired a wide reputation, he sent a pre-printed postcard to those requesting his services. On the card "it was noted that Edmund Wilson does not write articles or books to order; does not write forewords or introductions; does not make statements for publicity purposes; does not do any kind of editorial work, judge literary contests, give interviews, broadcast or appear on television; does not answer questionnaires, contribute to or take part in symposiums. . . " . . . Inspired by Mumford, Wilson looked at some other scholarly editions sponsored by the Modern Language Association. He found the same profligate pedantry, a vast scholarly libido channelled into textual annotations mangling America's authors.

Entrepreneurs and hucksters have replaced disinterested scholars and researchers [according to Nisbet in The Degradation of the Academic Dogma]. An "academic bourgeoisie" complete with shoddy goods and conspicuous research has sprung up. "Scratch a faculty member today," Nisbet reports, "and you almost always find a businessman." "The entrepreneurial spirit" spreads throughout the university, corrupting everything and everyone [on this conservative perspective]: "A veritable faculty jet set came into being, to excite envy - and emulations. . . I firmly believe that direct grants from government and foundation to individual members of university faculties, or to small company-like groups of faculty members, for the purposes of creating institutes, centres, bureaus, and other essentially capitalistic enterprise within the academic community to be the single most powerful agent of change that we can find in the university's long history. For the first time in Western history, professors and scholars were thrust into the unwanted position of entrepreneurs in incessant search for new sources of capital, of new revenue, and . . . of profits. . . The new capitalism, academic capitalism, is a force that arose within the university and that has had as its most eager supporters the members of the professoriat." . . . The conservative critique comes alive, sniffing academic wheeling and dealing and its debased prose, where the left often slumbers. However, the vigorous right-wing attack soon flags. Conservatives' opposition to professionals founders on their suspicion of intellectuals, at least of all those who no not know their place. They inch toward anti-intellectualism, praising the experts they sometimes challenge. Their man of letters stays out of trouble by staying in a specialty.

The ethos [of another sort of neo-conservative critique of universities] is simple, whoever pays the tab does the ordering. Culture and scholarhip should celebrate capitalism because they are sustained by it. Many conservatives are driven to distraction by individuals who violate this precept. Little irritates them more than left intellectuals who are not starving; social critics in their view should be poor, hungry or sick. To denounce society and live off it strikes them as intolerable contraction. - The theme recurs thoughout Epstein's books . . . as well as in Kenneth S Lynn's The Air-Line to Seattle. The authors are incensed by left intellectuals who dare criticise the system that supports them - sometimes nicely - as if only recluse farmers can be social critics.

The vagaries of The New York Review may signify little. Editors do not control the sluice gates of culture. Cause and effect inextricably mesh. While The New York Review has never welcomed younger writers, intellectual generations do not wait for hand-addressed invitations before emerging. The general absence of younger intellectuals, the particular absence of younger New York intellectuals, is due not to a lockout but to a shutdown of the old urban and cultural centres.

One hundred years after Marx, the first or second question we ask of someone is, what does he or she do? The question smacks of a repressive social order, where work is life. The query also means, what can he or she do for me?. . . In a different social order, perhaps, the question might be, what does he or she think or believe?

Currently, the shrinking number of newspapers and the intensifying effort to attract affluent readers through soft and lifestyle coverage constricts journalists. While universities have physically expanded, newspapers have declined. One grim study asks whether newspapers are surrendering their role as "transmitters of information, education and culture." ( ) . . . The reasons for this are much discussed. One cause is familiar: the same forces that gutted the city and shipped Americans out to the suburbs eviscerated the big city newspapers. As individuals abandoned, and were abandoned by, mass transit, they took to cars. To and from work they scanned the road, not the front page. "The decay of both central cities and mass transit meant that the metropolitan papers no longer had customers pouring out of downtown offices and factories looking for a newspaper to read on the bus or train ride home. New suburbs. . . and workers commuting by car have diminished the newspaper-reading habit of millions of families." ( )

These economic facts have taken their toll on journalists. Fewer big city newspapers mean fewer opportunities for work that broaches the large political, economic, or cultural issues; and even the big newspapers relentlessly expand soft news, spinning out sections on homes or leisure. A difficult employment situation does not make the life of a reporter or an editorial writer any better. The fight for assignments or for copy is always coloured by the possibility of resigning and finding another job. But if that possibility dwindles, journalistic backbone softens. This may be a reason why in an era that cries out for articulate and critical journalistic voices, there are virtually none.

The transformation of the traditional intellectual habitat is not instantaneous; it parallels the decay of the cities, the growth of the suburbs, and the expansion of the universities. There is no need to announce the collapse of civilisation when fast food outlets nudge out greasy spoons, vending machines replace newspaper stands, or green campuses supplant vadalised city parks; but there is little reason to ignore its impact on the rhythm of cultural life. It matters whether people grow up on city streets or in suburban malls; whether intellectuals obsess about a single editor who judges their work or three referees, ten colleagues, several committees and various deans.

Opening serious nonfiction books is like skimming personal telephone books; often a dense list of colleagues, friends, institutions, and foundations precedes the text. The anonymous reader has become named, addressed, saluted. This is a change in style, but it is more; it is the imprimatur of a [certain sort of] democratic age. It suggests that the author or book passed the test, gaining the approval of a specific network, which filtered out the unkempt and unacceptable. It is a notice of a serious and reputable work. It serves to reassure, as well as intimidate readers and reviewers. Even with the requisite qualifier - the opinions and mistakes are strictly the author's - who wants to challenge a book inspected by scores of scholars, published by a major university, and supported by several foundations? . . . [Yet] these are tendencies, not laws of nature. The country is too vast, the culture too contradictory, to neatly categorise. Nevertheless, this undeniable truth easily degenerates into apologetics, as if no generalisation could be true and everything is possible. Everything may be possible, but not probable. Intellectuals may be everywhere, but almost everywhere they face similar and limited options; the young especially are vulnerable, precisely because they emerge in a situation of dwindling intellectual choices. Hence the historical witticism: intellectuals of the irrational, far-out, hang-loose sixties matured into a more buttoned-up, professional and invisible group than did preceding intellectual generations.

The elaboration of national and vernacular languages, the voice of new urban classes, in the face of an ossifying Latin, the idiom of a scholastic elite, characterises modern culture since the Renaissance. "All over Europe," explains Erich Auerbach, while Latin turned brittle, "first in Italy, then in the Iberian peninsula, France and England, an educated public with a Hochsprache of its own now made its appearance." The adoption of the vernacular was not always simple or peaceful, for it meant that groups once excluded from religious and scientific controversy could now enter the fray. . . It would be unfair and overdramatic to charge younger intellectuals with sabotaging this historical project - the commitment to a wider educated world - which in any event hardly rides on the shoulders of a single generation. Yet the danger of yielding to a new Latin, a new scholasticism insulated from larger public life, tints the future grey on grey. While professional and arcane languages can be a refuge, and a necessity, they can also be an excuse and a flight.

In view of these developments, the disappearance of general intellectuals into professions seems completely understandable, inevitable and perhaps desirable. And yet if this or any other study were only to ratify what has been and must be, it would be pointless. Younger intellectuals have responded to their times, as they must; they have also surrendered to them, as they need not. Humanity does not make history just as it pleases, but it does make history. By the back door choice enters the historical edifice.