89-521: Joseph Dennie (August 30, 1768 – January 7, 1812) was an American author and journalist who was one of the foremost men of letters of the Federalist Era . A Federalist , Dennie is best remembered for his series of essays entitled The Lay Preacher and as the founding editor of The Port Folio , a journal espousing classical republican values. Port Folio was the most highly regarded and successful literary publication of its time, and
178-557: A Democratic paper. Instead, he accepted an appointment from Timothy Pickering (at the time United States Secretary of State ) to a position as Pickering's personal secretary. Once in Philadelphia , Dennie resumed his editorial career with the Gazette of the United States , a Federalist-friendly newspaper. In 1800 Dennie, along with Philadelphia bookseller Asbury Dickens, began work on
267-488: A pseudo-scientific justification for the crimes of the state . In "An Interview with Milton Friedman" (1974), the American economist Milton Friedman said that businessmen and intellectuals are enemies of capitalism : most intellectuals believed in socialism while businessmen expected economic privileges. In his essay "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" (1998), the American libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick of
356-516: A role d'equipage listing the nationalities of each crewmen. Since American ships rarely carried such documents, France had effectively initiated a commerce war. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict ended in the 1797 dispute known as the XYZ Affair . However, the hostilities created support for establishing a limited naval force, and on 18 June, President John Adams appointed Benjamin Stoddert
445-616: A convoy of American merchant ships escorted by USS Experiment fought off an attack by French-allied Haitian privateers near Hispaniola . On 1 February, Constellation severely damaged the French frigate La Vengeance off the coast of Saint Kitts . Silas Talbot led a naval expedition against Puerto Plata in early May, capturing the coastal fort and a French corvette. When French troops occupied Curaçao in July, USS Patapsco and USS Merrimack bombarded French positions on
534-409: A few months afterward at a reduced salary but was soon replaced by the printer's brother. The paper's circulation dropped precipitously following Dennie's departure. Later in the year Dennie ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress ; following this defeat, he turned down offers to edit several prominent journals, including a generous offer from Boston's Independent Chronicle , as he refused to work for
623-553: A few months before folding, having published thirteen issues. Dennie's disappointment over the failure of The Tablet inspired him to begin work on The Lay Preacher , the first of which appeared in The Farmer's Weekly Museum , a New Hampshire newspaper which was the leading literary journal of the 1790s. After Dennie took over as editor of the paper in 1796, its circulation increased dramatically, stretching, as one commentator put it, "from Maine to Georgia ." Under Dennie's leadership
712-451: A local level. The two navies shared a signal system, and allowed their merchantmen to join each other's convoys, most of which were provided by the British, who had four to five times more escorts available. This freed the U.S. Navy to concentrate on French privateers, most of which had very shallow draft and were armed with a maximum of twenty guns. Operating from French and Spanish bases in
801-462: A more conciliatory diplomatic stance by the new French government, had significantly reduced privateer activity. The Convention of 1800 , signed on 30 September, ended the Quasi-War. It affirmed the rights of Americans as neutrals upon the sea and abrogated the 1778 French alliance, but failed to provide compensation for the alleged $ 20 million in American economic losses. While the agreement ensured
890-435: A predilection for wine. His father (who had battled mental illness ) died on September 28, 1811; Dennie was not able to attend his father's funeral, as he himself was gravely ill at the time, and this caused him great grief. He briefly recovered, but succumbed to cholera morbus four months after his father's death. Dennie died on January 7, 1812, and was interred two days later at St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia . His epitaph
979-444: A prominent printing family in colonial America ; the progenitor of the family, Samuel Green , emigrated from England with John Winthrop and was one of the first printers in the colonies. Having moved to Lexington at the age of seven, Dennie returned to Boston in 1783 to study bookkeeping and later clerk in a counting house . He began preparing to enter Harvard College in 1785, under the guidance of Reverend Samuel West. West had
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#17330848204391068-558: A scheme of policy so radically contemptible and vicious is a memorable example of what the villany of some men can devise, the folly of others receive, and both establish in spite of reason, reflection, and sensation. This paragraph was reprinted in Federalist newspapers throughout the country. While Dennie was acquitted, the severity of the attacks leveled in Port Folio would henceforth be lessened. However, when Dennie criticized democracy, it
1157-588: A significant impact on Dennie, fostering his pupil's interest in literature, as well as instilling in Dennie a decidedly pro-British mindset. In 1787 Dennie was admitted to the sophomore class of Harvard College, where he was very popular with his peers. This popularity did not extend to his tutors, and he was suspended in December 1789 for six months after insulting the faculty. Dennie had difficulty finding suitable employment after earning his degree in 1790, but by 1793 he
1246-552: A small flotilla belonging to the United States Revenue Cutter Service and a few neglected coastal forts. This allowed French privateers to roam virtually unchecked; from October 1796 to June 1797, they captured 316 ships, 6% of the entire American merchant fleet, causing losses of $ 12 to $ 15 million. On 2 March 1797, the French Directory issued a decree permitting the seizure of any neutral shipping without
1335-403: A social class, Jean-Paul Sartre said that intellectuals are the moral conscience of their age; that their moral and ethical responsibilities are to observe the socio-political moment, and to freely speak to their society, in accordance with their consciences. The British historian Norman Stone said that the intellectual social class misunderstand the reality of society and so are doomed to
1424-403: A status group they must be autonomous in order to be credible as intellectuals: It is relatively easy to demonstrate autonomy, if you come from a wealthy or [an] aristocratic background. You simply need to disown your status and champion the poor and [the] downtrodden [...]. [A]utonomy is much harder to demonstrate if you come from a poor or proletarian background [...], [thus] calls to join
1513-524: A term which is sometimes applied today. The word intellectual is found in Indian scripture Mahabharata in the Bachelorette meeting (Swayamvara Sava) of Draupadi . Immediately after Arjuna and Raja-Maharaja (kings-emperors) came to the meeting, Nipuna Buddhijibina (perfect intellectuals) appeared at the meeting. In Imperial China in the period from 206 BC until AD 1912, the intellectuals were
1602-455: A worthy one. It was good enough to be praised and imitated in 18th century Europe. Nevertheless, it has given China a tremendous handicap in their transition from government by men to government by law, and personal considerations in Chinese government have been a curse. In Joseon Korea (1392–1910), the intellectuals were the literati , who knew how to read and write, and had been designated, as
1691-455: Is existentially -based", the intellectuals, who create and preserve knowledge, are "spokesmen for different social groups, and articulate particular social interests". That intellectuals occur in each social class and throughout the right-wing , the centre and the left-wing of the political spectrum and that as a social class the "intellectuals view themselves as autonomous from the ruling class " of their society. Addressing their role as
1780-517: Is associated with an ideology or with a philosophy . The Czech intellectual Václav Havel said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that moral responsibility for the intellectual's ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. Therefore, it is best to avoid utopian intellectuals who offer 'universal insights' to resolve the problems of political economy with public policies that might harm and that have harmed civil society; that intellectuals be mindful of
1869-571: Is attributed to Georges Clemenceau in 1898. Nevertheless, by 1930 the term "intellectual" passed from its earlier pejorative associations and restricted usages to a widely accepted term and it was because of the Dreyfus Affair that the term also acquired generally accepted use in English. In the 20th century, the term intellectual acquired positive connotations of social prestige , derived from possessing intellect and intelligence , especially when
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#17330848204391958-407: Is found in the 19th century, where in 1813, Byron reports that 'I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals'. Over the course of the 19th century, other variants of the already established adjective 'intellectual' as a noun appeared in English and in French, where in the 1890s the noun ( intellectuels ) formed from the adjective intellectuel appeared with higher frequency in
2047-507: Is how Chilean intellectuals worked to reestablish democracy within the right-wing , neoliberal governments of the military dictatorship of 1973–1990 , the Pinochet régime allowed professional opportunities for some liberal and left-wing social scientists to work as politicians and as consultants in effort to realize the theoretical economics of the Chicago Boys , but their access to power
2136-560: Is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history of Germany in the 1830s". An intellectual class in Europe was socially important, especially to self-styled intellectuals, whose participation in society's arts, politics, journalism, and education—of either nationalist , internationalist , or ethnic sentiment—constitute "vocation of the intellectual". Moreover, some intellectuals were anti-academic, despite universities (the academy) being synonymous with intellectualism . In France,
2225-403: Is to communicate the complex and specialized knowledge of the scientist to the general public. He argued that intellectuals were attracted to socialism or social democracy because the socialists offered "broad visions; the spacious comprehension of the social order, as a whole, which a planned system promises" and that such broad-vision philosophies "succeeded in inspiring the imagination of
2314-520: The Scholar-officials ("Scholar-gentlemen"), who were civil servants appointed by the Emperor of China to perform the tasks of daily governance. Such civil servants earned academic degrees by means of imperial examination , and were often also skilled calligraphers or Confucian philosophers. Historian Wing-Tsit Chan concludes that: Generally speaking, the record of these scholar-gentlemen has been
2403-672: The Cato Institute argued that intellectuals become embittered leftists because their superior intellectual work, much rewarded at school and at university, are undervalued and underpaid in the capitalist market economy . Thus, intellectuals turn against capitalism despite enjoying more socioeconomic status than the average person. The conservative economist Thomas Sowell wrote in his book Intellectuals and Society (2010) that intellectuals, who are producers of knowledge, not material goods, tend to speak outside their own areas of expertise, and yet expect social and professional benefits from
2492-537: The Dreyfus affair (1894–1906), an identity crisis of antisemitic nationalism for the French Third Republic (1870–1940), marked the full emergence of the "intellectual in public life", especially Émile Zola , Octave Mirbeau and Anatole France directly addressing the matter of French antisemitism to the public; thenceforward, "intellectual" became common, yet initially derogatory, usage; its French noun usage
2581-634: The Jay Treaty with Great Britain . Then engaged in the 1792 to 1797 War of the First Coalition , France retaliated by seizing U.S. ships trading with Great Britain. When diplomacy failed to resolve these issues, in October 1796 French privateers began attacking all merchant ships in U.S. waters, regardless of nationality. Spending cuts following the end of the American Revolutionary War left
2670-633: The Port Folio . Under the pseudonym Oliver Oldschool, Esq., Dennie wrote, in 1803, a scathing attack on Jeffersonian democracy , for which he was brought up on charges of seditious libel . Dennie wrote, in part: A democracy is scarcely tolerable at any period of national history. Its omens are always sinister, and its powers are unpropitious. It is on its trial here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and anarchy. No wise man but discerns its imperfections, no good man but shudders at its miseries, no honest man but proclaims its fraud, and no brave man but draws his sword against its force. The institution of
2759-593: The USS ; Boston captured over 80 enemy vessels, including the French corvette Berceau . With most of the French fleet confined to Europe by the Royal Navy , Secretary Stoddert was able to focus resources on eliminating the few vessels that evaded the blockade and reached the Caribbean. The U.S. also needed convoy protection, and while there was no formal agreement with the British, considerable co-operation took place at
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2848-668: The United States had agreed to protect the French West Indies in return for French support in the American Revolutionary War . As the treaty had no termination date, France claimed this obligation included defending them against Great Britain and the Dutch Republic during the 1792 to 1797 War of the First Coalition . Despite popular enthusiasm for the French Revolution , especially among anti-British Jeffersonians , there
2937-557: The West Indies and captured ten prizes. Preble turned command of Pickering over to Benjamin Hillar, who captured the much larger and more heavily armed French privateer l ' Egypte Conquise after a nine-hour battle. In September 1800, the Pickering and her entire crew were lost at sea in a storm. Preble next commanded the frigate USS Essex , which he sailed around Cape Horn into
3026-636: The chungin (the "middle people"), in accordance with the Confucian system. Socially, they constituted the petite bourgeoisie , composed of scholar-bureaucrats (scholars, professionals, and technicians) who administered the dynastic rule of the Joseon dynasty. The term public intellectual describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairs discourse of society, in addition to an academic career. Regardless of their academic fields or professional expertise, public intellectuals address and respond to
3115-499: The halo effect derived from possessing professional expertise. In relation to other professions, public intellectuals are socially detached from the negative and unintended consequences of public policy derived from their ideas. Sowell gives the example of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), who advised the British government against national rearmament in the years before the Second World War . Quasi-War The Quasi-War
3204-403: The intelligentsia , a status class organised either by ideology (e.g., conservatism , fascism , socialism , liberalism , reactionary , revolutionary , democratic , communism ), or by nationality (American intellectuals, French intellectuals, Ibero–American intellectuals, et al. ). The term intelligentsiya originated from Tsarist Russia ( c. 1860s –1870s), where it denotes
3293-465: The normative problems of society, and, as such, are expected to be impartial critics who can "rise above the partial preoccupation of one's own profession—and engage with the global issues of truth , judgment, and taste of the time". In Representations of the Intellectual (1994), Edward Saïd said that the "true intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on
3382-471: The social stratum of those possessing intellectual formation (schooling, education), and who were Russian society's counterpart to the German Bildungsbürgertum and to the French bourgeoisie éclairée , the enlightened middle classes of those realms. In Marxist philosophy , the social class function of the intellectuals (the intelligentsia ) is to be the source of progressive ideas for
3471-417: The "Who?", the "How?" and the "Why?" of the social, economic and political status quo —the ideological totality of society—and its practical, revolutionary application to the transformation of their society. The Italian communist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) developed Karl Marx 's conception of the intelligentsia to include political leadership in the public sphere. That because "all knowledge
3560-423: The "educated representatives of the propertied classes", of "revolutionary socialist intellectuals", such as were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . The Hungarian Marxist philosopher György Lukács (1885–1971) identified the intelligentsia as the privileged social class who provide revolutionary leadership. By means of intelligible and accessible interpretation, the intellectuals explain to the workers and peasants
3649-400: The 20th century, such an approach was gradually superseded by the academic method, and the term "Man of Letters" became disused, replaced by the generic term "intellectual", describing the intellectual person. The archaic term is the basis of the names of several academic institutions which call themselves Colleges of Letters and Science . The earliest record of the English noun "intellectual"
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3738-519: The American Revolution, it led to a rapid expansion of trade between the two countries. Between 1794 and 1801, American exports to Britain nearly tripled in value, from US$ 33 million to $ 94 million. As a result, in late 1796, French privateers began seizing American ships trading with the British. An effective response was hampered by the almost complete lack of a United States Navy , whose last warship had been sold in 1785, leaving only
3827-413: The Caribbean ...they entered a European theater where the war had been underway since 1793...British ships chased and fought the same French cruisers and privateers. Both navies escorted each other's merchantmen. American warships operated from British bases. And most importantly, British policies and shifts in deployment had dramatic effects on American operations. From the perspective of the U.S. Navy,
3916-566: The Caribbean, particularly Guadeloupe , they made opportunistic attacks on passing ships, before escaping back into port. To counter those tactics, the U.S. used similarly-sized vessels from the Revenue Cutter Service, as well as commissioning their own privateers. The first American ship to see action was the USS Ganges , a converted East Indiaman with 26 guns, but most were far smaller. The revenue cutter USS Pickering , commanded by Edward Preble , made two cruises to
4005-863: The French First Republic by the Consulate in November 1799 led to the Convention of 1800 , which ended the war. The right of Congress to authorize military action without a formal declaration of war was later confirmed by the Supreme Court . This ruling formed the basis of many similar actions since, including U.S. participation in the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War . Under the Treaty of Alliance (1778) ,
4094-520: The French had seized over 2,000 American merchant ships by the time the war ended. It has been suggested that since the war was primarily driven by domestic political considerations, neither side was able to identify what a successful resolution entailed. This was enhanced by the tendency of individual commanders to pursue their own objectives, and on the American side, focusing on ship to ship actions rather than overall strategy. In any event, by late 1800 U.S. and British naval operations, combined with
4183-571: The Pacific to protect U.S. merchantmen in the East Indies . He recaptured several U.S. ships that had been seized by French privateers. The first significant study of the war was written by U.S. naval historian Gardner W. Allen in 1909, and focused exclusively on ship-to-ship actions. This is how the conflict is generally remembered in the U.S., but historian Michael Palmer argues American naval operations cannot be assessed in isolation. When operating in
4272-458: The Quasi-War consisted of a series of ship-to-ship actions in U.S. coastal waters and the Caribbean; one of the first was the Capture of La Croyable on 7 July 1798 by Delaware outside Egg Harbor, New Jersey . On 20 November, a pair of French frigates , Insurgente and Volontaire , captured the schooner USS Retaliation , commanded by Lieutenant William Bainbridge ; Retaliation
4361-561: The Treaty of Alliance applied only to a "defensive conflict" and thus did not apply, since France had declared war on Britain and the Dutch Republic. To ensure the U.S. did not become involved, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1794 , while President George Washington issued an executive order forbidding American merchant ships from arming themselves. France accepted these acts on
4450-422: The U.S. to conduct undeclared wars , or " police actions ". Since ships of the line were expensive to build and required highly specialised construction facilities, in 1794 Congress compromised by ordering six large frigates . By 1798, the first three were nearly complete and on 16 July 1798, additional funding was approved for the USS Congress , USS Chesapeake , and USS President , plus
4539-493: The U.S. unable to mount an effective response, and within a year over 316 American ships had been captured. In March 1798, Congress reconstituted the United States Navy , and in July authorized the use of force against France. By 1799, losses had been significantly reduced through informal cooperation with the Royal Navy , whereby merchant ships from both nations were allowed to join each other's convoys. The replacement of
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#17330848204394628-425: The basis of "benevolent neutrality". They interpreted this as allowing French privateers to enter U.S. ports, and to sell captured British ships in American prize courts , but not vice versa. However, the U.S. viewed it as the right to provide the same privileges to both. These differences were further exacerbated in November 1794 when the U.S. and Britain signed the Jay Treaty . By resolving outstanding issues from
4717-593: The edification, education, and cultural refinement of the participants. In the late 19th century, when literacy was relatively common in European countries such as the United Kingdom , the "Man of Letters" ( littérateur ) denotation broadened to mean "specialized", a man who earned his living writing intellectually (not creatively) about literature: the essayist , the journalist , the critic , et al. Examples include Samuel Johnson , Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle . In
4806-465: The errors of logical fallacy , ideological stupidity, and poor planning hampered by ideology. In her memoirs, the Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher wrote that the anti-monarchical French Revolution (1789–1799) was "a utopian attempt to overthrow a traditional order [...] in the name of abstract ideas , formulated by vain intellectuals". The American academic Peter H. Smith describes
4895-456: The first Secretary of the Navy . On 7 July 1798, Congress approved the use of force against French warships in American waters, but wanted to ensure conflict did not escalate beyond these limits. As a result, it was called a "limited" or "Quasi-War", and led to political debate over whether it was constitutional. A series of rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States confirmed the ability of
4984-517: The first important political and literary journal in the United States. Timothy Dwight IV once referred to Dennie as "the Addison of America" and "the father of American Belles-Lettres ." Dennie was born on August 30, 1768, in Boston , Province of Massachusetts Bay , to Joseph Dennie, a member of a well-to-do merchant family, and his wife Mary Green, whose father was Bartholomew Green, Jr. The Greens were
5073-565: The frigates USS General Greene and USS Adams . The provision of naval stores and equipment by the British allowed these to be built relatively quickly, and all saw action during the war. These vessels were enhanced by so-called "subscription ships", privately funded vessels provided by individual cities. They included five frigates, among them the USS Philadelphia , commanded by Stephen Decatur , and four merchantmen converted into sloops . Primarily intended to attack foreign shipping, they earned huge profits for their owners;
5162-704: The general public". This expresses a dichotomy, derived from Plato, between public knowledge and private knowledge, "civic culture" and "professional culture", the intellectual sphere of life and the life of ordinary people in society. In the United States, members of the intellectual status class have been demographically characterized as people who hold liberal -to- leftist political perspectives about guns-or-butter fiscal policy . In "The Intellectuals and Socialism" (1949), Friedrich Hayek wrote that "journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists" form an intellectual social class whose function
5251-405: The intellectual's activities exerted positive consequences in the public sphere and so increased the intellectual understanding of the public, by means of moral responsibility, altruism , and solidarity , without resorting to the manipulations of demagoguery , paternalism and incivility (condescension). The sociologist Frank Furedi said that "Intellectuals are not defined according to
5340-530: The intellectuals of Latin America as people from an identifiable social class, who have been conditioned by that common experience and thus are inclined to share a set of common assumptions (values and ethics); that ninety-four per cent of intellectuals come either from the middle class or from the upper class and that only six per cent come from the working class . Philosopher Steven Fuller said that because cultural capital confers power and social status as
5429-435: The intellectuals" to change and improve their societies. According to Hayek, intellectuals disproportionately support socialism for idealistic and utopian reasons that cannot be realized in practice. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre noted that "the Intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern them" ( L'intellectuel est quelqu'un qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas ). Noam Chomsky expressed
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#17330848204395518-527: The island and landed marines to support the local Dutch troops before the French withdrew. On 12 October, the frigate Boston captured the corvette Le Berceau . On 25 October, USS Enterprise defeated the French brig Flambeau near Dominica . Enterprise also captured eight privateers and freed eleven U.S. merchant ships from captivity, while Experiment captured the French privateers Deux Amis and Diane and liberated numerous American merchant ships. Although U.S. military losses were light,
5607-461: The jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the [social and political] values that they uphold. According to Thomas Sowell , as a descriptive term of person, personality, and profession, the word intellectual identifies three traits: In Latin language , at least starting from the Carolingian Empire , intellectuals could be called litterati ,
5696-659: The letter, Dennie was admitted to the Court of Common Pleas and opened a practice in Charlestown. However, he rarely appeared in open court ; indeed, he probably made only one appearance. Throughout the 1790s Dennie contributed to various journals, including the Federal Orrery and the Massachusetts Magazine , often using pen names such as Academicus and Socialis. In 1795, his writing being enthusiastically received, Dennie
5785-410: The literature. Collini writes about this time that "[a]mong this cluster of linguistic experiments there occurred ... the occasional usage of 'intellectuals' as a plural noun to refer, usually with a figurative or ironic intent, to a collection of people who might be identified in terms of their intellectual inclinations or pretensions." In early 19th-century Britain, Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined
5874-462: The margins of society". Public intellectuals usually arise from the educated élite of a society, although the North American usage of the term intellectual includes the university academics. The difference between intellectual and academic is participation in the realm of public affairs. Jürgen Habermas ' Structural Transformation of Public Sphere (1963) made significant contribution to
5963-414: The matters of public policy , the public intellectual connects scholarly research to the practical matters of solving societal problems. The British sociologist Michael Burawoy , an exponent of public sociology , said that professional sociology has failed by giving insufficient attention to resolving social problems, and that a dialogue between the academic and the layman would bridge the gap. An example
6052-410: The notion of public intellectual by historically and conceptually delineating the idea of private and public. Controversial, in the same year, was Ralf Dahrendorf 's definition: "As the court- jesters of modern society, all intellectuals have the duty to doubt everything that is obvious, to make relative all authority, to ask all those questions that no one else dares to ask". An intellectual usually
6141-553: The paper had a decidedly Federalist slant, supporting both the Quasi-War and the Alien and Sedition Acts . Dennie collaborated often with his friend Royall Tyler ; the two wrote a satirical column by the name of "The Shop of Messrs. Colon and Spondee" which appeared in the Museum . In 1798 Dennie lost a considerable amount of money when the paper's printer went bankrupt . He remained as editor for
6230-570: The participation of academic public intellectuals in the public life of society is characterized by logically untidy and politically biased statements of the kind that would be unacceptable to academia. He concluded that there are few ideologically and politically independent public intellectuals, and disapproved public intellectuals who limit themselves to practical matters of public policy, and not with values or public philosophy , or public ethics , or public theology , nor with matters of moral and spiritual outrage. Socially, intellectuals constitute
6319-659: The public affairs of society. Consequently, being designated as a public intellectual is determined by the degree of influence of the designator's motivations , opinions, and options of action (social, political, ideological), and by affinity with the given thinker. After the failure of the large-scale May 68 movement in France, intellectuals within the country were often maligned for having specific areas of expertise while discussing general subjects like democracy. Intellectuals increasingly claimed to be within marginalized groups rather than their spokespeople, and centered their activism on
6408-413: The social and cultural ties created with their words, insights and ideas; and should be heard as social critics of politics and power . The determining factor for a "thinker" (historian, philosopher, scientist, writer, artist) to be considered a public intellectual is the degree to which the individual is implicated and engaged with the vital reality of the contemporary world, i.e. participation in
6497-577: The social problems relevant to their areas of expertise (such as gender relations in the case of psychologists). A similar shift occurred in China after the Tiananmen Square Massacre from the "universal intellectual" (who plans better futures from within academia) to minjian ("grassroots") intellectuals, the latter group represented by such figures as Wang Xiaobo , social scientist Yu Jianrong , and Yanhuang Chunqiu editor Ding Dong ( 丁東 ). In
6586-556: The term clerisy , the intellectual class responsible for upholding and maintaining the national culture, the secular equivalent of the Anglican clergy. Likewise, in Tsarist Russia, there arose the intelligentsia (1860s–1870s), who were the status class of white-collar workers. For Germany, the theologian Alister McGrath said that "the emergence of a socially alienated, theologically literate, antiestablishment lay intelligentsia
6675-399: The transformation of society: providing advice and counsel to the political leaders, interpreting the country's politics to the mass of the population (urban workers and peasants). In the pamphlet What Is to Be Done? (1902), Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said that vanguard-party revolution required the participation of the intellectuals to explain the complexities of socialist ideology to
6764-461: The uneducated proletariat and the urban industrial workers in order to integrate them to the revolution because "the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness" and will settle for the limited, socio-economic gains so achieved. In Russia as in Continental Europe , socialist theory was the product of
6853-488: The universities of the U.S. are bureaucratic, private businesses, they "do not teach critical reasoning to the student", who then does not know "how to gauge what is going on in the general struggle for power in modern society". Likewise, Richard Rorty criticized the quality of participation of intellectuals in public discourse as an example of the "civic irresponsibility of intellect , especially academic intellect". The American legal scholar Richard Posner said that
6942-434: The view that "intellectuals are specialists in defamation , they are basically political commissars , they are the ideological administrators, the most threatened by dissidence ." In his 1967 article " The Responsibility of Intellectuals ", Chomsky analyzes the intellectual culture in the U.S., and argues that it is largely subservient to power . He is particularly critical of social scientists and technocrats, who provide
7031-476: The wealthy in common cause appear to betray one's class origins. The 19th-century U.S. Congregational theologian Edwards Amasa Park said: "We do wrong to our own minds, when we carry out scientific difficulties down to the arena of popular dissension". In his view, it was necessary for the sake of social, economic and political stability "to separate the serious, technical role of professionals from their responsibility [for] supplying usable philosophies for
7120-438: The world of culture , either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an ideology , and by defending a system of values . The term "man of letters" derives from the French term belletrist or homme de lettres but is not synonymous with "an academic". A "man of letters"
7209-461: Was a literate man, able to read and write, and thus highly valued in the upper strata of society in a time when literacy was rare. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term Belletrist(s) came to be applied to the literati : the French participants in—sometimes referred to as "citizens" of—the Republic of Letters , which evolved into the salon , a social institution, usually run by a hostess, meant for
7298-564: Was an undeclared war from 1798 to 1800 between the United States and French First Republic . It was fought almost entirely at sea, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the United States , with minor actions in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea . In 1793, Congress unilaterally suspended repayment of French loans from the American Revolutionary War , and in 1794 signed
7387-421: Was contingent upon political pragmatism , abandoning the political neutrality of the academic intellectual. In The Sociological Imagination (1959), C. Wright Mills said that academics had become ill-equipped for participating in public discourse, and that journalists usually are "more politically alert and knowledgeable than sociologists, economists, and especially ... political scientists". That, because
7476-685: Was little support for this in Congress . Neutrality allowed New England shipowners to earn huge profits evading the British blockade, while Southern plantation owners feared the example set by France's abolition of slavery in 1794. In 1793, Congress suspended repayment of French loans incurred during the Revolutionary War, arguing the execution of Louis XVI and establishment of the French First Republic rendered existing agreements void. They further argued American military obligations under
7565-426: Was not the republican democracy found in the United States today, but rather the "democracy" found in France under Robespierre and Napoleon . Dennie was invoking Aristotle 's argument that "an absolute democracy is not to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government. It is the corruption and degeneracy, and not the sound constitution of a republic." Dennie had health trouble throughout his life, as well as
7654-445: Was persuaded to begin a literary journal, The Tablet . William Spotswood, a Boston printer and bookseller, agreed to oversee the entire enterprise, splitting the profits evenly with Dennie. Such a literary journal was a novel idea at the time, and it was well-received among the city's elite. Despite the initial excitement surrounding the project and content from noted writers such as John Sylvester John Gardiner , The Tablet lasted only
7743-632: Was practicing law (though earning very little for his work). In a January 1794 letter to his parents, however, Dennie reports that he had been appointed as a reader for the Episcopalian church in Charlestown , New Hampshire . Nevertheless, he insisted that this new vocation would not deter him from his goal of practicing law, though by then he was planning on remaining in New Hampshire to practice rather than returning to Massachusetts. Shortly after writing
7832-525: Was recaptured on 28 June 1799. On 9 February 1799, the frigate Constellation captured the French Navy's frigate L'Insurgente . By 1 July, under the command of Decatur, USS United States had been refitted and repaired and embarked on her mission to patrol the South Atlantic coast and West Indies in search of French ships which were preying on American merchant vessels. On 1 January 1800 ,
7921-498: Was written by John Quincy Adams . The epitaph erroneously gives Lexington, Massachusetts , as his birthplace; in fact, Dennie was born in Boston, but his family moved to Lexington shortly thereafter. Intellectual#Man of Letters An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking , research , and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for its normative problems. Coming from
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