Robert Jensen — American Intellectuals' Widespread Failure to Stand Up to Billionaires and Authoritarian Power

The majority of intellectual work in the U.S. is actually helping to prop up our unjust distribution of wealth and power....

My argument is that if we take seriously the basic moral principles at the core of modern philosophical and theological systems we claim to believe in, in light of the data on social injustice and the serious threats to ecological sustainability, these questions should be central in the work of intellectuals. Based on my experience as a journalist, professor, and political activist—a life in which I have always worked in intellectual professions and interacted with many other intellectuals in various settings—I have learned that the story is complicated but that a sharp critique of intellectuals as a social formation is warranted.

AlterNet
American Intellectuals' Widespread Failure to Stand Up to Billionaires and Authoritarian Power
Robert Jensen | Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Director of the Senior Fellows Honors Program of the College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin

I'm not sure that the problem is with the lack of public intellectuals speaking out but rather of their opportunity to be heard in a propagandistic media environment that biases the debate by excluding or marginalizing opposing views. Without the Internet most of these voices would go almost completely unheard. But owing to the selective structure of the Internet, most political communication is preaching to the choir in stead of public debate. Public debate in national media is largely controlled by vested interests where "fair and balanced" is a meaningless slogan at best and for the most part is double-speak.

See also Andrew Leonard, Would We Be Better Off Without the Internet? at Alternet and Robert J. Samuelson, Beware the Internet and the danger of cyberattacks, at the Washington Post.

Samuelson:

If I could, I would repeal the Internet. It is the technological marvel of the age, but it is not — as most people imagine — a symbol of progress. Just the opposite. We would be better off without it. I grant its astonishing capabilities.... But the Internet’s benefits are relatively modest compared with previous transformative technologies, and it brings with it a terrifying danger: cyberwar....

By cyberwarfare, I mean the capacity of groups — whether nations or not — to attack, disrupt and possibly destroy the institutions and networks that underpin everyday life.... So much depends on the Internet that its vulnerability to sabotage invites doomsday visions of the breakdown of order and trust.