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Title: Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures by Edward W. Said ISBN: 0-679-76127-6 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 April, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.18 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Intellectual's Role as Critic
Comment: In this slim, yet thought-proking volume, Edward said attempts to provide an outline of the function and duty of the intellectual in modern society. Implicitly, Edward Said goes about the task of challenging the increasingly cozy relationship between the so-called intellectual, i.e., academia, and the political/military power structure that has developed in the wake of McCarthyism and the subsequent paranoia of the Cold War. Case in point, do you know where Napalm was "invented", not in the bowls of the Pentagon, but at Harvard University, by scientists (intellectuals) with a duty to expand human understanding and knowledge, not to be used as a means to power and destruction. That, Said would contend, is precisely the problem with the role of the intelelctual today. Au Courant the climate of the "expert" reighns supreme and almost completely in the cause of war--in whatever manifestation it is found. Unfortunately, this is a problem that has been ignored for far too long, obscured with baseless, yet effective, claims of a leftist domination of academia to which Said's subtle analysis provides a vitally important counter.
Using the example of intellectuals such as James Baldwin, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Viginia Woolf and Noam Chomsky as a model of intellectual vigor and concern for social justice, both in words and in action. In this vein Said offers a critically important meditation on the vital influence that such can have on public opinion and, more importantly, government policy. Thus, the intellectual in today's society, in Said's mind, has a duty and an obligation to be an agent of social and political justice--a radically dissident voice if need be--against the dictates of blind power.
For those who admire critical thinking, moral courage and a helthy respect for honest debate Representations of the Intellectual is for you. There awill always be those who seem to believe that ad hominem attacks and smear campaigns can replace critical thinking and objective analysis, both of which are only a substitute for intellectual vigor. Yet, many of his critics seem to be perfectly content with a system in which the main function of an intellectual is as a petty propagandist of pragmatic ideology, providing justification for the continued imperial wars of aggression, right-wing insurgency, political assasination and even genocide, carried out by Western powers since WWII. Those who ignore these facts are either grossly naive or recklessly misguided by their own historico delusions.
But, for those who want to get beyond the simplistic dualisms and vacuous black/white oppositions by all means, read Said's book--your view of the intellectual in Western society will never be the same.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent essay on the role of the thorns in society's side
Comment: My personal favorite of Said's books.
For those who feel ambivalent about Said's specific political views, this book touches on them minimally. (Though, obviously, his thinking is informed by those views throughout.)
The general question is: What is the role of a true thinker in our times? If you believe the "authorities" (i.e., the New York Times, or Charlie Rose, etc.) they are just scholars or thoughtful observers with a public voice. The upshot is that the intellectual is nothing more than an ambassador -- a mouthpiece -- for received opinion (that is, the orthodoxy). Intellectuals are nothing more, in this popular view, than a kind of secular clergy.
Representations of the Intellectual skewers this notion, and beautifully. Said had a singular breadth of mind. In Representations, he draws on a expansive knowledge of disparate fields to offer a convincing picture of the intellectual as a reasoned, passionate dissenter.
Rating: 5
Summary: Learning who is a real intellectual.
Comment: Amazing! I have read this precious book several times, nonetheless, when I was reading what Said wrote about the Gulf War, I confused it with the War on Iraq. Then, who is a real intellectual? According to Said, not a person who conforms to whatever the Power offers, nor a person who does not hesitate to say that many other states do is (should be) good. A real intellectual seeks the third way.
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Title: Culture and Imperialism by Edward W. Said ISBN: 0679750541 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 June, 1994 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Orientalism by Edward W. Said ISBN: 039474067X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 October, 1979 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews With Edward W. Said by Gauri Viswanathan ISBN: 1400030668 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The World, the Text, and the Critic by Edward Said ISBN: 0674961870 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1984 List Price(USD): $21.50 |
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Title: Reflections on Exile and Other Essays by Edward W. Said ISBN: 0674009975 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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