Stumble It!
Aug 06 2008
A Comment on Intellectuals and the “Trappings” of Academia
At an August 2, 2008, speech at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, economist Jörg Guido Hülsmann described one of the factors that facilitated Mises’s long-term success in spreading his economic and political ideas. Instead of following the typical academic track and looking above all for tenured positions, respect among his colleagues, and places in prestigious organizations and publications, Mises decided to become a public intellectual, trying to communicate his ideas to intelligent laymen rather that merely talking to other academicians. - Gennady Stolyarov II
While combing through the today.com blogs today, I stumbled upon The Progress of Liberty’s attention to a fact of the academic “book learnin’” world that has always made my head dizzy with a yet to be matched and exorcist-like whirling state of confusion. It’s the idea that intellectual writings and discourses are too often limited to the smarty pants bunch of PhD’s and Jeopardy champs who compose beautiful symphonies of words we’ll never use again only for use in academic journals and by your professor who gets his tighty whities in a bunch should any of his colleagues forget to refer to him as “Doctor.”
I really never understood the whole limiting of ideas in academia. I really think effective ideas MUST reach the pop culture tipping point before they go anywhere. For instance, I never understood why term papers and graduate thesis are not shared with the class as well as the professor. Writing for an audience of one should be left to letters or secret love poems for a special someone on a random occasion of insight. I mean, why can’t common sense ever be considered as a marker for intelligence? Even Jesus knew how to speak in parables so people got the point!
As the following blog points out sometimes ideas need to be expressed to the masses in order to go anywhere. Otherwise, all the smarties run the risk of being both smart and useless at the same time. So while most days I’ll remind you to wax poetically, today I’ll hope that you’d just think logically.
Read: How to Spread Ideas Effectively: Becoming a Public Intellectual
Thank you for writing this eloquent post and for extending the ideas expressed in my own post. I agree with you entirely, and I think that you genuinely understand what is required for an idea to succeed in the real world.
I also think that college papers should be shared with the entire class. Perhaps the expectation for doing so should be inaugurated even earlier, say, in high school courses.
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II