DUCKPOND

I am not familiar with the literature on opinion leadership, but I suppose public intellectuals who create and frame ideas would feature. For example, if a set of ideas such as neo-liberalism, or any other economic fashion, was considered, there would be a set of influential proponents. Most of us are not that well informed, or expert, or imaginative, and recognize it. Some of us tend to accept the plausible as given, and do not take the trouble to drive concept around the block and see whether the wheels fall off. That might be the minimum, but even that degree of engagement with disciplined thinking in comparing evidence and conclusions requires skill and application. Far easier in that case to rely upon the experts.

Expertise comes in different forms. From my experience in hospital, I remember that the sole person who was able to master the volume control on the hospital television sets was a tuner of motor cycles. In the realm of ideas, I suppose that those people with Ph D’s have the lead on everybody else, because by definition they are highly expert in a specialized area set within a wider framework. It then struck me that I have intellectuals on my blogroll, and to that extent they are public intellectuals.By contrast, it seems to me, that many commentators are not opinion framers, but I suppose that is a subjective judgment, and their influence may be greater than I imagine.

The public opinion lobbyists, operating out of their so-call think tanks, are often a benevolent influence of the manufacture of public opinion. They have targeted audiences. Threat power has a presence among the serried ranks of the media, as it does in other organized systems of domination. I am inclined to believe that it is foolish to underestimate the power, influence and sophistication of the public relations industry that generates the talking points and attitudinal anchoring points we hear and see daily, and may be prepared to dismiss lightly without appreciating their effectiveness in influencing and framing opinion. We may remember the story of “the torches of freedom”, a very profitable little number for the cigarette companies.The failure to appreciate the design of the talking points, the sometimes incredulous framing and association of ideas is a fundamental failure of political intelligence.

All of this might be labelled, “public intellectuals and the conspiracy to manufacture opinion”. We see here the contrast in the operating manuals of an Obama and a Clinton. One person has a view of truth that remains come rain or sunshine, and the other’s changes with the weather of the people addressed. All politicians must adapt their message, but we might expect a consistency of view given what is made possible by the prevailing norms of opinion.

Anyway, Andrew Norton who is not inclined to go on these wide-ranging discursive excursions, points out it is possible to vote for your favourite intellectual at Prospect. So here rather than there, I thought I would report who I had nominated. My list is a bit ho hum since I thought it necessary to know who the people were, and to have read or listened to what they had to say. My list reflecting my limitations was: Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Krugman, Jared Diamond, Noam Chomsky and Peter Singer. And if I was to nominate an person who was influential but not on the list, which I did not do, it might be somebody like Juan Cole.