# Favorite Public Intellectual **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 25, 2014, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582 "2014-11-25T09:46:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/1 "2014-11-25T09:46:59Z")
Who are your preferred public intellectuals? The people whose views on topics of the day you seek out. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/2 "2014-11-25T13:04:29Z")
I feel a keen sense of loss for Christopher Hitchens. John Stewart is someone I admire. Bill Maher, when he’s not being hyperbolic. Andrew Sullivan is often very insightful. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are politicians I respect. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/3 "2014-11-25T13:42:33Z")
John Stewart Michael Shermer Neil de Grasse Tyson ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/4 "2014-11-25T13:52:19Z")
Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are intellectuals? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.Pu-du-he-pa-as)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/5 "2014-11-25T14:04:24Z")
Noah Feldman! Constitutional law, yeah! ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/6 "2014-11-25T14:04:33Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I feel a keen sense of loss for Christopher Hitchens… ditto, he was always worth listening to and the clarity of his points always stood in stark contrast to the wafflers, evasion-artists and bullshitters he debated with. I didn’t always agree with him but I had to raise my game in order to clarify why. Might be worth picking up on the writings and work of [Douglas Murray](https://www.youtube.com/user/DouglasMurrayArchive), He reminds me very much of Hitchens in that clarity of speech and spiky remarks. Don’t know if he met him or was influenced by him but it wouldn’t surprise me. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/7 "2014-11-25T14:40:19Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are intellectuals? :dubious: They’re people whose views on topics of the day I seek out. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/8 "2014-11-25T14:49:04Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are intellectuals? :dubious: OP didn’t suggest a scale by which we’re to measure and compare. Perhaps I falsely assumed that not every thread is a dick measuring contest. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/9 "2014-11-25T14:54:20Z")
Matt Yglesias Ezra Klein Ramesh Ponnuru Jonah Goldberg Glenn Reynolds Paul Krugman(when he’s intellectual rather than in high dudgeon) ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/10 "2014-11-25T16:22:46Z")
Christopher Hitchens. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/11 "2014-11-25T18:30:16Z")
John Stewart . . . but not all the time. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/12 "2014-11-25T19:40:32Z")
I like Jon Stewart, but public intellectual? I think he’d get a pretty hearty laugh out of that characterization. He’s not totally playing a character like Colbert, but he is wearing the clown nose 90% of the time and he’s looking to be funny first, insightful a distant second. The fact that he’s more insightul than most has more to do with the quality of today’s public intellectuals, almost all of the good ones not being on TV, but rather on the internet. Oh, forgot to mention one other: Robert Reich. I don’t agree with him much, but I appreciate his approach to educating the public about issues. If you haven’t seen any of his youtube presentations, you should. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/13 "2014-11-25T20:11:08Z")
Cornell West, Noam Chomsky, Richard Stallman. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/14 "2014-11-25T20:14:37Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Cornell West, Noam Chomsky, Richard Stallman. Conell West! That’s who I was trying to remember earlier. I love that guy but about half the time I have no fucking idea what the hell he is trying to say. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/15 "2014-11-25T20:23:09Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > They’re people whose views on topics of the day I seek out. But that wasn’t the question, was it? > [@QuickSilver](#): > > OP didn’t suggest a scale by which we’re to measure and compare. Perhaps I falsely assumed that not every thread is a dick measuring contest. Who is dick measuring? “Intellectual” is a word with a meaning. It does not mean “celebrity who seems to be pretty smart, and whose views I respect”. Even _very_ smart people are not necessarily intellectuals. Maher and Stewart _may_ be intellectuals, in private, for all I (or you) know, but their public personas, and their claims on people’s attention are not based on this, so they still do not count as “public intellectuals”. A public intellectual is someone whose prominence and claim on our attention is based upon their intellectual achievements and credentials, usually formal academic ones, not on their talent for making people laugh without making themselves sound stupid. Several examples of real public intellectuals have been given by others in this thread, such as Tyson, Hitchens (well, arguably), Krugman, Reich, Shermer, Warren. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/16 "2014-11-25T20:49:17Z")
It’s a good question - struggling to think of any here in the UK tbh. TV seems like a really poor platform for intellectualism these days - back in the day you had Milton Friedman laying down the law on the US chat show circuit. James Lovelock maybe? Truly unique individual, far too great a scientist to be demeaned by the public intellectual label, but he’s not shy about wading in to public debate (although he’s v elderly nowadays). ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/17 "2014-11-25T21:44:33Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > But that wasn’t the question, was it? That was _precisely_ the question. OP asked everyone’s favorite "public intellectual, "a nebulous term at best, and clarified the question with those _exact_ words. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/18 "2014-11-25T21:50:50Z")
Louis Ck, Michiu Kaku ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/19 "2014-11-25T21:52:14Z")
Doug Stanhope then. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582/20 "2014-11-25T22:42:03Z")
Hmm . . . Doug Stanhope, oddly an [appropriate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCGkVyyDOcU) pick. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-public-intellectual/705582.md?page=2)