The Other Side of 1984

And the nature of what is considered an ‘intellectual topic’ will change as well. Barry Jones is still bemoaning the lack of concern amongst intellectuals with ‘big picture’ issues, but you don’t have to be a rabid postmodernist to appreciate that such big picture stuff is not what is necessarily important. This is not to suggest that we have reached the end of all grand narratives or that we can’t talk fruitfully about society and politics within wider ethical and intellectual frameworks. But it is to suggest that such grand theorising is not the only thing that intellectuals should be concerning themselves with. Such engagement does not define intellectual work. This is the true meaning of the ‘citizen intellectual’ - not the person who talks about ‘big issues’ informed by years of study and theorising, but an actual member of the public who shares common concerns and is involved in common issues. The citizen intellectual is an insider, not an outsider. He or she is a citizen with the citizen’s concerns.

There is a sense in which the new technologies thus used open the space for a more pure type of intellectual engagement, what British philosopher Michael Oakeshott has called the "unrehearsed intellectual adventure." This adventure he calls simply a conversation. The sort of intellectual activity that I witness in discussion lists is a type of conversation - it drifts off into irrelevancies; it doesn’t really aim to win arguments; it is not, in the strict sense, a search for meaning; it certainly isn’t structured as a speech or an essay, so it is somewhat outside the usual bounds of rationality. It is more poetic, if you like. It is a conversation, an intellectual engagement in a new type of public space that opens up the possibility for a more democratic engagement.

So let’s give two cheers for the new technologies and the possibilities they create for renewed intellectual debate. There is much about them that can circumvent the blockages in the traditional systems of social/political discussion and we should be looking for ways to enhance that aspect of them. But in singing their virtues we should not be blind to the fact that they may just as easily reinforce the current power relationships and inequalities within society, that they cost money to use and that not everyone has access to them.

So the first task of the email intellectuals is to discuss how their new medium can truly become a window on democracy. In this, our role model should be George Orwell - he mightn’t have predicted the other side of 1984, but he embodied the qualities all intellectuals - and citizens - still need: honesty and bravery. Without these attributes, the email intellectuals will become just another bunch of elites disappearing up their own portals.