Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?

"Yet valid criticisms have been raised about my argument, and only the obtuse could claim that nothing has happened in the last two decades that might recast the terms of intellectual life. For starters, a new group of African-American intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates Jr., Gerald Early, and Cornel West, as well as several tough-minded women columnists like Maureen Dowd and the late Molly Ivins, emerged. Yet their appearance may qualify my argument, not refute it. Perhaps beyond the stage lights, a new group of younger intellectuals has taken shape. That is what one of my angrier critics, the New York-based freelancer Rick Perlstein claims. 'A well-stroked three-wood aimed out my Brooklyn window could easily hit half a dozen' bright, talented, gutsy public intellectuals, he claims. But who are they? He doesn't say."

Russell Jacoby in The Chronicle Review surveys the past twenty years since the publication of his The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe.