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Public Intellectuals, especially Richard Florida, by J.D. Meyer Introduction I have been interested in the concept of the public intellectual for some time, mainly through my study of the works of Dr. Richard Florida of the University of Toronto. Dr. Florida teaches urban planning, business, economics, and creativity. He wrote a big seller, The Rise of the Creative Class in 2003 while he was still teaching at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh. Dr. Florida truly is a public intellectual, someone whose scholarship is in more than one field and most importantly-- felt by general society. I'd like to encourage everyone here to check out Dr. Florida's giant website, www.creativeclass.com Dr. Florida stresses the Three T's: talent, technology, and tolerance. Cities need to be fun, creative places in order to attract top thinkers in the creative professions--such as medicine, education, and law. And a city becomes fun and entertaining when you have quite a few artists and musicians. A writer for yahoo travel measured happiness according to feeling rested, respected, free of pain, and intellectually engaged http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-35010143 Public intellectuals do really important things. In my latest service, which was on persuasive strategies and essays, I found a couple of great definitions for "intellectual" and "public intellectual," by Dr. Ali Mazrui, a Ugandan-born scholar who now teaches for the Institute of Global Studies in New York. Dr. Mazrui was cited as one of the world's Top 100 public intellectuals, according to www.foreignpolicy.com so let's review these two definitions. First, an intellectual is "a person who has the capacity to be fascinated by ideas and has acquired the skill to handle some of these effectively." But a public intellectual "communicates ideas and influences debate outside of one's own field." Thus a letter to the editor of one's hometown newspaper represents a modest and common effort to be a public intellectual, albeit for a fleeting moment. Here's another definition for public intellectual, and it's from Dr. Tu Wei-ming: the leading New Confucian of our time and a recently retired Harvard professor of Eastern history and philosophy--now teaching for the University of Peking. A public intellectual is "someone who is politically concerned, socially engaged, culturally informed, and sensitive-who is interested in this broader issue not as an isolated professionalist or an isolated culturalist, but as an isolated human being concerned with the fate of the earth." http://www.coloradocollege.edu/academics/anniversary/Transcripts/TuTXT.htm Finally by quoting Dr. Tu, I've made a statement that sounds somewhat religious as opposed to a public administration lecture. Yet Dr. Tu made another profound statement about the "hyphenated nature" of Confucianism, and you will see that Unitarian-Universalists share that bond. Since Confucianism is not strictly a religion, we come across "spiritual self-definitions and scholarly designations" as Confucians can define themselves as Confucian-Christians, Confucian-Buddhists, and even Confucian-Muslims. There was an Islamic-Confucian dialogue at Malaysia in 1995. I felt especially compelled to include this quote because a well-versed fundamentalist Christian friend of mine believes the UU social action focus blurs religious belief with social activism. I'm glad that we have a service orientation at the risk of our sermons sounding like something from a college sociology course. Kwanzaa and the Public Intellectual After doing the keynote address for four or five Kwanzaas, I had an insight that the common thread behind all the principles of Kwanzaa was the call or effort to serve as a public intellectual. Thus a Kwanzaa activist could say, "Service is our prayer," just like a Unitarian Universalist. How did I get interested in Kwanzaa? After noticing quite a few Kwanzaa books for elementary age children when I was a substitute teacher in Garland ISD, I taught for Texas College--a black college in Tyler. The Developmental Education program manual suggested that we use an Afrocentric perspective whenever possible. That led me to including a 41-page chapter on African-American Studies in my Developmental English/Writing textbook, which includes all of my Kwanzaa presentations. Kwanzaa exhorts us to do something for society after the seven-night winter festivity is over. The Seven Principles are Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith in that order. I've done all but the first and last, but I've always included supporting details from religion and philosophy in my Kwanzaa talks. Furthermore, the quest for unity is probably a strong point for most of us UU's. I'm sure these principles would be revered at least to some extent by all cultures. However, some Kwanzaa purists in other places may feel that I deviate from the Afrocentric perspective too much through showing examples of these principles in other cultures. Creativity My first Kwanzaa talk was on Creativity, and I started it by offering the four descriptions of creativity according to Gifted and Talented Education research: (1) originality, (2) fluency or amount of ideas, (3) flexibility or adaptability, and (4) application. Yet I noted that Kwanzaa focused on applicability-the "get 'er done" side of creativity. Kwanzaa says through its creator, Dr. Maulana Karenga of the University of California at Santa Barbara, that we should leave the community more helpful and beautiful than when we got it www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org That includes repairing the worn out. Note how improving the community through making it more helpful, beautiful, and repaired calls the Kwanzaa supporter to serve as a public intellectual. The Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) Program at the University of Texas at Austin I concluded my last talk, Cooperative Economics, by informing the audience about the wonderful Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) program at University of Texas at Austin.https:// webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie. IE is the opposite of the ivory tower syndrome in education; the university needs to bring its knowledge to real life problems and engage students. At UT-Austin, eight colleges and four schools are involved with it. Graduate students mentor undergraduate students-one of their most beloved programs. Moreover, the IE program attracts minority students and first generation college students, thereby inadvertently desegregating graduate school. This consortium could be the answer to the city leaders' call for an interdisciplinary way to generate more money by our institutes of higher education. All of us here know that we have a small branch of the University of Texas in Tyler, but it has an undergraduate and graduate component.. So this time, you could say my effort to serve as a public intellectual was to be a cheerleader for a program that builds public intellectuals. In a segment of my Developmental English textbook's chapter section on persuasive strategies, I noted that critics could be a cheerleader for something they believe in. The Long Road to Publishing a Textbook I mentioned two of my projects at during those five Kwanzaa addresses: my website and my textbook. Do you know how difficult it is to publish a textbook? Once you write one that is long enough, then you have to write a proposal. Get a proposal form from a publisher, such as McGraw-Hill. To be frank with you, the reason why I have a website from McGraw-Hill's Pageout was something of a consolation prize; they rightly felt that my then-135 page book was too little to be a textbook, yet it still showed potential. Now it's 345 pages. Later I found more information on how to write a textbook in a radiology technology e-journal www.asrt.org/Media/Pdf/ForEducators/3_InstructionalTools/3.8GettingPublished.pdf I'm an avid writer for www.stumbleupon.com under my e-mail alias, "bohemiotx"--one of the many places where one can recommend a fine news story. Believe me; I felt a commitment to share this rare article in an unlikely place on cyberspace. Now there's another issue to consider in publishing: putting it on the Internet. The buyer has the choice of which chapters to keep. I found a couple of online publishers through an article in Fast Company.com http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/who-needs-harvard.html Modularity is a key term; you even can market your textbook by the chapter section through a site like Connexions of Rice University. http://cnx.org The rising cost of textbooks hinders a lot of students; many students simply try to get away with not buying them. Furthermore, some students just don't like coming to class but get their work done. A gentleman on the bus recently told me that he didn't like feeling he was being preached to; thus he prefers on-line classes. Also, some of my chapters may be more marketable than others; what could be safer than grammar? Some professionals feel that it's wrong to have writing prompts and model essays that are too regional or too Texas. That led me to start my own writing gallery through the Second Annual National Day on Writing, an affiliate of the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE). I call my gallery, the Regional Writers Gallery; you may read my curator's address. http://galleryofwriting.org/galleries/2335762 Last year I had my 3rd Night of Kwanzaa: Collective Work and Responsibility published at the national gallery . I returned to the McGraw-Hill Higher Education Proposal Guidelines when it appeared that the modular on-line approach wasn't a well paying route for authors. But to do a regular textbook, you need to do an extensive review of three to four main competitors in your field among other less difficult things. I've gotten a good start on the proposal, and it looks way better than my effort seven years ago. Plus, I get feedback from our friend and frequent guest service deliverer, Dr. Mickey Slimp, together with my original mentor at my first Developmental English community college assignment at Mountain View in Oak Cliff. My most uphill battle would have to be gaining acceptance for Bilingual Secondary Academic Vocabulary (BSAV) since it's believed that bilingual education must stop after elementary school. I summarize this project as follows, "If the newcomer has just learned how to say, 'Mr. Meyer is complaining again.' Then the newcomer needs to read about the recession, photosynthesis, hyperbole, and the quadratic formula in Spanish." It's tough to be a public intellectual through these routes. And in these case, it's really trying to be a public intellectual and not just serve as one."Engagement with the World," by William Schulz Rev. Schulz's pamphlet on "Engagement with the World" shows the unique commitment that we UU's have to putting our faith into action: a practice broader than those academically gifted public intellectuals-but still at the root of such action. Schulz sees religion and justice as truly related. Our awareness of pain enables us to take a stance against deprivation and cruelty. Rather than dwell on pondering whether to be a Christian, theist, mystic, humanist, or other, UU's are called to confront the realities of daily life. Schulz offers fascinating examples of a world "astonishingly full of grace" from music, fruit, nature, and paintings that beckon us to engage the world. We need to be free of pain in order to savor the great things in life; the rich and poor don't have equal access to life's blessings. "Religion's job is both to signal the gifts and to help everyone have a part in the unwrapping," according to Schulz. We see the world as precious. Moreover, "the meaning of history is still in the making, that tomorrow is not set, that there's no such thing as fate," according to Schulz. I really enjoyed that assertion by Reverend Schulz since it's a good definition for process theology. Unitarian Universalism has faith in people's own ability "to affect the tenor of the day." Schulz notes that his commitment to social justice is partly related to his awareness of death like so much of religion. Death is unavoidable, but "premature death through poverty, terror, or stupidity is unacceptable." Thus, Reverend Shulz gives us a pep talk to engage the world through service, which can include serving as a public intellectual. The Great Reset, by Dr. Richard Florida Choosing a topic by Dr. Richard Florida is a formidable task because of his vast number of writings, many of which can be found at his website http://.creativeclass.com/richard_florida/books Let's have an overview of his latest book, The Great Reset, through an interview in The Atlantic Monthly. This way we can get straight to the point of what Dr. Florida's research is all about and not keep trying to define the term, public intellectual. First of all, Dr. Florida bases the title for his book on how "economic crises reset the conditions for technological innovation and consumption and demand." Economic shifts give rise to demographic trends. Which geographic regions and cities will rise or fall? Economies have been more knowledge-driven since the 1950's. You'll notice that Dr. Florida loves to cite other urban theorists, scholars who track the changes in city living. One of Florida's key points is that creativity flourishes most in high-density areas, as noted first by Jane Jacobs. Robert Lucas noted that "urban areas bring together and multiply human productive efforts." Productivity and performance is much higher in urban areas, even in the emerging economies. Dr. Florida and his like-minded scholars see nothing innately corrupt about the big city nor wax nostalgic about rural purity; on a deeper level, technology may lead to more telecommuting but not a diffusion of the creative population away from the big cities. Dr. Florida hopes that the federal government spends money on the right infrastructure and projects, adding not to bail out the industries of the past. He warns the Obama Administration that it's "hard to anticipate exactly what the next big infrastructural configuration will be in advance." So Dr. Florida would like to see small experiments that could add up. Dr. Florida calls for upgrading of broadband and Internet-something Dr. Slemp is trying to do for rural Northeast Texas. Dr. Florida also wants to see improvement in our airports and rail connectivity in the mega-regions. He notes that Detroit would have a better reason for existing if it was better connected to Chicago. Detroit Mayor Dave Bing (former all-pro NBA guard) plans to have abandoned buildings demolished and replaced by farmland. It will become the largest urban gardening project in history. Edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/06/29/bia.urban.farming Detroit will become much easier for the police to contend with through this downsizing. I bet the value of a house could go up if abandoned dwellings didn't surround it. That sounds like the Kwanzaa Creativity call to repair the worn-out, or in this case, knock it down if it's too far-gone. Rebuilding Detroit and reporting the work may be one of the critical public intellectual projects of our time in America. Future plans for Tyler include being part of a rail from here to Shreveport. Ironically, passenger train service is something we used to have and more an act of the memory than a futuristic innovation. www.TylerIGI.com One train ran from here to Lufkin. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a train to Kilgore and Longview? There's an Amtrak that runs through Hawkins and Big Sandy without stopping on its way from Longview to Mineola. Dr. Florida feels the traditional emphasis on homeownership is obsolete and counterproductive. What if you were stuck in an economically downtrodden area? The mobility of the labor force has plummeted to record lows. On the other hand, Dr. Florida declares that one shouldn't have to pay more than 20% of his or her income in rent. To conclude, Dr. Florida declares that we have the knowledge to build denser cities and mega-regions while preserving more natural spaces and become greener cities. It's "really about the geographical nature of our economic development process," according to Dr. Florida. The Shift in Public Intellectuals Dan Bell in sociology described our post-industrial society before Richard Florida, as did others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Bell How common are public intellectuals today in comparison to the recent past? It's tougher in some fields, especially politics, because today's partisan attitudes have sown such bitterness. Back in the 50s and 60s, people were more likely to enjoy the conservative William Buckley and the liberal Noam Chomsky without agreeing with them all the time. Still there are some superstars, such as Jeff Sachs on international development. Furthermore, Florida points out that public intellectuals have grown more specialized nowadays. Information keeps expanding. But it's tough to get funding for the mega-ideas of public intellectuals. The wider audience of educated laymen can seem less proper than the specialized world of academia to many universities. Florida notes the rise of entrepreneurial journalists only partially fills the gap because their vision often provides a snapshot of the present more than diagnosing trends. During the past twenty years, actor Kevin Costner has been developing an oil centrifuge for the sea but encountered regulation problems until now. Costner testified before Congress, and British Petroleum will buy 32 of them. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts2851 So Kevin Costner is a public intellectual in a very critical area, and he's spent millions of dollars on his oil centrifuge. Isn't it amazing that Costner chose a project so many years ago that has paramount relevance today? Oh Yeon-ho of South Korea's Oh My News I'd like to finish this presentation by telling you about the founder of the world's first citizen journalism website, Oh Yeon-ho of South Korea's Oh My News. http://international.ohmynews.com Mr. Oh's slogan is "Every citizen is a reporter." This website started in 2000 and has a professional editor staff that checks for the accuracy of facts and guards against libel. There are 70,000 writers scattered throughout the world that send articles to Oh My News. OmN receives between 200-250 articles per day. That number of writers has doubled roughly since 2005. Editors select stories on their liveliness and ability to move readers with sympathy. . An interesting facet of having an accepted article at a major section of Oh My News is which paragraph they choose to be under the hyperlink on the cover page. The nature of the Internet has inspired a grassroots movement of Internet news junkies and policy wonks that call themselves "Netizens" in South Korea. It's a role not confined by geography since worldwide information opens through the Internet. South Korea was swept by the Internet craze in the late 1990's. Politicians of all slants and journalists asserted, "We were slow in industrialization, but we'll lead in digitization." The young people who toppled South Korea's dictatorship in the 1980's included some future businessmen who would help Mr. Oh start his website. Those heroes for democracy in the 1980's became known as the 386-generation. Did you know that South Korea is the world's most Internet-connected country? The passion of Oh My News has even led to the birth of democracy in South Korea. First, OmN sponsored the successful campaign of Mr. Roh in 2002. Then OmN led the way in protecting him from impeachment in 2004. Myung-bak was elected president in 2008 and brought a drift back to the right. The new president repealed protective tariffs on American beef-an unpopular move with South Korean liberals. Oh My News reported the Candlelight Demonstrations of 2008 online, all day and all night. Importantly, the protests stayed peaceful. High school students with cell phones and laptops were among those reporting the news. After a barricade was erected between the protestors and the president's house, the liberal protestors simply built a ladder to the top of the wall and sat there-still no violence. To conclude, Mr. Oh and his many colleagues have created a model for edited participatory journalism that's gained worldwide attention and even helped democracy get started in South Korea. The nature of the citizen journalism movement parallels democracy through its bottom-up direction in information. Maybe this will fill the gap left by fewer mega public intellectuals or at least provide more information to the educated public. However, Oh My News became a victim of its own success as it became increasingly difficult to verify facts from all over the world. So as of September 2010, Oh My News International became a website about citizen journalism rather than trying to continue doing it. We may have lost an editorial staff but gained a mentor and a different kind of helpful information. I wrote my two most successful articles for Oh My News. One was about the presentation at the 2010 Martin Luther King celebration at the cathedral. http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c104008no=3859408&rel_no=1 Recently, I wrote an article about the format change at OmN for Digital Journal of Canada http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/295823 Did you know that we have a citizen journalism website here in Tyler? It's The Daily You, and I written over ten articles for them. Oh my News urged its readers to write for their local user-generated sites within the announcement of the format change. Citizen journalism has its critics, and there's no doubt that a professionally trained editor staff should do the necessary housekeeping. Finding a journal that pays is really rough. A Canadian article entitled, "Will Work for Food: The Dismal State of Citizen Journalism," tells it all. For me the quest to become a citizen journalist or free-lancer, calls for writing ability, journalist behavior, a wide range of interests and overall passion. There is strength in numbers. Conclusion We've covered a lot of ground today, but my idea for it really got started when I saw the desire to serve as a public intellectual formed a common thread behind the Kwanzaa presentations. Once again at a UU service, I quoted my modern-day New Confucian hero, Tu Wei-ming. You heard my cheerleading for the Intellectual Entrepreneurship program at UT-Austin, and you can read a more complete article on the matter at Tyler-Longview's own citizen journalism website, The Daily You. For the second consecutive service, I summarized one of our national UUA pamphlets with a direct relevance to the topic at-hand. This time, it was Engagement with the World, by William Schulz. I'd like to invite you to read about Dr. Richard Florida and Oh Yeon-ho. We've only scraped the surface, especially with the research of Dr. Florida. We UU's proclaim the dignity of the individual as our first principle, not really unusual. Yet have you noticed how semantically difficult it can be to compliment the individual. Little, common, and above all-small--can offend people even though the last one is just a minor ESOL accident. I've grown a bit smaller since you've known me, but my world has become much larger because my Internet searching ability has improved and I'm now part of the citizen journalism, or user-generated content, movement. Take the service to heart and see it as my cheer for you. Thank you. I welcome your questions and comments. |
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