From public intellectual to public influencer

The corpse of the public intellectual has been much chewed upon. But only now is its full historical context coming into view. What seemed a death, we’re beginning to see, was but the larval stage of a metamorphosis. The public intellectual has been reborn as the public influencer.

The parallels are clear. Both the public intellectual and the public influencer play a quasi-independent role separate from but still dependent on a traditional, culturally powerful institution. Both, in other wo...