A couple of speakers I believe to be modern examples of Public Intellectuals would be Paul Ryan, Al Gore, and Newt Gingrich. These men are public intellectuals that think about the combination of human interaction, global economics, and political policy in today's world. They all offer different opinions, viewpoints, and points of interest when addressing the public and are very influential in the way they speak about these matters of importance to the public.
A noteworthy public intellectual needs to be able to address main concerns, as well as educate the people they are addressing, in order to be significant and important to society. While I do believe they these individuals are powerful speakers, as well as knowledgeable with their topics of discussion, they still don't always allow both sides of a discussion to be brought up without the "I'm right with what I'm saying" mentality, and therefore they leave room for criticism with how they address the public, and deal with public matters.
Politicians sometimes say things without thinking, and can get themselves into trouble and will therefore be easily critiqued by the opposing side, or by the audiences they are trying to reach. Politicians can easily be compared to academics in the sense that sometimes they do not educate and inform to the best of their ability, but instead tend to make quick decisions and say things without completely thinking through the reaction they will get from the public they are speaking to.
Public Intellectuals, as a whole, need to be more concerned with addressing the public in a way that provides us with the knowledge and correct information. Too many things are stated and printed before they are completely checked out, and this causes issues with who we believe, who we trust, and who we follow. Therefore, when you have great speakers, motivators, thinkers, and intellectuals, such as the ones I mentioned as well as the ones Posner did, it is best to carefully pine through information and educate the public correctly the first time.
An interesting list, Alyssa. The two I would definitely include in my own list of public intellectuals would be Gingrich and Gore. Gingrich, after all, has a PhD in history and started his political career as an academic. He's written substantial books and essays on all sorts of topics, from the crisis of Western Civilization to the economic impact of the Internet. And Gore is if anything even more accomplished as a writer and an intellectual raising public consciousness about global warming. Ryan I'm not so sure about. His intellectual credentials strike me as thin and he's know mostly for appearing on TV talk shows. Of course, as the book you're reading this week points out, these shows are an important part of the "space of opinion"...We'll see how he performs in the VP debate with Biden.
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