Where have all the public thinkers gone? Away from universities

By Omer Aziz. The publication of Michael Ignatieff’s memoir has ignited a debate about the political careers of the intellectual-turned-politician. It is not the fact that Mr. Ignatieff was an outsider that makes his loss so puzzling, but the type of outsider he was: as a man of letters, we expected him to do better. Yet, more troubling than his singular defeat in the political space is the broader demise of an entire class of thinkers we call public intellectuals. More...