Did you know intellectuals are lousy at talking about our work? | Amy Young | TEDxTacoma
The speaker argues that academics must actively take their expertise public to regain relevance, asserting that current academic training inhibits this necessary public communication. This challenge requires paying attention to time, political scrutiny, and framing arguments through compelling narratives rather than purely specialized jargon. The speaker advocates for changing academic systems by moving scholarship outside of peer-reviewed journals and into accessible public media formats.
## Speakers & Context
- Unnamed speaker; addressing an academic/intellectual audience who are presumed knowledgeable but potentially insulated from the public sphere.
- The speaker's goal is to encourage intellectuals to make their work accessible and relevant to the general public, thereby countering the perception of them being *"stupid, useless and annoying."*
## Theses & Positions
- Academics appear irrelevant because they are poor at explaining what they do and why it matters to the public.
- Historically, public intellectuals were effective because they could translate specialized knowledge for the public (writing for newspapers and magazines, giving public lectures).
- University academia has unintentionally constrained this by funneling scholars into PhDs requiring narrow dissertation focus and tenure-track publishing.
- The primary ethical obligation for scholars is to discover and enact knowledge that creates a tangible difference in the world.
- The necessary improvements involve:
- Making scholarly work public.
- Paying attention to the intersection of time, political scrutiny, and the relevance of work.
- Utilizing storytelling as a primary mode of evidence presentation.
- Learning the art form of communicating outside journals and classrooms.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Public Intellectuals:** People who can translate their expertise outside of their immediate peer group or discipline, functioning as visible thought leaders in their community (pre-early 20th century).
- **Intellectual Entrepreneurship:** A program at the University of Texas at Austin that gathers scholars to interdisciplinary think through community problems.
- **Truthiness:** A concept by Steven Coler, describing the human tendency to follow intuition despite the presence of factual evidence or data.
- **Public Worth:** The demonstration of knowledge's practical benefit to the community.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **The shift toward academia:** Intellectuals moved into academia to gain protection (tenure) from the criticism of "manhunters."
- **Academic credentialing:** Doctoral programs necessitate writing a dissertation, often focusing on a very narrow subject (e.g., *"the habits of the earwig"*).
- **Achieving tenure:** Requires publishing significant material in top journals and books, often necessitating specialized language understood by only other specialists.
- **Effective public argumentation:** Changing the frame of an argument by moving from a specific example (e.g., global warming) to a universal concept (e.g., America solving the energy crisis).
- **Communicating outside academia:** This is described as an *art form* that must be learned and practiced, encompassing crafting op-eds, syndicated columns, or radio commentary.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **Early 20th Century:** Period when public intellectuals were known thought leaders who engaged with the public via newspapers and lectures.
- **Post-early 20th Century:** The move of intellectuals into the academy, influenced by the need for protection against professional ruin.
- **Present:** The speaker's attempt to move scholarly discourse beyond the confines of the classroom and the Ivory Tower.
## Named Entities
- **Theodor Zelden:** Mentioned regarding his use of specialized, narrow examples for academic focus.
- **Rick Cherwitz:** Founder of the intellectual entrepreneurship program at the University of Texas at Austin.
- **Robert Marshall Wells:** Colleague/scholar mentioned in connection with media lab film work.
- **Pacific Lutheran University:** Institution where public scholarship is recognized as work toward tenure.
- **James Gallith:** Author credited with explaining external communication skills.
- **Steven Coler:** Author associated with the concept of "truthiness."
## Numbers & Data
- **Three** top Google search results for "intellectuals": *"stupid, useless and annoying."*
- **Six or seven years:** Time spent working to achieve tenure.
## Examples & Cases
- **Initial critique:** Using Google searches for "intellectuals" reveals negative public associations.
- **Dissertation example:** Focusing on *"the habits of the earwig"* or *"the foreign policy of medieval Zanzibar"* to illustrate disciplinary narrowing.
- **Positive models:**
- University of Texas at Austin's program tackling community problems interdisciplinary.
- Pacific Lutheran University recognizing public scholarship for tenure.
- Media Lab making documentary films on topics like food waste and food insecurity.
- **Communication failure:** The tendency of scholars to write in ways that only specialists fully understand.
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **Google:** Used by the speaker to illustrate public perception of the word "intellectual."
- **Television, Radio, Blogs:** Media platforms where scholarly work can transition from being "exciting" to "unserious" if presented incorrectly.
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- The belief among scholars that they *must* be detached and apolitical, which the speaker refutes.
- The current academic system incentivizes narrow, non-public research through the metrics of tenure and promotion.
- The gap between the intellectual's natural tendency to reason rationally (based on evidence) and the current political climate's reliance on *truthiness*.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- Intellectuals must actively make their work public to reclaim relevance.
- Scholars must learn the "art form" of communicating outside academic journals (op-eds, radio commentary).
- The goal is not to sound impersonal, distant, or elitist, but to express convictions, enthusiasm, and anger when necessary.
## Implications & Consequences
- If scholars continue to operate only within peer-reviewed silos, they fail in their ethical duty to benefit the public.
- A failure to communicate publicly results in academic ideas being dismissed as irrelevant or lacking passion.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"if you type intellectuals are into Google the top three responses are stupid useless and annoying."*
- *"we seem useless and annoying because we spent quite a lot of time making ourselves appear irrelevant."*
- *"public intellectuals that is those people that can translate their expertise outside of their peer group or their discipline were public figures."*
- *"Theodore Zelden uses laying down the law about some tiny fragment of Truth like the habits of the earwig or the foreign policy of medieval Zanzibar."*
- *"we have an ethical obligation to discover and put to work knowledge that makes a difference."*
- *"if we ask and answer these identical questions on television on the radio or in our blog our work goes from exciting to unserious."*
- *"Steven Coler calls truthiness our human preference to follow our own intuition despite the presence of actual facts or evidence."*
- *"communication outside the journal and the classroom is an art form to craft a good oped syndicated column or radio commentary must be learned and practiced."*
- *"it is no longer okay to pretend that that is not true or to stand aside and to check out."*