While the dominant trope about public intellectuals is that they ain’t what they used to be, Daniel Drezner is relatively bullish:
Over time the academization of intellectual output created barriers to the flourishing of public intellectuals. The proliferation of blogs reverses that trend in several ways. Weblogs have facilitated the rise of a new class of non-academic intellectuals….For academics aspiring to be public intellectuals, weblogs allow networks to develop that cross the disciplinary and hierarchical strictures of the academy – and expand beyond the academy.
