Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting 21st Century Philistinism
Frank Furedi"For some time now I have been disturbed by the profound sense of intellectual disorientation that appears to afflict many of our cultural institutions, universities and schools. The public deserves a high quality of intellectual debate from our cultural institutions and, as an audience with infinite potential, should command far greater respect. This book is written for the many intelligent men and women who aspire to a more challenging intellectual and cultural life.
The ideas presented in Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? were developed through a protracted conversation with friends and colleagues. The steady stream of correspondence that I received in response to my articles on the university in The Times Higher Education Supplement helped convince me that many others shared my concerns. Discussions with friends in the United States suggested that institutional dumbing down was not merely a British problem. An important conference on the Public Intellectual organized by the Institute of Ideas in London during the summer of 2003 helped reorient this study towards an exploration of the wider question of cultural politics".