Abstract

Jacoby builds his argument about the decline of public intellectuals on the assumption that there have been roughly three stages through which intellectuals have passed in this century. These give his argument a structure and help explain the disappointments he feels regarding the last of these stages — the one we are in.

The first stage consists of those intellectuals born around 1900 (Mumford, Wilson, McDonald) who made their living primarily by way of books and journalism. As public intellectuals they were critics and iconoclasts. Some attached themselves to the remnants of bohemian existence (still possible in Greenwich Village in the 1920s), but none identified with academia.