“Academic life has become more professionalised. They write for each other, not for the general reader. Academic political philosophy ­today, for example, has zero influence on the practice of politics. I doubt now whether any politician could name a leading academic philosopher. No one would know who they were.”

Debate has become less about the pursuit of truth and more about performing intelligence for an audience.

She doesn’t make us think, she makes us aspire

We no longer look to those who challenge us intellectually, we look to those who offer us a perfectly packaged lifestyle.

Ideas are no longer for discussion, they’re for consumption.

Public intellectuals aren’t becoming difficult to find because we’re in any kind of deficit of brilliant thinkers, but because the space for these figures has nearly disappeared. Intellectual influencer’s today—though brilliant in their own right—have to contend with branding themselves for social media. They have to publish articles and make... See more

“I picked the cotton and I carried it to market and I built the railroads under someone else’s whip.”

The most successful cultural critics of our digital age are simply a different kind of influencer, one who may sell a worldview rather than a skincare routine, but are selling something nonetheless.

Where public intellectuals once shaped cultural discourse by challenging ideas, most influential figures today shape culture by modeling a lifestyle.