The Last Intellectual -- Modern Thought Translation Series. Volume 5

Author: (American) Russell Jacoby, translated by Hong Jie
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: Intellectuals Series, Selected as one of the "20 Books Influencing China's Business Community"
Author Russell Jacoby is a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Jacoby is known for his sharp writing and bold views. His other works include Social Anemia: A Critique of Contemporary Psychology (1975), The Repression of Psychoanalysis (1983), and The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in the Age of Apathy (1999).
The title of Jacoby's book The Last Intellectuals may sound alarmist, but the questions he raises are not groundless. In the preface, Jacoby writes, "Where are the young intellectuals? This is the starting point of all my questions. The 'last' generation of intellectuals in America, those born in the early decades of the 20th century, their existence and unique voice are unmatched by those younger than them."
Jacoby argues that in mid-20th-century America, many intellectuals lived by writing book reviews and essays, their sphere of influence confined to city streets and cafes, catering to an educated public. By the 1950s, open cultural spaces had shrunk, and a career solely in writing was no longer sustainable. With the rise of universities, the older generation of intellectuals was replaced by professors and high-tech experts. Today, young "intellectuals" are almost all products of the academic education system, surviving only within the confines of campus and narrow academic discourse.
Jacoby suggests that the older intellectuals wrote with sharp insight, cultivating sensibility and sharpening thought. In contrast, academics today are burdened by the style of their doctoral dissertations. He writes in the book, "The academic system has tamed intellectuals, making them subservient to money, status, and power, willingly abandoning the mastery of language and critical thinking of the older generation."
Jacoby concludes that specialization has not only failed to promote but has actually hindered the health of public culture. Today, American universities are well-funded, yet resources are wasted on mediocre writers and works. Jacoby criticizes this era, which emphasizes "academic standards" but lacks "critical standards," using Edmund Wilson, one of his "last intellectuals," as an example. Wilson, one of the most distinguished critics of the 20th century, despised so-called "academic standards." This writer, outside the university system, dared to go to extremes to maintain independence, openly declaring, "I will not attend any academic conferences."
Urban Influence on Cultural Life
Discussions about intellectuals and culture cannot ignore the quality of urban life. Cities, as manifestations of culture, are a beloved topic among Western intellectuals, but in China, such concerns are less common. In The Last Intellectuals, there is a chapter titled "The Road to the Suburbs," dedicated to urban life. Jacoby quotes Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, stating that the vitality of cities lies in historic communities. However, planners, officials, and developers, under the guise of development, have bought land and razed warm, historic neighborhoods to make way for high-rises and highways, drastically weakening urban vitality.
Jacoby believes that to some extent, urban renewal in New York directly impacted its cultural life. In the 1960s, Greenwich Village disappeared, and young intellectuals could no longer afford its cheap rents and free-spirited lifestyle. They turned instead to academia, where university salaries were attractive. Jacoby writes in the book, "Urban researchers in the 1950s, when cities faced crises, rose to the challenge, representing the last generation of intellectuals responsible to the educated public."
Jacoby considers Lewis Mumford to be one of the most significant contributors to urban studies. Mumford once compared the 1950s in America to the "age of the bulldozer" and predicted that future cities would be "mechanized useless things," a chaotic landscape of highways, overpasses, and parking lots—scenery now familiar to residents of Chinese cities. Caring about cities, cherishing historical memory, and breaking free from the fallacy of "bigger is better" are urgent tasks for the Chinese people.
The New Left Abandoning Public Consciousness
Two chapters (out of a total of seven) in the book focus on the issue of "campus new leftists." Jacoby mentions another "last intellectual" he admires, the American sociologist C. Wright Mills, known for his research on the role of intellectuals in modern society. American intellectuals once harbored a kind of "self-hatred," condemning the vulgarism and materialism in American culture and being at odds with mainstream politics. Because the older intellectuals were critical of capitalism and commercial society, they were generally considered left-wing. Mills, a typical left-wing figure, always believed that intellectuals represented social conscience and must participate in society while studying it, maintaining strong public and political awareness.
Today, however, "new leftists" in American universities are entirely different—they merely adopt radical postures within the ivory tower. The Last Intellectuals writes that since the 1960s and 1970s, new leftists have advanced in academia, their achievements undeniable. But their writings are often filled with pretentious academic jargon, incomprehensible to anyone outside their field, and fail to have any social impact. Yet, the new leftists have no desire, nor the inclination, to write for the public. They are devoted to academia, immersed in academic jargon and concepts, their eyes fixed on professional journals, specialized books, and conferences.
Jacoby points out that today's universities are permeated with a "corporate spirit," where once selfless scholars have become contractors and advertisers, and the "academic bourgeoisie" produces counterfeit and substandard. The new leftists are particularly adept at playing this game.
Exploring the Responsibility of Intellectuals
The Last Intellectuals was published in 1987 and reissued in 2000. Have intellectuals truly disappeared, and is social conscience on the verge of extinction? It seems not. Recently, the Global Times introduced two renowned contemporary American intellectuals, Edward Said and Noam Chomsky, who, despite being in academia, remain outside the highly specialized system, speaking out independently and powerfully on international affairs and social justice.
However, the flaws in the academic system that Jacoby points out are also worth attention for Chinese readers. The moral fabric of society—whether virtuous or corrupt—is crucial to its prosperity (or "sustainable development"). Broadening discourse and further exploring the social responsibility of intellectuals is not a matter to be taken lightly.