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The Chronicle: 7/28/2006:

The Lessons of Juan Cole

By SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN

Ever since the publication in 1987 of Russell Jacoby's narrative The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe, I have been rolling my eyes every time I read or hear yet another public intellectual complaining that they don't make public intellectuals like they used to. Now, I've never considered the heyday of the Partisan Review and Dissent the apex of intellectuals' relevance in the United States. But most of all, I am tired of hearing that there is no space for intellectuals to make a difference today in American thought and political debate.

There has never been a better time to be a public intellectual, and the Web is the big reason why. Juan Cole is exhibit No. 1. Cole is an academic who writes clearly and forcefully about the most trenchant issues of the day (academics are not supposed to know how to do that, remember?). Cole gets quoted by the mainstream news media. He appears regularly in popular publications like Salon. And — love it or hate it — everyone who is anyone reads his blog.

For the past four years, he has been as influential as any other major American academic. If Jacoby were right, Juan Cole never should have happened.

The blogosphere is an excellent vehicle for the kind of intellectual ascendancy he has achieved. Dozens of important intellectual and academic blogs are being written for a wide public — and they are clearly being read, influencing the agenda, if not the content, of debate in the mainstream news media. In his informed discussions of the Middle East and Islam, Cole has shown us how to use blogs effectively and authoritatively, and how to use them as outlets for issues that are changing too quickly to leave to academic publication. In his defense of his own record and reputation against right-wing attacks, he has shown us how to protect ourselves against cheap shots and low blows.

But blogs expose us in some alarming ways. Who knows whether, without the fame and widespread respect Cole has earned via his blog, he would have been in the running for a position at Yale? We do know that without his blog as a target, the right-wing hit men never would have thought to make an issue out of him.He used to be harmless. Now he is dangerous enough to try to stop. I'm thrilled to see the membrane between the academy and the public more permeable and transparent than ever. But such progress has its victims.

At first the news that Yale had chickened out on hiring Cole alarmed me as a politically engaged professor who blogs. Fortunately, I got tenure in April, despite having an undistinguished and thus, perhaps, undiscovered blog. True, my scholarly expertise lies far from the life-and-death matters that we depend on Juan Cole to walk us through. Anyone who writes as well as he does about the Middle East, or any other bloody issue, is bound to attract low blows and ad hominem attacks. But my day may come. If it does, I'll know that I have made a difference.

But Cole's experience has shown us all just how tenuous academic freedom is when it comes to stuff that really matters. Thank goodness for tenure. Imagine what his critics would do at Michigan if they thought they could drive him away. If the academy is worth anything, it will continue to protect and reward him — and the next wave of public intellectuals. This case is Yale's loss, Michigan's gain, and a lesson for the rest of us.

Siva Vaidhyanathan is an associate professor of culture and communication at New York University. His blog can be found at http://sivacracy.net.
http://chronicle.com
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 52, Issue 47, Page B6

Read the other responses to the Juan Cole situation (Registration required):

* The Lessons of Juan Cole, by Siva Vaidhyanathan
* The Politics of Academic Appointments, by Glenn Reynolds
* The Trouble With Blogs, by Daniel W. Drezner
* Exposed in the Blogosphere, by Ann Althouse
* The Invisible College, by J. Bradford DeLong
* The Attention Blogs Bring, by Michael Bérubé
* The Controversy That Wasn't, by Erin O'Connor
* Juan R.I. Cole Responds