A lonely man's life

Since I finished my work in the area of intellectuals from Central and Eastern Europe I took a break from reading too much about the latest public discussions. But as I am preparing to start writing a serious book about this, I reentered little by little my too familiar environment.

My week-end lecture was the thematic diary of the Romanian intellectual - Adrian Marino, whose posthum memories - at his request - confirmed both from the point of view of the content and of the reception the dramatic situation of the intellectual debate.

Adrian Marino was among the few Romanians published abroad during communism, with studies and books in the area of comparative literature. Avant-la-lettre he was among the very few cases of freelancer researcher, being - after the period spent in the communist prisons - disconnected of the official layer of the culture communist bureaucrats.

With a lot of sadness, he is describing his alienation in a world hungry to win benefits and prestige - the international intellectual stage - the marginal condition of the intellectual belonging to a minor culture - predominantly focused on the production of journalism and poetry - and fighting with the hunger for acquiring a pseudo-intellectual status in the world of reversed values during communism. A situation continued in post-communism. Not the quality of work prevails but the laudatio to the VIP of the time, hence the over production of works without real value. Those political compromises are the red line of the Romanian culture, from the supporters of the right wing during the inter-war period to the communist ideologues and their post-communist re conversions.

From the point of view of the reception of this book, the debate was focused on persons and not on the situation of the Romanian intellectuals. Another missed opportunity for coming to terms with the past and for starting the discussion about the European values and reliable concepts of a different intellectual atmosphere.

Many some of his descriptions are too severe and personal, based on personal interactions and subjective reasons. What I appreciated in his book is the risk of assuming his opinions, even it was transmitted when he was no more present. In a way, probably he predicted the reactions and chose to better be the big absent of the media shows.

Intellectuals and public positions

I am not a fan of Arundhati Roy and I qualified many of her public positions, regarding the Middle East especially, superficial and emotional, without any connection with the reality. My interest in her case, as in the case of other public intellectuals, is the public reaction following statements and positions expressed on sensitive political problems. The latest scandal is related to her view of an independent Kashmir, stirring protests and media calls for lynchage and a possible trial for sedition.

Right or wrong, she expressed a point of view, as an intellectual. Her opinion is not the perfect truth, and should be took as such, and eventually discussed and refuted. This is the normal way, but very often it is happening exactly the opposite.

The Retiring Intellectual

A 1959 article about Martin Lipset's stance on the Intellectual choices during the Cold War.

And an appreciation he made, referring to the difficulty to define intellectuals:

Definition of intellectual is sharpened by the existence of intellectuals in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union who used, or still use, the tools and trainings associated with intelligentsia in the science of anti-intellectual values. Are they really intellectuals?

Should or not be the intellectuals involved in the public space?

A view from Malaysia (against).

Noam Chomsky: The Responsability of Intellectuals

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/12172

And a later (2001) interview on their moral role.

Camus on the writer's mission

In 1957, Albert Camus received the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his banquet speech he outlined the difficult mission of the writer, as a balance between a self-imposed exile, a necessary solitude for creation, and an emergency to get involved, by the power of his words, on the part of those suffering of misery or of lack of freedom.
The larger context of his speech is the definitive deterioration of his friendship with J.P.Sartre. It started first with Camus’ resistance to all forms of totalitarianism – he fought Nazism and flatly opposed Marxism. Sartre’s choice, after the public denunciations of Soviet camps was silence. A war of words between the two, started by a book of essays of Camus, attacked in Sartre’s review “Les Temps Modernes” ended with a long letter of Sartre whose beginning was: ''My dear Camus, our friendship was not easy, but I shall miss it.''
The public dispute between the two continued during the war in Algeria, whose independence never been accepted by Camus. He rejected the violence of the FLN , even supporting the Muslim rights. At the end, he preferred the public silence.