Sandy’s Blog

The richness of detail in George Orwell’s essays made me feel as if I was present at the hanging of the Hindu and walking the halls of Hôpital X.  A Hanging transported me to the
Burma jail yard.  I could hear the last cries of the prisoner and feel the discomfort of the observers which they tried to disguise with laughter and jokes.  How the Poor Die humanized the nameless patients who lay dying in that dreadful ward.

Like our other assignment, Orwell’s essays made me recall a recent experience.  A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear Sister Helen Prejean speak at a luncheon.  Sister Helen is a Roman Catholic nun and advocate for the abolition of the death penalty and is probably best known as the author of Dean Man Walking.  Her style was down to earth, and like Orwell’s, rich in detail.  Rather than just cite facts and statistics, she told many stories.  As she spoke, the “inmate” became a living, breathing person.  And again, like Orwell, her stories humanized all of the participants, not only the inmate, but also the victim and the families of all involved.     

A strong story has the power to speak to many people in different ways.  A Father’s Memories of Auschwitz is an example of such a story.  The reader never learns of the actual horrors revealed to Debby Fisher by her dying father.  The details are left open for interpretation by each of us.    What we can do is imagine.   

We’ve all opened the “door” and entered the “room” that Debby’s father alludes to.  Sometimes when we walk through the doorway it is with the knowledge that ugliness and horror wait inside.  Others times we innocently cross the threshold.  In either case, we take a piece of what lives in the room out with us when we leave.  It changes us and becomes a part of who and what we are. 

This story took me back to all of the “rooms” I’ve entered throughout my life and brought to mind a recent situation that occurred in my family.   My son, Jeremy, is a recent college graduate and works in law enforcement.  Not too long ago he was one of the first to arrive at the scene of an accident that involved a fatality.  The next morning he called me and we had a long conversation about the accident.  I was naturally worried about his emotional well-being and asked him how he was doing.  He said that he was fine and made a comment that the body he saw didn’t seem to be an actual person.  However, he didn’t feel the same way when he called again a few days later.  One of his friends had told him that a website had been set up in memory of the victim.  Jeremy decided to visit that website, and like Debby Fisher, he opened the door and entered a room that changed him forever.  In Jeremy’s case, the room that he entered held the contents of a person’s life.  Suddenly “the body” was a person; a person whose life was cut short by accident.  Jeremy entered that room with innocence and good intent.  When he left the website, part of his innocence stayed behind and part of that person left with him.  He told me that he regretted visiting the website and said that he would not make that mistake again.  As a mother, my heart ached for him.  I know that with the profession he has chosen this is but one of the many thresholds he will cross.

The Encarta World English Dictionary defines a public intellectual as an expert within a particular field whose opinions and published works are well known, and who frequently appears in the media to comment on newsworthy issues.

This particular definition appears to be somewhat narrow and limiting to me.  While I agree that a public intellectual would comment on newsworthy issues in some type of public forum, it is not my opinion that a public intellectual needs to be well known or an expert in a particular field.  This definition seems to exclude the active citizen as described by Dunlop.

If you wish to view this definition, here is the link to the Encarta definiton.

I’ve always enjoyed reading newspapers.  There is a sense of relaxation that I get from sitting down with an actual newspaper that I just don’t get when I read a newspaper online.  Although I already knew that newspaper circulation in general was on the decline, it made me sad to read the statistics yet one more time.  Not that I should be surprised.  Alan Rusbridger commented that the 18 to 24 year olds and the 25 to 34 year olds are not interested in newspapers. It’s seldom that I see my 19 and 22 year old sons reading a newspaper.  Even though I enjoy reading the newspaper, there are many days that our local newspaper goes unread because I’ve been too busy with other things.  Does this mean that newspapers will go by the wayside?  According to Rusbridger, “Newspapers and broadcasting organisations actually got stuff out for debate that other people wanted hidden and that was a valuable thing to have done” (13).  I believe that this is a valuable role that journalists will still need to fulfill.  The method of delivery may change but newspapers still have a place in our society.           

Are bloggers the new public intellectuals?  Blogging creates an environment where “ordinary people can use argument to increase their knowledge on a topic (3). Tim Dunlop contends that “It is the act of articulating and defending our views that lifts them out of the category of ‘opinions’, gives them shape and definition and makes it possible for others to recognize them as a description of their own experience as well.  In short, we come to know our own minds by explaining ourselves to others” (3).  Blogging is one of the forums available to the ordinary citizen that provides a means for active argument or discussion of any timely event.  

Quarrel & Quandary left me confused the first time I read it.  My initial impression was that Cynthia Ozick’s objection to the remarks of E. M. Forster was excessively negative.  Shouldn’t a public intellectual write or speak about whatever he or she chooses?  I came away with a different perspective after rereading the article.  One statement that influenced this change in my thinking is, “…it is not sufficient to have beautiful thoughts while the barbarians rage on” (124).  Ozick goes on to say, “The responsibility of intellectuals includes also the recognition that we cannot live above or apart from our own time and what it imposes upon us; that willy-nilly we breathe inside the cage of our generation, and must perform within it” (125).  Rather than avoid or dance around an issue, a public intellectual must be willing to ask questions, take a stand, and speak out.  This is what E. M. Forster failed to do.  Acting as a public intellectual involves a level of risk.