John Miller’s post about WFB raises an interesting point. Since the 1950s haven’t the most successful public intellectuals — and I mean real intellectuals — been on the right? I don’t mean the most famous ones. Chomsky, Galbraith et al surely more famous than most conservative intellectuals. Before the 1950s, it’s impossible to dispute that all of the truly influential intellectuals — with the excepts of Mencken, Chesterton and a few others — were on the left. Dewey, Croly, Adorno, Hofstadter etc. Since the 1950s, the influence of the left public intellectuals has waned even as their fame increased (despite a brief moment of hope in the 1960s). Marcuse’s influence outside the academy is nil. Chomsky is popular because he’s a beautiful loser. Ditto Zinn, Sontag et al. Moynihan was a liberal politician but a failry conservative intellectual. Irving Kristol’s influence has been enormous. Milton Friedman, Michael Novak, Gilder, Murray and, of course, Buckley shaped events in concrete ways. There are exceptions, Galbraith for example. Michael Harrington had real influence, but mostly in a journalistic sense; he pointed to unpleasent truths. When you think about it, this all makes sense since conservatism has been on the rise since the 1950s. But it’s a remarkable thing when you figure most conservative public intellectuals wouldn’t show up on most informed liberal’s list of top public intellectuals.