The current issue of the Minnesota Review tracks a specific theme: ”Intellectualism and the Public.” It has an interesting interview with Berube, and some entries on the role of intellectuals. What sticks out, though, is how much the academics claim to understand public intellectual matters, at the same time that they reveal their disconnection of real public affairs.

Here is a paragraph from one contributor, who uses the occasion to engage in a character assassination of David Horowitz, but which shows her fears go way beyond him:

As one who in fact suspects that it is primarily liberals, rather than “the right,” who are paving the way to a possible U.S. fascism, I include myself among those who yearn to bypass Horowitz and confront what I consider to be the greater danger posed by mainstream political discourse, as articulated—and put into practice—by Republicans and Democrats alike. But we cannot so readily ignore Horowitz and other ideologues of the far right. For it is crucial to recognize the role that they play in defining and extending the political spectrum. Their assertions and proposals function as trial balloons that, even when brought to earth, turn out to have introduced various reactionary ideas into the realm of accepted political debate.

A “possible U.S. fascism”? What would that look like? The essay doesn’t say (the link is here). And it doesn’t relate how liberals are leading us into ruin. Instead it casts Horowitz as participating in a “growing racist movement in the United States.”

Some people have said that Horowitz exaggerates the extent of liberal/progressive indoctrination on campus, and in some instances they’re right (I just conceded the point in an exchange elsewhere). I think the ideological climate is largely the outcome of a few bullies and many cowards.

But Horowitz does have a way of exposing poisonous attitudes on campus, if only by his provocative, in-your-face manner. A few pages in this article show that he’s the object of much worse exaggerations, and that the environment that fosters them is a dysfunctional one.