This November will mark the one year anniversary of the passing Proposition 8, which added the section “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” to the state constitution. Though the proposition passed by a 52.5% to 47.5% margin, or about 500,000 votes, many Californians remain passionate about overturning the ban.
Last Thursday, a coalition of groups supporting same-sex marriage submitted ballot measure language for a potential initiative repealing Proposition 8. These groups, led by Love Honor Cherish, hope to overthrow the law, which was upheld by the California Supreme Court in May. But these efforts only mark the first step; they will need about 700,000 signatures from registered California voters before April 2010, as well as millions of dollars.
While thousands of people are outraged over the passing of Prop 8, not all same-sex marriage proponents are unified in the push for a 2010 ballot measure. They believe that the measure will more likely prevail in 2012, during the next presidential election. Equality California, the state’s largest gay rights group, announced in August that it would wait until 2012 to propose an amendment. Public opinion polls suggest Californians remains closely divided on the issue of gay marriage, and some gay rights groups, such as Equality California, believe waiting until 2012 could help the repeal gain both popularity and sympathy. However, they did state that they would support the measure if it does make it onto the ballot.
The day after Love Honor Cherish and other groups announced their decision to put the ballot initiative to voters in 2010, former President Clinton publicized his recent decision to change his personal stance on same-sex marriage. During an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he said that he believes states should ultimately decide on same-sex marriage, but he is not personally opposed, as he once was. In the interview, he said:
"I was against the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage nation-wide, and I still think that the American people should be able to play this out in debates. But me, Bill Clinton personally, I changed my position. I am no longer opposed to that. I think if people want to make commitments that last a lifetime, they ought to be able to do it."
While many Californians, and now former President Clinton, are swaying in support of repealing Proposition 8, some are taking a drastically different approach. On September 1, 2009, Sacramentan John Marcotte submitted proposed legislation to the Attorney General that would add a different initiative to the 2010 state ballot. Entitled the “2010 California Marriage Protection Act,” this legislation would essentially ban divorce in California. He calls it “a logical extension of Prop 8.”
Marcotte, a fervent proponent of Prop 8, describes himself as “a firm believer in traditional family values.” He claims that though the legislation would essentially be diminishing people’s rights, it would be to protect traditional marriage, therefore attracting the same voters who voted “yes” on Prop 8.
On his website, captions like “You said ‘Til death do us part.’ You’re not dead yet” and “Jesus still loves you if you get divorced—just not as much as before” pan across the main page. According to website, the campaign has raised $1105.94 from 45 contributors since September 4. This CNN piece features an interview with him
This would never pass…right? The whole campaign seems pretty ridiculous, but then again, not even a year ago, California voted to ban same-sex marriages and revoke basic rights to a huge community.
Many argue that public intellectuals are losing their once strong audience. These people—known for extensive studies in academic areas as well their application of theories and insights to current society—may becoming unappreciated and outdated.
With the questions of the future of the public intellectual, a problem arises in how to define them.Today, is there a distinctive difference between public intellectuals and just writers? The creation and ease of the Internet creates more questions about defining a public intellectual. Anyone can create a blog or personal website—how do we differentiate between authors, public intellectuals, and those simply writing as a pastime. It seems fairly obviously to separate leisure writers and published, distinguished authors, but how do we differentiate between the latter and public intellectuals?
Alan Lightman, a professor at MIT and a public intellectual himself, devised a system of three tiers to classify public intellectuals. These levels are defined in his piece, “The Role of the Public Intellectual.” He classifies public intellectuals by the following standards:
Level I: Speaking and writing for the public exclusively about your discipline. This kind of discourse is extremely important, and it involves good, clear, simplified explanations of the national debt, the how cancer genes work, or whatever your subject is.
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Level II: Speaking and writing about your discipline and how it relates to the social, cultural, and political world around it. A scientist in this Level II category might include a lot of biographical material, glimpses into the society and anthropology of the culture of science.
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Level III: By invitation only. The intellectual has become elevated to a symbol, a person that stands for something far larger than the discipline from which he or she originated. A Level III intellectual is asked to write and speak about a large range of public issues, not necessarily directly connected to their original field of expertise at all.
Some believe public intellectuals are on quickly becoming irrelevant, such as Richard Posner in his book Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. Others, however, insist that the Internet has lead to a renaissance of diverse public intellectuals. One such person is Daniel Drezner, a political economist from Tufts University, who recently published an essay that seemingly lowered expectations to become a public intellectual and therefore included significantly more people.
New York Times blogger Barry Gewen argues against this trend of increasing inclusivity of authors into the elite category of public intellectuals. He states in his blog
for [writers Fareed Zakaria and Samantha Power] to be considered public intellectuals in the old New York Intellectual sense — with its commitment to cultural “centrality” — I think they would have to demonstrate greater breadth than they have so far displayed.
He opposes the classification of authors of serious books who have attracted a modicum of attention as public intellectuals. He views the public intellectual as someone more concerned about a broad variety of information and the impact on society, rather than a specialist in one area.
However, we must consider that human knowledge is growing at exponential rate. It seems especially unrealistic to expect public intellectuals to write intelligently and insightfully about, for example, politics and the economy, physics, and computers. It seems public intellectuals have evolved from generalists to specialists.
Narrow specialization of public intellectuals may prevail at the expense of a broad perspective, but the recent transformation of mass communication has increased the transparency of public intellectuals. With the ability to publish a piece on the Internet with the click of a button, public intellectuals can easily share their opinions with anyone who wishes to read it.
So, is there any way of conceptualizing something called the public intellectual that is consistent with democratic values? Of course there is, but it needs to begin with a shift from “categories and class” to “function.” That is, our notions of the public intellectual need to focus less on who or what a public intellectual is—and by extension, the qualifications for getting and keeping the title. Instead, we need to be more concerned with the work public intellectuals must do, irrespective of who happens to be doing it.
I agree that a person’s contributions should define them as a person, and the public should not be focused on the celebrity of a public intellectual. However, established public intellectuals have created a name and an image for themselves through previous work and ideas. Previous work defines a person, and essentially, it becomes difficult to completely separate a person from their work.
One such person who has used their academic history and strong beliefs to become a public intellectual is Sam Harris. The first time I ever heard of Sam Harris was April of 2007. He was interviewed with Rick Warren—an evangelical pastor who launched the megachurch Saddleback Church—in Newsweek,and I was instantly fascinated by his intelligence, biting comments, and scientific skepticism. I was fascinated. To this day, I have not forgotten this segment of the interview:
Rick, if you had been born in India or in Iran, would you have different religious beliefs?
WARREN: There's no doubt where you're born influences your initial beliefs. Regardless of where you were born, there are some things you can know about God, even without the Bible. For instance, I look at the world and I say, "God likes variety." I say, "God likes beauty." I say, "God likes order," and the more we understand ecology, the more we understand how sensitive that order is.
HARRIS: Then God also likes smallpox and tuberculosis.
WARREN: I would attribute a lot of the sins in the world to myself.
HARRIS: Are you responsible for smallpox?
Two and a half years later, I was with one of my friends and somehow (I wish I knew the context) the subject of natural selection came up. Seconds into the conversation, he said “I don't know if I believe in evolution.” I was shocked. How do you not believe in evolution? I literally had no words. Growing up in a liberal family and attending a secular school, I naively assumed that by 2009, everyone knew that evolution is a proven fact. (As Sam Harris says, “Nature offers no compelling evidence for an intelligent designer and countless examples of unintelligent design.”) I went home to talk to my (also) very liberal roommate about this, and after she expressed her equal bewilderment, I tried to explain Sam Harris’s interview, as it still resonated with me. Thanks to the scope of the Internet, and the archives of newsweek.com, we quickly found the article and reveled in knowing that at least one person out there was standing up for science.
I started Googling him and learned all about his background and efforts to spread scientific knowledge in conjunction with secular beliefs. His first book, The End of Faith, discusses organized religion and the problems with tolerance of religious fundamentalism. His second book, Letter to a Christian Nation (which is about 75 pages long and definitely worth reading, regardless of your religion), is a response to all the criticism he received from the first book. Despite the title, as he says in the introduction,
“the primary purpose of the book is to arm secularists in our society, who believe that religion should be kept out of public policy, against their opponents on the Christian Right. Consequently, the “Christian” I address throughout is a Christian in a narrow sense of the term…I have set out to demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity in its most committed forms. (Letter to a Christian Nation viii-ix).
In additionally to publishing these nonfiction books, Sam Harris has been published inmany news magazines and newspapers, and has been featured on numerous TV shows, such as The O’Reilly Factor,
He frequently debates religious leaders, and here he is with Rabbi David Wolpe.
He recently pioneered The Reason Project, “a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society.” This project focuses on producing films holding conferences, sponsoring studies, and conducting research and opinion polls to ultimately erase dogmatism and fanaticism.
Sam Harris is a specialist regarding religion, science, and their combination and effect on society. He uses all forms of mass media to address and convince the public of the inherent flaws of religion. He has strong opinions on religion and the future of reason and, like all public intellectuals, has not and will not stop educating the world.
Former Washington Post publisher Philip Graham called newspapers “the first rough draft of history,” but for hundreds of years, journalism has been more than that, shaping the country’s early history.
Despite the reports that the newspaper industry is dying, new technology has not replaced newspapers. With the recent and unprecedented technological boom that has brought about infinite forms of “new media,” newspaper circulation and readership continues to decrease.
However, the emergence of the Internet is not the first hurdle for newspapers to endure. The invention of radio and television introduced new mediums for the news to be delivered, and though both have had negative impacts on newspapers, neither has replaced it.
The Internet may be more efficient—websites can provide instant information and Internet news is free, whereas newspaper subscriptions cost the customer. Still, the majority people prefer to read the newspaper in print form, and enjoy reading the paper in the morning with breakfast or just to relax.
Of course, coming from a newspaper family, I may be biased.
Two weeks ago, I had just moved into my new apartment. I woke up, got a bowl of cereal, and sat down—only to realize I had nothing to do. Being an avid newspaper reader practically since I could read, this void of not having a newspaper in the morning was startling. Freshman and sophomore year in college I lived in dorm-style buildings, where newspaper access was very limited. I resorted to the online version, catching up on local Sacramento news through The Sacramento Bee, and then scanning The LA Times website.
I thought this was sufficient—until I went home for the summer and truly appreciated the alliteration “daily doorstep delivery.” By the second week of summer I was back in my routine; I started with the Scene (or Lifestyle) Section, read the cover stories, criticized the advice Jeanne Phillips in “Dear Abby” (or even worse, Carolyn Hax) gave, then quickly read through my favorite comics (“Zits,” “Doonesbury,” “Dilbert,” “F Minus,” and “Bizarro”—almost always in that order). Depending on the amount of time I had before work—and what section my sister was reading—I read Names and Faces (to catch up on the celeb gossip, obviously) and maybe skimmed sports. But in the afternoon or later at night, I would pour over each section, cover to cover. Our dinner conversations frequently began, “Did you see the story about…” and I contributed without question.
Needless to say, when I came back to school, I realized that I was taking the convenience of newspapers for granted. While sitting in my apartment during the week before classes started, I realized all I wanted to do was read the newspaper. I went on a search through the shopping center near campus, only to be given most of The LA Times by a man who overheard my complaining and only wanted the sports section.
I brought the paper back to my apartment, only to be met by my roommate, a Communications major, who quickly said, “Oh, Katie, one of the only few newspaper readers these days.” Mildly offended, I quickly retorted that, while newspaper profits are certainly decreasing, broadcast news is decreasing at an equal, if not more substantial, rate. Amid reports that newspapers will be completely out of business soon, relatively no notice is paid to startlingly similar problems facing television news. As audiences age and new media and the Internet become increasingly prevalent,evening news shows have lost over half their viewers in less than 30 years, with audiences continuing to dwindle.
While newspapers cover all aspects of news (local, national, and international), television news is increasingly replacing “hard news” with celebrity news and human interest stories. Both television stations and FM radio stations summarize newspaper stories in their own news briefs.
No media source can achieve the completeness or complexity of a newspaper, and no media source will be able to replace it.
I found this video celebrating The McClatchy Company’s 150th anniversary. While the video summarizes McClatchy’s history as a company, the first two and a half minutes have great photography and perfect quotes that, at least I believe, summarize journalism. My personal favorite: “Newspapers are the place where the whole world comes together.”
From California to Cape Town, and University of Southern California to University of Cape Town, this is my experience during my semester abroad in South Africa.
