Civility and Subversion: The Intellectual in Democratic Society

by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

• ISBN13: 9780521627238
• ISBN10: 0521627230
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-11-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book provides a sophisticated alternative to existing accounts of the role of the intellectual in modern democracy. Arguing that society suffers from a systemic deliberation deficit, Jeffrey Goldfarb explores the potential of the intellectual as democratic agent, at once civilizing political contestation and subverting complacent consensus. The sentimental Leftist view of the intellectual as guardian of democracy and the demonising Rightist view of the intellectual as obstructor of progress, are both shown to be flawed. Instead, intellectuals are portrayed as special kinds of 'strangers' who pay careful attention to their critical faculties, equipping them uniquely to address the most pressing issues of today. Professor Goldfarb deploys classical and contemporary social theory to analyse a diverse set of intellectuals in action, from Socrates in fifth-century Athens to Malcolm X and Toni Morrison in twentieth-century America, and, drawing on personal acquaintance, the political dissidents in Communist and post-Communist Central Europe.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Who are the intellectuals?

3. The civil intellectual and the public

4. The subversive intellectual and the public

5. The civil society ideal

6. The intellectuals and the politics of culture after Communism

7. The university

8. Race and discursive disruption

9. Race and sustained deliberation

10. Why is there no feminism after Communism?

11. Civility and subversion in cynical times.