Just as political language both describes and expresses political forces, every public intellectual is both a doctor and a patient in the mental hospital of contemporary life. Defined against each other as products in a cornered market, each combines a diagnosis with a malady without it being certain which is which. Things are said or not said, topics are addressed or not addressed and allowed to be addressed by certain people and not others, depending on what an audience is prepared to think about, and think about itself. Some writers are showered with accolades, others are effectively suppressed by silence, and a handful are attacked relentlessly, yet continue to say what they believe.
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