Commentary

Symposium: The Public Intellectual

by Donald Horne •

July 1996, no. 182

Commentary

Symposium: The Public Intellectual

by Donald Horne •

July 1996, no. 182

What is the role of the Public Intellectual?

Donald Horne: critics and negotiators

The general idea of ‘public intellectual life’ is more useful than the particular idea of’ the public intellectual’. ‘Public intellectual life’ is a public manifestation of what I called in The Public Culture ‘the critics’ culture’ of a liberal-democratic state. (It is made possible by the belief in a questioning approach to existence as a central force in society.) However only parts of this critical activity emerge into the public culture; it is these parts that might be thought of as its ‘public intellectual life’. They provide a kind of public acclimatisation society for new ideas. All kinds of people may play a part in working up these ideas down there in the subterranean passages of the critics’ culture and others may take over the business of negotiating them into the public sphere. Many of these ‘negotiators’ are paid public performers in the news and entertainment industries. However some of the ‘critics’

Donald Horne

Donald Horne AO (1921–2005) was one of Australia’s most significant public intellectuals of the twentieth century. Mostly remembered for his skewering of Australian post-war complacency in The Lucky Country (1964), Horne was an editor at The Observer, The Bulletin (where he removed ‘Australia for the White Man’ from the banner), and Quadrant. He took up a research fellowship in political science at the University of New South Wales, where he would retire as an Emeritus Professor. His contribution to Australian cultural and academic life continued with appointments as Chairman of the Australia Council (1985–1990) and Chancellor of the University of Canberra (1992–1995).