One way of looking at this matter of who gets to count as a "public intellectual" or not is that it is quite independent of whether or not the person involved is saying something either correct, intelligent, or even moral.  It is that they are listened to by a wide variety of people and taken seriously when they communicate to the public by whatever means or medium on matters that are arguably "intellectual" in some form, and many such people end up bloviating publicly about a wide variety of topics once they get a sufficient level of public attention, sometimes well beyond any area of expertise that they may actually possess.  Thus, it may well be that Pat G. is correct that those he expressed unhappiness about are wrong or immoral or whatever, but that does not make them "not public intellectuals," per se.

-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pat Gunning
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 8:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] CfP: HOPE Conference 2012 - "The Economist as Public Intellectual."

Steve, my comments on the conference announcement that you co-authored 
were specific and focused. Your introductory remarks are personal and 
demeaning and contain only a general reference to my post. They sound 
more like a rebuke from a dictatorial university president than a 
response to my opinion points based on the conference announcement.

I raised no issues about motives or ideology other than those that can 
be supported on the basis of what I regard as a reasonable 
interpretation of the announcement.

It is possible that you misunderstood my post or that you also are 
responding rashly. In any case, it would help all of us if you tell me 
what you object to in my interpretation of the announcement?

As I see it, if anything is "outrageous," it is your apparent opinion 
that such a non-direct "rebuke" is suitable for posting.

Best wishes,

On 1/28/2011 5:18 PM, Medema, Steven wrote:
> I would normally let pass without reaction comments as outrageous as 
> those made by Professor Gunning in his latest post to this list. But 
> as he raises issues about motives, shades his comments with allusions 
> to ideological agendas, etc., I feel compelled to respond.
>
> Economists play several roles. They are teachers of students, they do 
> research, they give policy advice, and they communicate with the 
> general public. These communications with the general public take a 
> wide range of forms: books (Hayek's Road to Serfdom, Galbraith's 
> various books, Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, Levitt and Dubner's 
> Freakonomics), articles in popular media (Friedman, Samuelson, and 
> Becker in magazines; Krugman, Frank, etc. in the newspapers), blogs, 
> and on and on. These references are all quite contemporary, but there 
> is a long tradition of economists interacting with the public, or, 
> differently put, functioning as public intellectuals. Much of this 
> work has dealt with the economy, but much of it has not. Some 
> economists have seen fit to speak with the larger public on matters 
> that go far beyond matters traditionally considered economic.
>
> The purpose of HOPE 2012 is to examine this branch of the work of 
> economists. Here, the term "interventions" is used to refer to the 
> economist intervening in public discourse. It is not a pejorative 
> term, and it has no ideological overtones or undertones. The point is 
> to understand the various way in which economists of all stripes have 
> attempted to influence public debate, perceptions of the economy and 
> of economic policy, and so on, through their communications with the 
> general public. Does this work by economists often have an ideological 
> or political element? Certainly. Indeed, this is part of what makes 
> the study of this facet of the history of economics incredibly 
> interesting.
>
> The great Jacob Viner often said that "economics is what economists 
> do." They do many things, and the study of the history of economics 
> involves studying what it is that economists do-or have done, whether 
> that be theorizing and the economic ideas that come from this, 
> developing new empirical techniques and how this impacts economic 
> analysis, giving advice on the policy front, or communicating with the 
> general public. Whether one wants to call what we do the history of 
> economics, the history of economic thought, the history of political 
> economy, or whatever, the boundaries of our field are incredibly 
> broad, and this conference is a first step to promoting research in 
> what to this point has been a neglected area of the work of the economist.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Steve Medema
> University of Colorado Denver

-- 
Pat Gunning
Professor of Economics
Melbourne, Florida
http://www.nomadpress.com/gunning/welcome.htm