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My view would to rephrase the hypothesis as "the quality of 'Britain's public intellectual debate' has declined". This seems true in parts, a friend became in

by jimduk 8y ago

My view would to rephrase the hypothesis as "the quality of 'Britain's public intellectual debate' has declined". This seems true in parts, a friend became intrigued by the quality of debate for Britain's membership of the EEC in 1975 vs. Brexit. Two examples for 1975 are ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2jUYryRYII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2jUYryRYII and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zBFh6bpcMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zBFh6bpcMo) and these certainly seem of higher quality. One hypothesis (similar to Curtis above) was that there were two energised generations, post WW2 and 1960s, who believed that public debate and ideas could change things, and a variety of new-ish institutions and technologies (BBC, TV) could enable that change. They were partially successful, but the energy and enthusiasm dissipated over time. Another argument is that Britain is reasonably anti the public intellectual (e.g. unlike the French but much better than the US), apart from during certain times of fairly major change (Royal Society/Glorious Revolution; Scottish Enlightenment; post WW2 settlement etc.) and we are going back to our dormant state. A third may be that the nature of 'public' has changed, and the debate is going on, but not in media forms which stifle and trivialise it (Less optimistic here, the Greens tried hard to change public debate, some say Momentum, certainly we are quite good at up-market PR, brand design and marketing, all of which suck the energy/deflect from certain debates) In my experience, in private the quality of debate isn't too bad, though a touch cynical

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
> the nature of 'public' has changed There was "public" debate/discussion before. And then there was the conversation at the tavern, which was a different (and less intellectual) thing. What's changed is the internet, which kind of combined those worlds. Someone would make a speech or state a position. It would get reported on, in a newspaper article. Many people would have comments, but the newspaper would only print one or two replies (the very best ones) for the world to see. The rest of the discussion would happen in the tavern, where only a few people would hear any individual comment. Such comments would be clearly distinct from the replies printed in the newspaper. But now the reporting is online, with a comments section, which doesn't filter the replies. The equivalent of the tavern (all the taverns put together) is now right alongside the original article. And I think that this may have changed the level of the reporting to some degree, too. They're moving toward the level of the comments - not all the way, but in that direction.

by jimduk 8y ago

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

> the nature of 'public' has changed There was "public" debate/discussion before. And then there was the conversation at the tavern, which was a different (and less intellectual) thing. What's changed is the internet, which kind of combined those worlds. Someone would make a speech or state a position. It would get reported on, in a newspaper article. Many people would have comments, but the newspaper would only print one or two replies (the very best ones) for the world to see. The rest of the discussion would happen in the tavern, where only a few people would hear any individual comment. Such comments would be clearly distinct from the replies printed in the newspaper. But now the reporting is online, with a comments section, which doesn't filter the replies. The equivalent of the tavern (all the taverns put together) is now right alongside the original article. And I think that this may have changed the level of the reporting to some degree, too. They're moving toward the level of the comments - not all the way, but in that direction.