Ideas can define and transform society, but how healthy is intellectual life today? In recent decades, many observers have expressed concern about the ‘dumbing down’ of culture, noting an increasing tendency toward specialisation within academia, and a resulting demise of ‘public intellectuals’ capable of writing for and engaging with a non-specialist audience. All of these claims are disputed, and the ensuing debates reveal much about contemporary society. The question, however, is not merely academic. The state of intellectual life is inextricably linked to cultural and political life more generally. For ideas to be more than just commodities, there must be a dynamic relationship between intellectuals and the public, and a degree of political room for maneouvre, so that ideas can make a difference to society.

Culture Wars takes a broad definition of public intellectuals: rather than seeing intellectuals as an exotic priesthood, we are interested in all serious thinkers who concern themselves with public life. Here, we review books, talks and television programmes that address the public as citizens as well as scholars and consumers. We are also interested in discussions about public intellectuals and related issues, from the role of popular philosophy to the meaning of academic freedom.

Does reality have a liberal bias?

The New Blue Media: How Michael Moore, Moveon.Org, Jon Stewart and Company Are Transforming Progressive Politics, by Theodore Hamm (New Press)

What his book crucially lacks is an analysis of the other side, the rightwing radio talk shows, Fox news and the previously mentioned Bill O’Reilly. Especially as many of Hamm’s heroes are reacting to their success.

The Truth? - you must be making it up!

A keynote essay from the Battle of Ideas 2008

The Truth concerns a lot more than scientific platitudes: all sorts of figures have laid claim to knowing the truth about the human condition and their societies, from novelists and journalists to campaigners and politicians. In fact, one of the most important things about putting forward new ideas and persuading others is that no particular credentials are necessary.

Slaves to fame

The Fame Formula, How Hollywood's Fixers, Fakers and Star Makers Created The Celebrity Industry, by Mark Borkowski (Sidgwick & Jackson)

The fame game may have been going on for years, but it doesn’t explain just why children, when asked a generation ago what they wanted to be when they grow up, answered ‘a fireman’ or ‘a policeman’, now invariably respond ‘famous’.

Can philosophy change your life?

A Battle in Print essay from the Battle of Ideas 2008

An adequate approach to the relationship between theory and practice would acknowledge the value of the many kinds of intellectual contributions that get called popular philosophy, without over-egging their importance or dismissing them as philosophy lite.

Being human without the safety net

Existentialism and Humanism, by Jean-Paul Sartre

Existentialism and Humanism is a fantastic piece of popular philosophy: a route into the ideas of some of the greatest philosophers throughout history, and a manifesto for making philosophy ‘useful’ without losing any devotion to scrutiny.

Physical theatre

The Ethics of Progress, Southwark Playhouse, London

Jon Spooner’s supposition – following a throwaway remark by his collaborator Professor Vlatko Verdal – is that quantum physics is not difficult stuff. In his hands, thanks to careful and patient elucidation, its principles straighten out into clarity.

Untrustworthy popularity

Trust: self-interest and the common good, by Marek Kohn (OUP)

Philosophy’s place in popular culture today is centred on self-improvement and egoism; this demeans the potential of philosophical enquiry whilst enforcing the idea that academic philosophy is completely inaccessible.

Chaotic creativity; critical chaos

Stefan Collini and Peter Conrad, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Friday 15 August 2008

Any view that holds the ‘democratisation’ of criticism and generation of Web 2.0 responsible for the current state of critical thinking, puts far too much emphasis on the technology itself; and at the expense of recognising the superficiality and sometime coerciveness of the supposed democratisation.

History wars

The Curse of History, by Jeremy Black (Social Affairs Unit)

Popular and academic histories frequently capture similar views of the past, even if expressed in different terminologies. Setting them up as ‘enemies’ can caricature or erase the shared social roots and causations that genuinely split communities.

The universal next door

Cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers, by Kwame Anthony Appiah (WW Norton and Co)

From neighbourly gossip he has extended his reach across the world through great works of art and construction. Perhaps one or two steps more and he could establish a cosmopolitan web in which, if we cannot declare every man our brother, we can at least declare them our neighbour’s neighbour. But in what should these last few steps consist?

Non-fat fiction? No thanks

Granta 102: the nature of writing, edited by Jason Cowley

Perhaps the simile of the ‘Classic Combo’ is apt here: Granta 101 was the reliable favourite, filled with lots of tasty treats and still on the whole good for you. Granta 102 is the fad diet, grounded in Real Science and somehow different to all those other ones, which advertises itself on the subtext that by following it you will be better (morally and physically) than those boring, die-hard traditionalists.

A superficial balance

China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society, by Daniel A Bell (PUP)

Like pretty much everywhere else on the planet nowadays, China is undergoing a cultural malaise triggered by the end of its recent ideology.

Granta’s second century

Granta 101, edited by Jason Cowley

Much of the coverage of Granta 101 has highlighted the title’s anachronism at a time when Britain seems to value vacuous celebritism and disdain anything perceived as ‘intellectual’, worrying whether such a ‘highbrow’ title can survive without softening its intimidating stance. Yet surely that is the point.

Ali Shari’ati: between Marx and the Infinite

An Islamic Utopian, by Ali Rahnema (IB Tauris)

Is Ali Shari’ati, the so-called ideologue of the Iranian Revolution, a poster boy for a utopian Islamic left, lost but not forgotten? Or is his legacy rather an allegory of good intentions gone awry and the irresponsibility of pursuing an exotic Leninist eclecticism at the edge of unreason?

Too short to play Hamlet

Restul e tăcere [The Rest Is Silence] (2007), directed by Nae Caranfil

Caranfil is nostalgic and frivolous simultaneously. He is glad as a director that the pioneers fought for the independence of cinema as an art-form. More than that, in The Rest Is Silence we find a director who is truly comfortable with making cinema for the sake of it, treating the art as an end in itself.