Charisma and Film in the Public Sphere

I’ve been interested in public intellectuals for a little while now. I’ve been wondering about the effectiveness of a charismatic, thoughtful individual thumping podiums and providing vivid narratives for the masses. Can we, as Americans, handle someone who challenges us to think differently? Who provokes us? Will we still cheer when a polemicist gets under ‘their’ skin (whomever that might be)?

The European public sphere had Pierre Bourdieu, Levi-Strauss, Sartre, Foucault, Mill, Dickens, and Orwell. In the 1950s there were Lewis Mumford, William H. White and Jane Jacobs fighting for American urban spaces. But for the last few decades, the American scene has grown silent. Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In "Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline," writes that "for the foreseeable future the dominant type of public intellectual will be the full-time, or at least nominally full-time professor." The result of a public weary of intellectualism, the best that my students at Queens College could do to name an American public intellectual was Andy Rooney.

But a few things have made me think that this might be changing.

In the last few years, Noam Chomsky has been joined at the dais by the voices of Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Al Gore and Michael Moore. It’s not just that they are speaking out, but I cannot help but feel that the stage is getting bigger and stirring up more trouble than ever. Al Gore’s high-profile MoveOn.org lectures have been packed and reviewed. Blogs like this one are popping up daily. This summer we have been truly treated to a flurry of documentaries, which offer speaking points for the left. Control Room, Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Corporation (which interviews most of the individuals above) offer such rich stories, fervently investigated and passionately presented. By the way, even though there will be no ‘Palabris at the Movies’ posts in the near future, I must say that, of the three, the film with the most attention is the least successful documentary. After each, however, viewers are left wanting more: Where did they get this information? How can I learn more?

Charisma, what Sociologist Max Weber called "the gift of grace" that must be validated via a following, is enough for many: Michael Moore can be persuasive, in that "Aw shucks, look at the little guy talking with this CEO" kind of way. Such a natural quality has the potential to break through old structures of thought and action, and Weber noted that charismatic leaders rise in times of crisis for such purposes.

Paired with information and technology, charisma can be powerful. The documentaries above offer a few avenues to get better informed. The Corporation site has a list of links as well as a new book that is out on the same topic. I’ve always hoped that such films would have little footnotes along the bottom of the screen. Yes, it’s silly. But, wouldn’t it be effective? How far away are we from having DVDs with links to all of the newspaper articles, think tanks and Congressional Archives available in PDF format? The links to Moore's film and The Corporation are to their 'facts' and 'more information' pages, respectively.

But charisma is also dangerous. Pierre Bourdieu was worried about those French intellectuals, particularly Sartre, who could manage to cull up an opinion on just about anything. He firmly believed that social actors knew and understood their own particular fields—dominated by their own particular rules and games—and that it was always suspicious when they ventured out of them and claimed to be well suited for others (he called them ‘total intellectuals’). You end up with polemicists, like Moore, rather than measured scholars. You end up with a populous no more inclined towards critical thought, no less willing to follow the next charismatic leader, and susceptible to any bright, flashy film to come along.

At the same time, Bourdieu felt that his countrymen and women wanted to hear his opinion, and needed to be helped along the path. So, he began to speak out on neoliberalism, the privatization of markets, labor disputes and the war in Bosnia. He appeared on television to give a lecture about, well, television, and how it has come to dominate public consciousness. It’s in a book called On Television (and yes, he was well aware of the challenges and ironies of using television to talk about television).

We’ve railed on Chris Hitchens enough here, but he does have a point that Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are cut form the same cloth. But those are the polemicists. In the public intellectual category, the right comes up thin: little more than David Brooks and Mr. Hitchens (who’s basically on loan from the left, anyway). Perhaps the continuation of the Zinns and Chomskys and the rise of the Gores and Kleins and Frankens will bring back the spirit of Mumford and Jacobs. Perhaps bringing new technological goodies with them too.