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Originally Posted by Lurker
We do lack public intellectuals but there are a few. There's Dawkins (though he's a scientist, if we're just talking humanities), Simon Schama, David Starkey and AC Grayling pops up on the radio occasionally.
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I think its because we dont have a culture of vicious debate that cuts beyond the fault of Radio 4 and the editorial pages.
If you look at the US, they have a cable news tradition that creates things like Fox News, MSNBC, as well as a radio tradition with the Rush Limbaughs. Thats an environment thats fertile ground for combative and controversy-ridden discourse. If you ever watch American cable "news" half of it is devoted to how outrageous and reprehensible someone on the opposite side is. In the UK thats the region of the news that satire and parody controls, not "serious journalism"
Not wanting to sound provincial, but this is the UK, and we just dont do things like that, dont you know