Russell Jacoby

Back in the late 1980's, fresh out of college and ready to change the world, I read a book by Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals, that still haunts me nearly twenty five years later...In it, he forsook the idea of the university as the premier "ivory tower" of learning, and went back to earlier days when common men and women spent more time chatting about the affairs of the world not only in the higher halls of learning, but on country porches, local coffee houses and diners, and the like. He mourned the fact that serious discussion of important ideas, news, and events had increasingly taken place most often only in the domains of the colleges and universities across the nation. He argued that in fact, part of our strength as a nation had historically been that more of the general populace, both the college educated and those even far less so were all more involved in the daily dialogue of what was transpiring in the towns, nation, and world they lived in.

Now of course, as I was a youngster with very little experience outside the college confines, I ate up his words like a marathon runner who was deeply in need of fuel for the journey ahead. I was sure that change was fast, right around the corner, and that all it took was a little group interaction. Being the young idealist, I was sure that others cared just as much as I did about the history of ideas and culture, and that without attention to those ideas of the past that we all would not move forward in manners in accordance to our higher callings as humans populating the prescious planet Earth. Boy was I wrong... Ouch...

And so it is in ode to this original young idealist spirit, and the writings among others, of Russell Jacoby, that in these current times of so much vast change, insecurity, and economic, political, geopolitical and cultural "unknowing" that I seek out to you, my unknown populace to see if one small voice may indeed be the mere tinder to start a fire from which unknown energies may be revealed. The future has not been written, and thus remains to be seen. I invite you to join me on this journey into explorations of culture, politics, diplomacy, economics, technology, war and peace, and how it may all affect where we all will end up...