Speaking Truth To Power bbc.in/1rkFnyd Edward Said: Representation of the Intellectual 1993. The central fact for me is, I think, that the [role of the] intellectual... cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison detre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug. In his fifth lecture, Edward Said considers the basic question for the intellectual: how does one speak the truth? Is there some universal and rational set of principles that can govern how one speaks and writes? He examines the difficulties and sometimes loneliness of questioning authority, and argues that intellectuals should present a more principled stand in speaking the truth to power.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 03:39:48 +0000