On being a public intellectual, a Muslim and a multiculturalist: Tariq Modood.
| Author | Thompson, Simon |
| Position | INTERVIEW - Interview |
What does it mean to be a public intellectual?
Intellectual or academic life is usually organised in disciplines, and intellectuals' questions come out of those disciplines. But in public intellectual engagement the question does not primarily come out of a discipline. It comes from the public. It concerns our relations with each other as members of a society and especially as citizens of a polity. A public intellectual is a concerned citizen who accepts responsibility for their society and brings to its understanding insights of their discipline.
Most of what salaried academics do is contribute to their disciplinary community or to a broader academic community. So, a political theorist may say, 'Hannah Arendt was engaged with this question. This is a question that is still alive and her thought on this is strangely lucid. I want to revisit it and perhaps recover neglected aspects of it'. These questions all arise organically from thinking about Hannah Arendt.
But we also at times think about questions that don't just arise from the discipline. So, for example, we think about the relationship between religious identity and political equality. Is there any relation? Does political equality simply mean we are not interested in anybody's religious identity? We simply don't suppress or promote any such identities? Sounds plausible. But then if we think about it we realise that in fact, some people's religious identity tells them to have an ethical orientation which is clearly social and political--to do with questions like what kind of economic relations to have or not have, to be hospitable to refugees or not. Whereas for other people their religious identity is an entirely private matter.
So if political equality means merely ignoring religious identities, we are favouring religious identities that are purely private, and not treating all religious identities equally. We're preferring a particular kind of religious identity. So now we are not just talking about, say, Hannah Arendt's ideas. We're thinking about our existing political arrangements in light of the claims that some Muslims or some Christians or--for that matter--some new atheists are making about political life and equality. We are engaged in public questions. But we are still drawing on academic conversations, academic tools, academic perspectives. (1)
Do you think we've resolved this question--about how to square equality for all religious identities with political equality--in Britain?
I think we have entered a period where we are rethinking the place of religion in relation to equality and the public sphere. But there's a deep antipathy to treating religious identities on a par with others. A good measure of this is how in the Labour Party or in a major trade union there can be a women's section, an LGBT section, a black or ethnic minorities section, but we can all imagine the consternation if and when Muslims ask for a Muslim or a religious minorities section!
Should all intellectuals or academics be public intellectuals?
Intellectual life, like society, has a division of labour. I'm not saying: 'all academics or sociologists or political theorists...
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