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Oh, to be a PI (Public Intellectual)!
I desperately want to become a "Public Intellectual." After 35 years of teaching I want to step down from the ivory tower and share my ideas with the public and make the masses think.
It is true that I am a mere mathematician and mathematics is not exactly the public's cup of tea. Nevertheless, I can assure you that beneath the breast of many a Volvo-loving nerd beats the heart of a Jaguar-driving humanist. I happen to be one of those mathematicians who have been recently won over by humanists to renounce their monistic, reductionist view of mathematics. I have long been involved in lecturing about the relevance and beauty of mathematics and its impact on culture and politics. In fact, right now, I am in the process of producing a compact disc (with raga music) explicating some theorems in non-linear partial differential equations. I am even going to include a few in-your-face lyrics such as, "So this #*$# p.d.e.// has no solution. Q.E.D."
My non-traditional views on mathematics, science and teaching are becoming well known. Emulating established PI's who assure the public that it makes no difference whether you read Shakespeare or Alice Walker, I have been telling people that it makes no difference whether you read von Neumann and Morgenstern or see the movie, "A Beautiful Mind." Sometimes I even go so far as to say, "Euclid be blowed; go see the play `Proof'."
The public will gain a great deal from my newly developed, anti-reductionist, culturally tolerant and politically expedient discourses on mathematics and science. I use intricate arguments to study questions that have only recently been raised by intellectuals, such as: What is truth? What is virtue? What is beauty? What is the meaning of life? Does my grant proposal sound good?
I fully subscribe to the belief that free exchange of ideas is vital to the health of the society. Universities are founded on this belief--and on liberal grants that this belief brings from the public coffers. Every day questions of great importance such as whether we should be in Afghanistan, what we should do about health care, why are medicines so expensive, what should we do about immigrants and so on are resolved to everybody's satisfaction in vigorous debates. The public listens to intellectuals. Politicians seek their advice and approval. Were it not for the deep thinking of intellectuals, the outcome of our last presidential election would not have been decided in a just and ethical manner. Were it not for the vigorous debates about how to teach teachers to teach in city schools, children might actually be learning to read and write. The list goes on. I have been studying these and numerous other social and political issues using the modern tools of mathematics, following the footsteps of famous French intellectuals from Lacan to Derrida. As a result, my contribution to the common weal will be substantial.
I am also well aware that points of view are relative. Consequently, not all ideas are right. Some are manifestly wrong and unacceptable. I promise that my ideas will always be right and non-traditional. So please give me a job as a public intellectual. If it will help, I wish to add that if I ever fall ill, unlike a famous and brilliant PI, I shall be happy and grateful to receive a get-well note--even a tardy one--from any college president, or for that matter, even a dean or a department head.
By G.V. Ramanathan, a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a CAA member, and an instructor in our exam review classes.
The Center for Public Intellectuals, for which Professor Ramanathan wrote this piece to publicize an event, subsequently changed its name to The Public Square. [No comment]
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