When I was an academic many years ago, I was torn between advocating for thought leaders and think tanks on the one hand, and public intellectuals on the other. The world was getting flooded by thought leaders and think-tanks that were heavily influenced by people strongly anchored mostly in the disciplinary fields of knowledge and practice and associated professions.

Meanwhile both the intellectual and public intellectual were becoming endangered species and being squeezed out of the universities and from the public space in favour of thought leaders and think-tanks. This freed politicians and/or policy-makers from the need for critical thinking, critical analysis and alternative analyses as solutions to our complex problem (the so-called wicked problems). The solutions tended to be recycled from one place to another, and from one problem to another. There were frequent claims that those who sought the services of thought leaders and think-tanks or consultancies, also told them what kind of results or recommendations they expected.

Therefore, the problems remained and became even more complex and intractable. Unfortunately, we continued to use the simple methods of the disciplines to address them.

In this article I argue that in this era of increasingly complex (wicked) problems, we need to de-emphasise reliance on thought leaders, consultancies and think-tanks, all of which tend to have entrenched interests and to ally with power to maintain the status quo. I suggest that we need to resuscitate the intellectual in general and the public intellectual in particular, to keep decision-makers on their toes, and to continue articulating and clarifying issues for society. We need public intellectuals to be at the centre of political and social processes, let alone discourses of any kind, to make sense out of nonsense.

Let me start by discussing the key concepts in the article.

Intellectuals

“A healthy culture accepts the affronts of its intellectuals, since it understands that evolving serious discriminations out of a nuanced description of a society demands attentiveness, passion and lack of compromise.” – Barbara Mistzal, 2007.

Intellectuals are the lifeblood of society’s knowledge. They are the people who dedicate their lives to discovering big ideas, engaging in critical thinking and making breakthroughs that push the boundaries of human intellect (Hassan, 2024). Intellectuals probe into the future and its unknowns, excavate the past and interrogate today’s big questions.

However, there are two types of intellectuals: those working primarily within specialised academic or professional circles and public intellectuals striving to connect their findings with society (Hassan, 2024).

Pires (2009) referred to the various roles intellectuals have played in culture and society along the times and to the issue of the public intellectuals’ position in democratic societies in the twenty-first century and in the future. She inquired if they still have authority and prerogatives and, if so, which are the sources of their intellectual power. Related to this, and as another reflection connected to the previous points, we have the issue of the nowadays so often referred “decline and fall” of public intellectuals and the fact that they have even been considered as “an endangered species” (e.g. Lanham, 2006). Citing Richard Posner, the author of Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline (2002), she submits that an intellectual “is a person who, drawing on his intellectual resources, addresses a broad public on issues with a political or ideological dimension”.

Desch (2016) defined public intellectuals broadly as ‘persons who exert a large influence in the contemporary society of their country through their thought, writing or speaking.”

Chongyi Feng (2005) defined an intellectual as a specialist who creates and communicates symbolised knowledge as means of living and hopefully intervenes in social and political affairs in the name of universal values, truth and justice.

Therefore, the intellectual is different from the politicians, the soldiers, the businessman and others who exercise political, financial, military and other forms of power other than intellectual power in their social function in a country or society (e.g, Chongyi Feng, 2005). When production and communication of knowledge are taken as the primary concern of an intellectual “the death of concerned intellectua” becomes an unwarranted anxiety because there is no reason to believe that knowledge and truth will no longer be pursued and valued by humankind (Chongyi Feng, 2005).

Chongyi Feng (2005) argued that marginalisation of “critical imagination”, where it is a reality, seems to be caused not so much by absence of power of intellectuals as by lack of solidarity among intellectuals to fight for a common cause. He further argued that the problem lies as much in the lack of enthusiasm among intellectuals to transcend the boundaries of their professional relevance and intervene in broader social and political issues. However, governments and institutions of higher learning have also been working to ensure that intellectuals deviate from their role of clarifying and articulating social and political issues to emphasising academic and career objectives so that politicians have a field day to do anything they want below the Sun without challenge.

Mintz (2022) argues that intellectual history matters because ideas matter. He takes the power of ideas and discourse seriously. What is worrying is that it is becoming more difficult to separate the good ideas from the bad. This is where public intellectuals are important, because they serve the function to analyse and critique influential and emerging ideas in the public forum (Oxbridge Applications, Undated; Hartle, 1988).

The death of the intellectual has left a void in the centre of public life. In place of thought, we have opinion; in place of argument, we have journalism; in place of polemic, we have personality profiles; in place of reputation, we have celebrity. In place of public forums for debate, we have nothing but academic conferences (Ignatieff, 1997). Zelinsky (2020) has called for a new sociology of intellectuals for the 20th and 21st centuris. This is particularly important because the influence of digitally-oriented intellectuals and/or public intellectuals is rising at an alarming speed.

Public intellectuals

Public intellectuals are experts who are versed in and trained enough to be able to comment on a wide range of public policy issues. The public intellectual serves a vital purpose in democratic discourse: exposing shibboleths masquerading as accepted wisdom. Public intellectuals are critics, and critiquing those who hawk bad policy wares is a necessary function in a democracy (Drezner, 2017) and in democracy building.

Conversely, they are those academics, thinkers and writers who know a little bit about a great many things. They are willing to share their opinions on many aspects of our politics and our culture.

At worst, a public intellectual is a “secondhand dealer in ideas” (Hayek, 1949), and at best a challenger of the conventional wisdom (Kim, 2017). Smith (2014) in explored Hayek’s views on intellectuals, whom he called second-hand dealers in ideas. In Hayek’s context, the term “second-hand” does not disparage the intelligence, knowledge or importance of intellectuals. Intellectuals may be intelligent or stupid, wise or foolish, knowledgeable or ignorant, quick-​witted or dull, original or hackneyed. By “second-hand” Hayek means second in the order of the transmission of knowledge. Hayek’s intellectual is defined in terms of his social role in the dissemination of specialised knowledge to a wider audience; he is an “intermediary in the spreading of ideas.”

To put it another way, intellectuals, according to Hayek, are not the scholars or experts in a field but, instead, are the middlemen of ideas. Inhabiting diverse fields from journalism to medicine, they are familiar with a wide range of topics and have mastered the art of communicating them to the public. They write columns in newspapers and discuss current events on the radio and in townhalls, salons and businesses. They are respected in their own fields and are listened to when they discuss broad social issues. By virtue of their role as the middlemen of ideas, intellectuals determine which ideas reach and are likely to be accepted by, the general public. (Hayek, 1949 cited by Stefanie Haeffele and Molly Harnish, 2019).  Peters (2019) characterised Hayek as a classical liberal public intellectual.

An honest public intellectual will have lots to say about the future of higher education, but rather than offering a single definitive description of the postsecondary world of 2030, they may put forth a number of scenarios (Kim, 2017).

One thing is true and will remain true. Public intellectuals as they have traditionally been perceived, as individual scholars speaking truth to power, are a declining feature of public life globally. Costa and Murphy (2020) have submitted that the future of public intellectuals lies in reforming the digital public sphere. They have argued that academia needs to further value and prioritise engagement with the digital public sphere and that beyond simply taking its forms and standards as a given, the future of public intellectualism rests on constructively improving this discourse for the benefit of the public as a whole.

Besides, they argue that the question of the future of public intellectualism, is not just a question of repositioning the public intellectual but also how we consider scholarship and the university itself.

In another article (Murphy and Costa, 2019), they argued that the concept of public intellectual needed reframing in the context of recasting academic scholarship in the era of digitality. They added that the digital public sphere a well-evidenced set of interventions from the academy. Noting that the ideals of digital scholarship are tampered with the realities and politics of academia, they suggest that public pedagogy needs to be directly aligned to the digital sphere as a space of intellectual engagement. They conclude that rise of the digitised public intellectual will march on, regardless of what the university does or does not do (Lange, 2015 cited by Murphy and Costa, 2019). It is also the case that the university itself as an institutional force is currently undergoing considerable change and is being reimagined in various ways (Barnett, 2013 cited by Murphy and Costa, 2019); Barnett, 2016 cited by Murphy and Costa, 2019) and Robertson, 2017) cited by Murphy and Costa, 2019). Nevertheless, existing in tandem with these developments is a still strong desire on the part of both publics and the academy to engage with ideas in the public (Murphy and Costa, 2019).

Mauro Basaure, Alfredo Joignant and Rachel Théodore (2022) recognise the global digital public intellectual, the global digital stage and the role of both in shaping a new public intellectual. Korom (2014) stresses how spaces of opinion shaping the new public intellectual.

In 2023 the Daily Express recognised me as the second most influencial opinion writer in Uganda and, in the same year, Tell Media of Kenya recognised me as the most influential multigenre writer in East Africa. Both Daily Express and Tell Media are digital public media.  Writers are public intellectuals (e.g. Hawes, 2016; Heynders, 2016) just like philosophers are (Baert, 2016; Halwani, 2016; Weinberg, 2016) influencing minds.

The demand and desire for new forms of public intellectualism goes much further than calls for evidence-based policy and increased critical literacy. Instead, the responsibility is now on academia to re-imagine one of its core remits: connecting theory and practice. Strengthening and deepening this connection would go some way to helping ideas flourish and disseminate in the digital public sphere (Costa and Murphy (2020). This shift in focus and alignment would assist the university in its desire to encourage public engagement, an activity that this reconstituted public intellectualism is perfectly designed for (Costa and Murphy, 2020).

Currently, there are those, such as Alex Fergnani (2023) who think that our public intellectuals are not responsibly informing the public about the future(s). Alex Fergnani (2023) says that public intellectuals should impartially discuss multiple images of the future to teach the public that the future is not predetermined. They should also meticulously examine the visions of the future they present, taking into account the emotional load they carry, in order to steer clear of fearmongering or excessive idealisation.

Additionally, it is crucial for them to ensure that these visions are not influenced by fleeting trends and immediate events (Alex Fergnani, 2023).

We need public intellectuals now more than ever. While the importance of both intellectuals and public intellectuals cannot be either/or, as each plays a unique and necessary role, the public intellectuals in today’s world make a more visible impact on society (e.g., Hassan, 2024). However, Cummings (2016) and Lanham (2006 have looked at the idea of the public intellectual, considering whether such thinkers are becoming an endangered species.

Thought leaders

A thought leader is an individual or organization recognized as an expert and authority in a specific field, whose ideas and opinions influence others. They are often sought out for guidance and insights within their area of expertise, and they play a role in shaping discussions and trends. They can wield a lot of power on thought processes in various sectors of the economy. Thought leaders know one big thing and believe that their important idea will change the world (Drezner, 2017). They tend to be specialised, sometimes overspecialised. Only becomes known for something when one can successfully and confidently share one’s unique point of view and communicate clarity in one’s purpose. One’s audience and success, will follow (Biderman-Gross, 2023)

Biderman-Gross (2023) has defined a thought leader as a person who is specialised in a given area and whom others in that industry turn to for guidance. As the term implies, a thought leader leads others in the thinking around a given topic (Biderman-Gross, 2023). A thought leader typically stands out among competitors (Biderman-Gross, 2023). However, being a thought leader is about more than profits or even industry status. It’s about being authentic and empowering. It’s about influence – getting other people to think differently about something specific. It’s much more than just generating content and commenting on world events and trends. Thought leaders bring alternative views and insightful points to the table (Biderman-Gross, 2023).

According to  Biderman-Gross (2023) anyone who aspires to become a thought leader in their industry should consider: Are you firm in your purpose and beliefs? Are you staying true to yourself? Are you willing to shout about and defend your purpose?

Being a thought leader means having a unique point of view and consistently living it. You must demonstrate strength and discipline in all your actions. You must have clarity about your purpose. That’s how you become known for something, productise it and even monetise it (Biderman-Gross, 2023). However, Aarts (2025) notes that thought leaders have not always been called thought leaders. Today, everyone is a thought leader because everyone has a platform. Says Daniel Monehin cited by Aarts (2025)’

“A few decades ago, if you were given a platform to share your thoughts or point of view, you were part of an elite group. Today, everyone has a platform”. 

Credit Internet, a whole new ecosystem has emerged for business and professional content –one in which almost anyone can be an expert (Aarts, 2025). If you have a good idea or a smart observation, there is now very little stopping you from sharing it with, quite literally, the entire working world (Daniel Monehin cited by Aarts, 2025). This digital democratisation makes it much easier to hang out your shingle as a thought leader. The pool of people that can participate – and who can, therefore, share useful information with others – has grown exponentially.”

If you have a good idea or a smart observation, there is now very little stopping you from sharing it with, quite literally, the entire working world (Daniel Monehin cited by Aarts, 2025). Gatekeeper are now gone (Aarts, 2025).

Winick (2025) has recently explained the difference between a thought leaders and Philosophers. Philosophers think deep thoughts about ideas. Thought leaders lead in converting an idea into reality. The ability to take your ideas, create content and shape products that help others solve their toughest problems is at the heart of thought leadership – and so is market viability (Winick, 2025).

For God and my country.

• A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.

About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)

The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA).