Public peace intellectuals
Where are they?
Who are they?
Why didn’t they keep us out of war?
Can they do better?
Concerned Philosophers for Peace 2007 conference
Manchester College
Tom H. Hastings
PeaceVoice
4/8/2015
Public peace intellectuals: Tom H. Hastings, pcwtom@gmail.com,
A project of the
Oregon Peace Institute
http://www.peacevoice.info/
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Public intellectuals
By a public intellectual, I mean someone who
uses general ideas drawn from history,
philosophy, political science, economics, law,
literature, ideas that are part of the cultural
intellectual tradition of the world, to address
contemporary events, usually of a political or
ideological flavor, and does so in the popular
media, whether in the form of Op Ed pieces,
television appearances, signing full-page
advertisements, or writing magazine articles
or books addressed to a general audience.
—Richard A. Posner
4/8/2015
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Public philosophy?
American politics
lacks an animating
vision of the good
society, and of the
shared obligations
of citizenship.
—Michael Sandel
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Peace philosophy
Schools of philosophy call for
the Sandelist communitarian
view, the Rawlsian individual
rights liberalism, with
principled arguments over
fairness, economic justice,
human rights, the person and
the society and so forth and
so on—where is the argument
for nonviolent conflict
management? Who is making
the argument that peace is a
human right? Why isn’t this
even on the scoreboard?
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Where are peace intellectuals?
•Peace and Justice Studies Association
•Concerned Philosophers for Peace
•Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
•Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium
•International Peace Research Association
•various other academic peace sections in disciplines
•peace and justice institutes
•nongovernmental organizations
•independent peace scholars
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Public peace intellectuals: Tom H. Hastings, pcwtom@gmail.com, http://www.peacevoice.info/
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Why didn’t they keep us out of war?
Silent enim leges inter arma—In war, the law is
silent, said Cicero in 52 B.C. So, it would seem,
were the peace scholars as the Bush
administration sold the invasion of Iraq to the
American electorate. Were peace professors
afraid? Discouraged? Disempowered? Doing
something else more important? Were we simply
overwhelmed and not competent enough to
stand effectively against lies, faulty thinking,
ahistorical claims and shrill fearmongering? Or is
there a vast media conspiracy that rejects our
writing, our thinking, our peace analysis and our
right to explain it publicly?
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What good is your voice?
There is little evidence that public
intellectuals are highly influential. If this
is right, there is little payoff to the public
as a whole in becoming well informed
about the limitations of academic
expertise and even less to an individual
member of the public; a single
individual’s opinion on an issue of public
moment is unlikely to be influential—
which is why voters tend to be poorly
informed about such issues.
—Richard A. Posner
4/8/2015
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The uniformed electorate
Is Posner correct? Is the lack of influence by one public
intellectual the reason voters are ill-informed? Or could
it be that voters are overwhelmed with the incessant
drum of the Big Lie and the endless drone of the master
narrative of the war system?
Careful, careful danger near!
We will tell you whom to fear.
Whom to loathe and whom to hate
and when we must retaliate!
love,
ThePublic
War
System
Media
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peace intellectuals:
Tom H.
Hastings, pcwtom@gmail.com, http://www.peacevoice.info/
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Who reads your opinion?
Op-eds serve as an inexpensive
way to get your message out to
the public, and are quite often
read by decision makers and
opinion leaders.
—The Communications Network
4/8/2015
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Problems
•hostile media
•incompetent writing
•discouraged writers
•time issues
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Hostile media
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Boring writing
Public-intellectual goods are
entertainment goods and
solidarity goods as well as
information goods.
—Richard Posner
4/8/2015
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Size matters
In the op-ed world,
like the spy game,
smaller is better.
Actually, precision is
best. If you write a
piece 500 words long
and send it to a paper
that wants 700 words,
you won’t get it
placed. Most papers
seem to prefer 500700 words, but it
varies widely.
Don’t make the editor cut it.
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Time issues
Good morning! Time to
finish grading papers for
your 2 p.m. class so you
can make your 8 a.m.
meeting with the Chair,
the 9 a.m. Retention
committee meeting, the
10 a.m.-noon advising
sessions, the working
lunch with the conference
committee, the 1 p.m.
faculty meeting...
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And now, how?
•establish expertise
•bootstrap from your credentials into various media
•be persistent
•be fresh
•be timely
•be focused
•target markets with a market-specific hook
•take a position
•stress exclusivity
•think over the horizon
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Public peace intellectuals: Tom H. Hastings, pcwtom@gmail.com, http://www.peacevoice.info/
•write tight, argue actively
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Establish and use your expertise
A timely, well-written and
provocative piece can establish the
writer as an expert on a particular
topic.
—DePaul University Media Relations
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Leverage and be dependable
Use your credentials to assist your
marketability into print pages,
which can sometimes in turn result
in other media interest. “Newspaper
editors and broadcasting producers
regularly read the Op-Ed pages of
national newspapers when seeking
experts on particular subjects. Op-Ed
editors also solicit pieces from
writers with whom they have
established a relationship or people
with expertise on topics in the
news.”
—DePaul University Media Relations
4/8/2015
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Be persistent
If your Op-Ed is rejected at one
publication, don’t be discouraged.
—DePaul University Media Relations
4/8/2015
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Discouraged writers
When being interviewed by a
young writer, Pearl Buck
mentioned some rejection and
the young woman said, “But you
don’t get rejected. You’re Pearl
Buck.”
Pearl Buck replied, “Young
woman, I am a writer. I get
rejections.”
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Keep it in perspective
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck was returned
fourteen times, but it went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead was
rejected twelve times.
Twenty publishers felt that Richard Bach’s
Jonathan Livingston Seagull was for the birds.
Before he wrote Roots, Alex Haley had received
200 rejections.
Robert Persig's classic, Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance, couldn’t get started at 121
houses.
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Be fresh, original, and contrarian
An original point of view…will also
make your piece stand out.…A point
of view contrary to prevailing public
opinion or the newspaper’s editorial
position will also greatly improve
your placement chances.
—DePaul University Media Relations
Be timely, controversial, but not
outrageous. Be the voice of reason.
—John McLain, McLain Communications
4/8/2015
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Focus
The single most important
piece of advice I can offer
is to make your column
about one thing. Only one
thing.…Try to say what
you want to say in a
headline. If you can’t
phrase your main point in
six or eight words, you
probably need to do more
thinking.
—Glenn Kranzley, Editor,
The Morning Call
Comment Pages
4/8/2015
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Target and hook
If you want your piece
published in a specific market,
target it. Do you wish to write
to the decisionmakers in
Eugene, Oregon? Mention
something or someone that
connects obviously to Eugene.
Read the Register-Guard. Do
they like 700 words? Write
between 690-710. Show them
something that none of them
could have written. Work on the
peg, the hook, the angle. Think
globally, write locally.
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Take a position
An op-ed is not an essay, something
that slowly unrolls like a carpet,
building momentum to some point or
conclusion. It’s just the opposite. In an
op-ed, you essentially state your
conclusion first. You make your
strongest point up front, then spend the
rest of the op-ed making your case, or
back-filling with the facts. Don’t
equivocate. Educate your readers
without being preachy.
—John McLain, McLain Communications
4/8/2015
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Stress exclusivity
Editors want to be the first to
publish any piece. The more content
of their paper that is original to
them, the better. This is becoming a
different world now that we have
blogs. If you really want to convince
an editor that your piece is original
and exclusive, stress that you are
holding back from publishing
electronically until you have a
decision from that editor. Otherwise,
be honest about blogging your piece
and never ever offer an already
printed piece as exclusive; always be
forthright will all editors.
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Think over the horizon
Anticipate anniversaries,
seasonal news, pending
legislation and threatening
wars. Be accurate in your
facts and assertions.
Speculate conservatively but
backed by the facts and
precedent. Have a nose for
what is going to be news and
show editors you can get
something to her or him first.
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Write tight and argue actively
Find, sort, examine, try out, polish, and
use active verbs (like this sentence).
Skip the boring, hyperbolic, leading,
substitute-for-facts-and-research
adjectives and adverbs (unlike this
sentence).
“Near the end, clearly re-state your
position and issue a call to action.”
—John McLain, McLain Communications
4/8/2015
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PeaceVoice
You are still in the bind of
time. It takes time to compose
and polish an op-ed. It takes
time and fiddling around to
look for an outlet.
That is the advantage of
PeaceVoice, a project of the
Oregon Peace Institute. We are
funded by an Oregonian
family foundation to be your
free op-ed literary agent. You
write; we strive to place it for
you.
4/8/2015
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PeaceVoice operates for you
Write your 400-700 word
commentary and send it to
PeaceVoiceDirector@gmail.com.
We will in turn send a teaser of
your piece to hundreds of editors
across the U.S. If one of them
asks to see the entire piece, we
send your full text to them
exclusively. If that editor uses
your piece, we then move the full
text to our website and any editor
can freely reprint.
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Go public!
Someone needs to speak up...
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