Intellectuals have a social and economic interest in downplaying the influence of 'low-brow' culture on their interests and thinking.

1/3

The history of ideas is littered with false attribution, as people try to find respectable attribution for the origin of their interests and ideas. I call this legitimacy laundering.

2/3

The Public Intellectual is particularly interesting example of this. They must be familiar with low brow culture to be considered fit to comment on it. Yet they must pretend to not be taken in by it.

3/3

When a public intellectual reveals they are taken in by low-brow culture, their followers are disillusioned and disperse.

When a public intellectual loses touch with low-brow culture they become obscure and their following slowly atrophies into a remnant.

4/3