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In an op-ed column on Feb. 15, New York Times's Nicholas Kristof notes that a certain anti-intellectual drift deprives the nation from the expertise of academics, while their own scorn for participating in public debate rather than doing serious research walls off their research from the world:The latest attempt by academia to wall itself off from the world came when the executive council of the prestigious International Studies Association proposed that its publication editors be barred from having personal blogs. The association might as well scream: We want our scholars to be less influential!In particular, Kristof notes that "Universities have retreated from area studies, so we have specialists in international theory who know little that is practical about the world." But this is not the case in all disciplines: economists are not afraid of expressing their views on the public scene.Reactions and comments on The Ticker, a blog on The Chronicle of Higher Education: "A Column Lamenting the Disappearing Public Intellectual Touches a Nerve"