A society based on the hyperproduction of public knowledge has long since abandoned the enlightening mission of the universal intellectual. Now is the time of stars and mannequins of mass-media superficiality, social commentators and mandarins of neoliberal political strategy. Is it even possible to open up the possibility of preserving elite culture in the age of a spectacle of the society that uses and consumes intellectuals in the same way as it produces ever new media stars? How else to maintain the concept of intellectuals as moral-political and ideological authorities in a society that is falling apart into fragments of lifestyles?