Bangladeshi intellectual life still leans heavily on an oral tradition. Of course, there are many scholars who follow proper research methods and produce serious academic work. But much of that work remains locked inside university walls.
The people we most often see in public, on TV talk shows, YouTube, Facebook Live, are not always academically rigorous. They don’t necessarily need to be. What they do have is influence.
They help shape public opinion. Many call themselves thinkers or writers, publish a few books for the local market, but they are known more for how they speak than for what they write.
Personally, I don’t see an “oratory-driven culture” as a bad thing in itself. In societies with strong oral traditions, speaking can be a genuine form of thinking and sharing knowledge.
But it creates a structural problem. To borrow from Bourdieu, our “field” of intellectual life is now arranged in such a way that symbolic capital depends on how often someone appears on TV, how viral their clips go, and how many live shows they do.
In that environment, slow, careful scholarship loses value. Media logic rewards speed, drama, and emotion. It does not reward nuance.
Very quickly, attention itself becomes the standard of intellectual worth.
Public intellectuals then move along with the current “common sense” of the moment, what Gramsci called hegemony, instead of challenging it. The urge to say difficult, unpopular things weakens.
Many intellectuals, as a result, drift toward popularity. In front of a live audience, with limited time and a charged atmosphere, they end up saying what people want to hear.
They help set the agenda, what will be discussed, and they shape the frame, how an issue should be understood. In doing so, they often reduce complex realities into simple, black-and-white boxes.
This brings quick popularity. People feel: “He is speaking my language; he is one of us.” Activists from different camps feel encouraged and sometimes even treat such intellectuals as informal advisers. Careers move forward. Names are proposed for positions and committees.
But this type of intellectual work usually does not ask hard questions or offer real solutions. It entertains the present and thinks less about the future. As Hannah Arendt put it, opinion moves forward while judgment falls behind.
Let me give one example. A well-known public intellectual, whom I personally respect, publicly defended the 2014 controversial election in the name of law and order. He morally endorsed the violent clearing of Shapla Chattar and questioned the politics of those who boycotted the election. The same person took a very critical and courageous stance during the July 2024 movement.
I am not calling him a hypocrite. I am saying he was dependent on the mood and power balance of the time.
In 2014, the pro-Awami League narrative was dominant and the opposition’s strategy failed to gain wide sympathy.
In 2024, the anti-Awami League wave became much stronger. Many intellectuals switched sides by riding that wave.
In Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow’s terms, they made active use of changing “political opportunities.” When the tide shifted, they surfed with it. But surfing the wave and steering its direction are not the same thing.
Why does this matter now?
Because the same style of intellectual work is today loudly opposing an inclusive election. The 2026 election should be a real transition, from authoritarian rule, through an interim arrangement, toward a government elected through credible competition. For that, three things are essential: Credibility, participation, and inclusion.
But in today’s climate, competition seems to be shrinking into a contest between one or two forces. Others, especially the Awami League, may be blocked from meaningful participation. The situation is uncertain even for parties like the Jatiya Party.
Those who demand an inclusive election are easily branded as “pro-fascist” or supporters of fascism. Dissent is pushed to the sidelines.
This is what Tocqueville called the tyranny of the majority. J S Mill warned us that in such contexts, unpopular opinions often point to our blind spots and help us avoid future crises.
The reality is simple: If a large part of the political spectrum is excluded from elections, their political voice does not disappear, it changes form. When institutional avenues are blocked, politics becomes more confrontational.
Exclusion breeds unrest, unrest invites repression, repression brings international pressure, and finally the legitimacy of the elected government starts to erode.
In such a situation, the state becomes trapped in “security-first” mode. Governing turns into managing crises. Streets become the central site of political pressure. Rights debates intensify.
Any government that relies too much on force to restore order becomes unpopular and loses legitimacy even faster.
At that point, the oratory-driven intellectual circle reappears with a new script. As unrest grows, many start calling for “order now, everything else later,” because that tone once again matches public frustration.
The same intellectual voices that today ask us to accept a bad election in the name of stability may tomorrow justify emergency measures in the name of the same stability.
Julien Benda called this the “treason of the intellectuals.” When intellectuals abandon universal moral responsibility and become loyal to one camp or another, sacrificing the larger interests of society.
Noam Chomsky puts it more plainly: The job of intellectuals is to tell the truth and expose lies, especially in uncomfortable times.
I am not against orality. What I want is parrhesia, truth-telling in public, even when it is risky. That requires rules.
Habermas’s idea of the public sphere gives us a basic outline: Give reasons, allow others to scrutinize them, and respect the rules of argument. In Max Weber’s terms, we have to balance the ethic of conviction with the ethic of responsibility. It is not enough to hold pure principles; we must also take responsibility for their consequences.
In practice, this means building an intellectual culture that defends inclusive, rule-based politics before it becomes fashionable, admits mistakes when evidence changes, and looks at long-term collective consequences rather than the volume of applause.
Bangladesh needs public thinkers who can resist the immediate thrill of claps without sinking into despair. Thinkers who are willing to accept costs to their own side in order to protect inclusive procedures. Who can build bridges between peer-reviewed, slow knowledge and the wider public sphere. Who will ask of every popular frame: What is missing here, whose voice is absent, and what future risks are being hidden?
If we fail to do that, the loud voices we are cheering today may tomorrow be used to burn down our own house, if not today, then later.
The antidote to an oratory-dominated culture is not silence. The answer is principled speech, where arguments are backed by evidence, opponents are treated fairly, and uncomfortable truths are spoken regularly, not just when they are convenient. If that means a little less applause today in exchange for a safer future, that is a trade we should be willing to make.
Asif Bin Ali is a Doctoral Fellow, Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA. Email: abinali2@gsu.edu.