Walter Lippmann, John Dewey, C. Wright Mills, and Edward Said, two civil intellectuals and two subversives; a conservative and two radical democrats in the American tradition, and one radical critic of the Western tradition: they all helped their societies to deliberate. They all in their own ways provoked their compatriots to talk. As there are limitations to their individual accounts of the intellectual and the public, the type of talk they provoked each has limits. Lippmann sought to interject intelligence into elite discussion, but was silent about the intelligence gleaned from popular experience. Dewey built upon such popular wisdom, but did not consider the way power works to structure public deliberations. Mills took into account this power and tried to subvert the prevailing common sense that served the power elite, but he was quite unclear about who it was he hoped to address and what might be the venues of their deliberations and actions. About this Said has been quite clear, but as he has attempted to speak in the voice of the subaltern, he has left out of his account the possibility of civilized discussion with those who disagree with him. The intellectuals serve their societies well when they provoke talk in this variety.