[ALittleLight]

The problem is that "serious public intellectual" is a kind of empty insult that is just doing rhetorical work to make the author seem smarter or more accomplished at the expense of PG. When I say "Empty" I mean that it doesn't really convey anything, what is a serious public intellectual? How is someone famous for writing and sharing essays about his area of expertise not a serious public intellectual?

The term doesn't really convey real meaning. It's just a rhetorical sneer. Like, if I wrote "Zach Tellman is basically Microsoft's idea of a smart person." It is somehow putting down the author, and Microsoft, and implying that I'm so much better and smarter. In the same way "He's not a serious public intellectual" implies not only that PG is unserious or non-intellectual, but that the author is some high authority who can cast these judgments.

In reality, of course, the author has no claim to judge who is serious or who is an intellectual.

[wellpast]

> Zach Tellman is basically Microsoft's idea of a smart person.

To be fair (and to contradict your point), you are better and smarter for saying this, it's hilarious.

> In reality, of course, the author has no claim to judge who is serious or who is an intellectual.

Precisely. And even more, the personalized attack on PG seem more like a giant projection of Tellman's.

"I recognized that he had a tendency towards self-aggrandizement..."

"In many ways, those early essays contained the clearest articulation of his framework; it just took me ten years to see it."

It took Tellmen ten years of deep thought to finally crack this nut: that PG is a profoundly unserious intellectual! Ten years, but finally he did it, he cracked it.

Hard to find more ridiculous self-aggrandizement than that.