INTELLECTUALS, reason & al.

[Ralph Dumain]

McClain Watson sez:

>Many of the remarks contained in your reply to D. Scully
resounded with
>me,

I'm glad, though it's too bad I lost you later on.

>Are not these condemnations of overt political action (regardless
of
>their long-term effectiveness) the very source of many arguments
>*against* the valorization of "science" and "logic"?

I don't understand this nonsense.  I did not condemn political
action.  Remember, in an earlier post, I said that the
(left-liberal) intellectual, insecure about his position in the
world, vacillates between autonomous theory and political
commitment, without being able to reconcile these two impulses.
In my last post, I suggested that the type of politics an academic
intellectual is likely to engage in , whatever else he may do,
cannot overcome the fundamental problem of perspective that
emanates from the division of labor itself.  I did not suggest
that profs quit their posts and take up jobs in heavy industry (no
longer available) or the fast food industry, but the truth is that
how you live every day and who you interact with has a more
fundamental effect on your relationship with the world than your
political lifestyle chosen as a free-time activity.  I did not
suggest a solution to this problem, because there is none, short
of a popular political movement, an issue which goes beyond the
question of how the intellectual can solve his problem in his
immediate situation.

> Also, isn't the "division of labor and the social segregations
of everyday life" the
>fundamental target of a majority of these
demonstrations/activities?

I would hope so, but in the absence of a real mass movement,
political activity becomes a subculture like any other, and hence
the problem remains.

> Finally, I take great issue with your inclusion of "writing
articles
>about gangsta rap" in your admittedly limited definition of
political
>activism.  Hip-hop (of which gangsta rap is merely a small
>manifestation) is one of the few cultural expressions which, with
some
>not insignificant qualifications, actually mirror many of the
same
>concerns that occupy those on this list.  Despite some major
>contradictions, which *do* need to be analyzed and brought to
bear (in
>order to more dialectically evaluate and therefore appreciate
this art
>form), hip-hop is not only, in the words of KRS-ONE "the CNN of
Black
>america" but, I would argue, one of the most promising
opportunities for
>unification of theory (word) and practice (rap).

Thanks for confirming my arguments by your bad example.  I write
what I do to oppose people who think as you do.  Because you do
your cheerleading for the black lumpen from a safe distance, you
don't have to deal directly with the consequences of the ignorance
you promote.  If you were a black parent raising children, you
would think differently.  The naivete of your statement is why I
write off the white intellectual left.  Worthless!

This is not 1968, when an innocent show like the Smothers Brothers
was booted off the air.  Bitching and moaning is now part of this
system; capitalism cannot survive without the cynicism it promotes
through the mass media, a cynicism which ultimately only confirms
its own power.  Cynicism doesn't fight fascism, it serves it.  The
question is: what do people have to strive for; do they seek to be
more than they are, do they demand a higher quality of life?  You
should spend more time with ghetto ignoramuses and with those who
strive to better themselves before you make such stupid
pronouncements.  The universal is not complaining; the universal
is the development of human beings.  You turn my stomach.  Obtuse,
idiotic, intellectual puppies who can't understand the most
elementary principles of human existence expressed in plain
English.  Makes me sick.