INTELLECTUALS, reason & al.

[Jim W. Jaszewski]

Robert Johnson wrote:
 
>         It is obvious to me that Ralph Dumain needs to be "engaged"
>         on his own level, which is admittedly "unlike" those whom
>         he critiques...
> 
>         Ralph, I think you're an ignorant jack-ass that couldn't
> sustain
>         a three minute discussion on mutually observable reality.
> 
>         Let's talk about "intellectual" credentials shall we?
> 
>                                                         Coyote

	No -- it is Dumain who is quite right here, and the intellectual pseuds
such as yourself who are QUITE WRONG. And you **MUST** be wrong, as your
reply shows that you SIMPLY DID NOT GRASP WHAT MR. DUMAIN WAS *CLEARLY*
DRIVING AT. (If you're offended by the next few paragraphs, continue on
down to the SPECIFIC example where Ralph is SHOWN to know whatof he
speaks... I will VOUCH for his veracity! Two against one!! NYAH!!)

	Anyway; it has become ABUNDANTLY clear to me over the past year or two,
reading the comings and goings of the university academician,
ivory-tower, ivy-league, post-marxish/modern, tweedy, bookish,
NON-INVOLVED, 'objective' OBSERVERS/VOYEURS among you, that academic
'marxism' (so-called) has developed a veritable INFESTATION of
intellectual parasites, such has seldom been seen before in human
history. My understanding of similar past episodes is that there was a
Karl Marx once who could separate the pseuds from the REAL
thinkers/doers, and then an Engels, and then a Lenin and a Trotsky...
But *TODAY*!! *NO ONE* speaks with such authority in the marxist
intellectual universe, and it has thus quickly become over-populated and
over-grown with the worst sorts of intellectual hucksters and
charlatans... The subject-matter is clearly so abstruse that there are
few out there who can cry out that 'the petty little tyrants of the
faculty associations (CERTAINLY not UNIONS!) have no clothes!!' --
FORGET about actual communist parties and close collaboration with the
working class..!

	What Dumain quite rightly objects to are the tenured schmucks with
which these email Lists ABOUND, pontificating with 'learned'
righteousness to us Great Unwashed activists... How DARE we pretend to
rub intellectual shoulders with our university-ensconced Betters..!!
What they perhaps forget MOST of all is the sacrifice many of us have
made in not pursuing a university career at the expense of removing
ourselves from the working class. WE know IMPORTANT things which YOU
don't... What a fucking crying shame that a 'Two Solitudes' situation
has arisen inside marxism -- to the near-eternal detriment of the world
socialist movement...

	Q: If youse guys are SO learned, why can't youse figger out how to
swallow your false pride and reach out to working class people and give
them the benefit of your 'erudition'?? And don't tell me you give
'courses' and 'seminars', so what's the Big Deal -- as that would be the
WRONG answer and I'd *fail you* on it in a test...

	Anyways:


> On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Ralph Dumain wrote:

> > > 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!

	Ralph! People like this liberal academic (a marxist? I gag at the
thought) are such idiots! Such schmucks! Sitting safe in their ivory
towers, living in the suburbs, or some university town, or a safe
yuppified part of the Big City, they SIMPLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU
ARE SAYING -- and it _IS_, as you say:

> > 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.

	What does the above mean in this context (excuse my lack of de rigeur
PostModSpeak)?

	It means that these 'profs' and undergrads, NOT having to live with the
_reality_ of this, indeed, *LUMPEN* 'kultur', can safely and
unself-consciously reify and contemplate the 'art' of GANGSTERS and
DRUGPUSHERS at a DISTANCE (not that I don't want drugs legalized; a
completely different subject in this context...) Problem is, Ralphie and
I have to *LIVE* with these guys -- and believe you me, it gives one a
WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE TO DO SO... It would be so easy to call this
racism (some do) but I don't have problems with my black landlord (other
than landlord/tenant things) nor with black *WORKING CLASS* people in
general (always exceptions, of course...)

	It seems something akin to studying the political economy of Aschwitz
-- while it's running! The point is REALLY to join the partisans and
DESTROY the object of your dissertation...

	One TRIES not to hate this trash kultur, as it is their, uh, 'genuine'
expression of who they are (but as always 'mediated' through some cash
nexus or other, eh?), but when one lives in the 'Mean Streets' of a
large city where the threat of gang violence is a CONSTANT
preoccupation, it is CLEAR that Ralph Dumain KNOWS what he is talking
about, and the sniffing academi-feebe DOES NOT. It is as simple as that
(no weaseling out or back-pedaling here...) Ralph Dumain and I do not
want to glorify a subkultur which is the effect of capitalist
degradation of the black working class. We want to see it GONE, and
these young black men given some HOPE -- which ONLY *GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT*
can give..!!

	Are you academics addressing THAT??


> > 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.

	Me too. Now; since universities are supposed to be chock full of WISE
men, why don't youse Offended Ones think twice before knocking-off some
sarcastic reply and THINK (your job, right?) about how to ENGAGE people
like Ralph and I in a dialog of mutual benefit??

	My fear is that, once youse guys figger out that it entails actually
COSTING you something you value -- or at least entails a COLOSSAL waste
of your VALUABLE time -- you will balk. And that would make my first
point, AFAIC...


							Jim W. Jaszewski.


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