INTELLECTUALS, reason & al.

[Jim W. Jaszewski]

kenneth.mackendrick wrote:

> Liberation theology, via Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Gustavo Gutierrez, or Paulo
> Freire, argues that one must give theoretical and practice privilege to the poor.

	I have always liked many elements of what Freire writes (the teachin'
stuff, of course), but I have always considered that there is far too
much 'eclecticism' going on here and elsewhere (a common vice of
idealist thinkers) -- especially in Liberation Theology -- and not
enough hard-nosed 'synthesis' of any useful elements into our common(?)
marxist framework (all complications anticipated, hopefully!!)
Psycho-analytic insights come to mind as another example...



> What this accomplishes logically is the the justification and perpetuation of the
> system which creates and sustains poverty!

	The 'logic' -- as far as it goes...



>  Since "the poor" or "the working
> class" are interpreted to have greater insight into human suffering - they are
> epistemologically given superior status in terms of decision making and policy
> generation.  So the rational conclusion, since poverty becomes a position of
> privilege, is that the system which generates poverty MUST be maintained.  Now
> this is not what Gutierrez and friends are fighting for - but theoretically they have
> written a powerful critique of one ideology and simply replaced it with another
> (ideology in the marxian sense).

	The fallacy in that line lies, of course, in the 'are interpreted to
have greater insight' part above. This is indeed a real danger if
'logic' of this type is implemented (Pol Pot and ilk come to mind) --
but to me, here, it is simply sloppy logic -- and ONLY (bourgeois
idealist) logic -- being based more on *abstract thought* than _real_
conditions 'on the ground' (a common failing of all 'idealist'
systems...) Asking/demanding that intellectuals work CLOSELY with the
people they are SUPPOSED to be working FOR does *NOT* imply ANY
assumption that: non-intellectuals -- workers -- have any 'greater
insight' than intellectuals. It's just that they *DO HAVE insights* of
sorts the intellectuals are SUPPOSED to take into account, but often
don't -- as often as not a result of not being in CONSTANT contact with
these people, even unto a daily basis (Party work comes to mind...) The
other side of this coin is that it is the intellectuals' _JOB_ to
QUICKLY and SUCCINCTLY *PASS ON* to the workers the insights and
information they have acquired as a result of this particular division
of labor -- thus helping their more manually-laboring comrades to rise
above their present state of 'common sense' and 'home-spun wisdom', and
thus achieve a state of marxist nirvana along with their more cerebral
comrades...    ;>

	Seems like a perfectly dialectical relationship to me. Are we not
supposed to have a Better Thing than what the bourgeoisie have going??
We sure don't now! Bourgeois (i.e.: Actually Existing) Academe is
TERMINALLY one-way and hierarchical, and is NOT THE MODEL ANY MARXIST
SCHOLAR SHOULD BE FOLLOWING. PERIOD. This 'discussion' proves that to
me. I do not see that many academics trying very hard to reach those who
do not speak the 'same vocabulary'. I see much more the resentment of
some unwanted intrusion, not unlike situations where the 'Right People'
are (egads!) accosted by the Great Unwashed Lumpen on their -- more and
more infrequent -- trips downtown (Spare change, Mister..?)

 
> Ralph has clearly defended himself against my accusation that he was simply a
> pragmatist - and offered up the idea that he is relentlessly engaged in
> "top-of-the-line" intellectual pursuits - despite their self-involvement.  However I am
> worried here about Jim's recent comments.
> 
> >       "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."
> 
> MUST be wrong?  Is this out of context or have all of the ivory tower discourse
> masterbators just been written off (BTW - I'm not exactly sure why masterbation is
> a bad thing here....).

	What's so hard to understand here?? Maybe I took another big chance,
jumping into a discussion I had not followed -- but it is INDEED clear
(to me anyway) that the 'intellectual worker' who called Dumain onto the
carpet simply did _not_ understand what Dumain was saying. It is that
simple. Being an 'intellectual worker', he *needs* to show that he
understands what he replying to, moreso than a non-academic such as
Dumain needs to. As for 'Post-Modernisms': I am yet to be convinced that
much of this 'thought' is anything other than a cover for a retreat from
marxism back to idealism and whatever we call moral relativism these
daze... (Communism is DEAD, after all. Let's get with The Program! Grant
time!! Publish or Perish!!!)

	Perhaps those who brought this Frankfurt School List into being and
nothingness had the (perhaps unconscious) intention of making it into,
and keeping it, an 'academics-only' backchannel -- but this then begs
the bigger question: SHOULD 'marxist' intellectuals be shutting
themselves AND their research off from their prole-comrades simply
because this is the usual practice in BOURGEOIS Academe?? Are we not
trying to create a BETTER way of doing things?? Something with a
democratic content a quantum leap above that already existing??

	That many of the intellectual workers writing in these Lists are
CLEARLY *completely* unconnected to ANY organization of the working
class is proof enough to me that it is THEY who have MUCH to answer for
-- not 'socialism from below' types like Dumain and myself (Dumain is
now free to dis-associate himself from me..!   :)



> Email is certainly not an appropriate medium for conveying exactly how one is
> engaged.  As a matter of fact - none of us have any idea how others conduct or live
> their lives.

	Not quite true. And it will become less so as Technology Marches On.


>  I especially take offence to the accusation of being NON-INVOLVED.
> Bottom line - you have no idea.  You simply have no idea how most of us live our
> lives.

	Why do you feel I include ALL readers in this? Guilty conscience??  :>

	I state again: it is more clear to me than ever that _numerous_
intellectual workers, who claim to be marxists, are completely
uninvolved in ANY political work which entails actual commitment to ANY
cause -- let alone privation or personal risk. Let me take a guess, just
to put it in perspective, maybe. Fifty percent of 'em?  Maybe I am
uncharitable. Perhaps it's only a _third_ of professors/graduate
students/etc. In ANY case, it is *TOO MANY*. It is enough to have
allowed the bourgeoisie's intellectuals to've 'drowned out' those others
who've fought the Good (intellectual) Fight, with the result that
*nearly the ENTIRE WORLD WORKING CLASS* has been led *even further*
astray (inasmuch as these intellectuals had real power to influence
workers) by an ever-more-insidious capitalism which has now recovered
its balance somewhat, and gotten a new lease on life this century...



>  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...
> 
> Yes - and it seems to me that Marx's wife, someone who seems to have had an
> even greater ability to discern the thinkers/doers than the master himself, once
> wondered when Karl was going to stop drinking in the streets and do his share of
> the cooking and cleaning.

	Your point being..?



> > 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...
> 
> Andrea Nye?  Noam Chomsky?  Agnes Heller?  Murray Bookchin?  whoops -
> sorry -
> too ivory tower.

	Noam Chomsky. Murray Bookchin. Smart guys. Many deep ideas. Too bad
they're not much marxist. Surely you can think of some REAL 'poseurs'..?



>  Does time in jail give lend itself to the necessary
> credentials for
> anti-establishmentarianism?

	Oooh. A twenty dollar one..!   :P

	Depends for what, eh? And don't tell me there's much of THAT going on
these daze. To gain _my_ respect I FULLY expect academics to be under
CONSTANT threat of dismissal from 'The Grove' -- not to mention living
under the constant hounding of the secret police..!       ;>

	I'll say it again, another way: there are too many cushy careerists
here/out there.


 
> > 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...
> 
> This is my point.  Poverty is EVIL BECAUSE IT DESTROYS.  Liberation
> maintains that "we can worhip god even if we are poor."  THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!

	Like, we have a problem here?? Are we on the same frequency, Kenneth??



> When you are too tired to walk to the church, to hungry to think, too overworked to
> communicate - you cannot worship.  Power corrupts equally - the tendency to
> assimilate, ignore, and dispatch orders instead of having a conversation - neither the
> working class nor the ivory towers are an appropriate place to theorize.  "Right
> thoughts in the wrong world are impossible."

	Uh, ya..? But forget the voodoo -- I'm a marxist..! I don't really want
to discuss 'religious' ideology  except in an, uh, anthropological,
historico-materialist kinda way...  :>




> A seminar no.  A conversation with the capacity to make good on the consensual
> decisions through the use of communicative power - YES.  Let's talk about law - or
> anarchy - and stop quibbling about whose "necessary perspective" is being left
> out.

	We are not quibbling -- we are dissecting a gaping flaw in 'marxist'
academics' *entire modus operandi* (please DON'T counter about the
working class' intellectual flaws..!! :) I simply stuck the point home
in a manner which (hopefully) any honest academician could not easily
wiggle out from under...



>  If you're on this list - your in.  An email list does not have the capacity to do
> the things you are concerned with.  The banking system is left intact as are
> speculative non-taxed stock exchanges.  The revolution will not be digitalized -

	Hey -- if I wanted to, I could make a buck offa da Revolution...     
:>

	As for Lists: I think you underestimate the *POWER* of this new medium.
NEVER before have we been in a situation where we could discuss and
learn so _EFFICIENTLY_. SURE Big Brother uses it to spy on us too -- but
Big Brother will NEVER be as SMART about this as we can be -- not even
if He tries... And that you do not even countenance the possibility of
something like this List's discussions leading, possibly even
(more-or-less) _directly_(!), to the overthrow of the present economic
system only goes to prove my point further IMO.



> although such computeralization plays its part.  And as far as I can see NO ONE on
> this list has shouted great hurrah's about a university education - an oxymoron in
> most instances

	One reason I never finished a degree. But let me state CLEARLY here
that I am not against university education -- I want it for *EVERYBODY*,
I want it *FREE* and I want it ** N O W !! **     :>

	Again: I am simply against the guild-like elitism of bourgeois academe,
which the 'marxish' academics seem unable (or unwilling) to shake off.
It's WAY past time to set right this state of affairs, and EXCUSE me if
I'm in kind of a HURRY.



> - although a few have hinted that it has helped them (did it help
> marx? emma goldman? che? zetkin? kollontai?).

	Marx and Che for sure. Don't forget ol' boyo Noam either.

 
> disenchantedly yours,
> ken

	Likewise, bubba...       :>


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