INTELLECTUALS, reason & al.

[kenneth.mackendrick]

Jim wrote:
> 	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..?)

I guess, and i'm sure i'll be blasted for this, that it is becoming more and more 
difficult to determine which voices i need to hear.  Should i spend more time on the 
footsteps of my downtown apartment? or should i head over to the local pub 
(more often) to "reach those who do not speak the same vocabulary?"  I find 
suffering fucked up things wherever i go - whether in the library, the bank, or the 
grocery store.  But what am i missing?  is their some sort of underground voice 
that i miss when i walk across the church and wellesley corner?  should i be plying 
my anarchist-marxian trade on the streets rather than in my papers?  i simply don't 
know which will be more helpful.  i guess i don't seem too much of what you are 
getting at here.  certainly most of the responses on this list have been thoughtful 
and sensitive to a wide variety of perspectives and open to new ideas and streams 
of discussion.  of course if you're pointing the finger at me - then i'll admit you've 
got my attention.

> 	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..!   :)
> 
Adorno once noted that the working class would only be united by the oppression of 
its own membership.  I think he was right here - and i think this also applies to the 
notion of "masses" as well.  The common demoninator does not seem to be so 
common.  It is easy to find sensible critiques of such essentialism - whether in 
feminist theory, queer theory, anarchist theory, or critical theory.  Exactly what 
constitutes the "socialism from below?"  I'm not talking about this just to be talking 
about it.  I'm serious - are we looking at economic characteristics, psychological 
dynamics, social ties...?

> 	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.

Political activity is a strange criterion for being a marxist.  But i suppose it 
depends upon what one understands to be political doesn't it?

> > 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..?

It was an attack on your point.  The glorification that you place upon thinking doers 
seems to exclude some worthwhile aspects of thinking and doing.

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

Which is to say that those who are not living on the plush maintain a privileged 
position in regards to the human ideal of freedom.  Some people cannot cope in a 
reality that is chaotic and harsh - because they would die if their stability was 
challenged.  What about them - the poor bastards - what about them.  I just can't 
support an argument that debases people because they attempt to fulfill their 
needs and wants.  As Adorno argued - needs and wants must be respected - 
because they keep people alive and kicking - but this does not place the plush 
beyond critique - no, not at all, it means that we need to abolish the horrid 
conditions that makes people vegetables - whoever and wherever these people 
are (my comfort lovin - pvc wearing - book reading - email junkie self included).

I also wonder why such an emphasis is placed upon targeting marxist 
intellectuals?  Why must they, more than others, wear a prepackaged class-based 
uniform?  Doesn't it make sense that a marxist is someone who knows of or makes 
reference to marx in their theory, practice, praxis?  Beyond that we're slipping into 
a dangerous trap of fereting out those who don't conform - a kind of 
theoretical anti-intellectual brute squad.

Adorno and Horkheimer have a wonderful discussion in Dialectic of Enlightenment 
about being a doctor which pertains to this discussion about being critical of how 
one chooses to live ones life...


A.  You don't want to be a doctor them?

B.  Doctors have so much professional contact with dying people that they become 
hardened, the doctor also comes to represent the establishment and its hierarchy 
for the patient...

A.  Do you then maintain that there should be no doctors or that the old quacks 
should return?

B.  I did not say that.  I am simply horrified at the prospect of becoming a doctor 
myself... Nevertheless, I consider it better for doctors and hospitals to exist than 
for sick people to be left to die...

A.  I do not agree with you at all.  You yourself make use of the benefits created by 
doctors... You share their guilt.  But you do not want to take part in the work which 
others do for you.  your own existence presupposed the principle you would like to 
escape.

B.  I do not deny that, but the contradiciton is necessary.  It is the answer to the 
objective contradiction of society.  With the complex division of labour which we 
have today, horror may arise at one point and involve the guilt of everyone.  If it 
develops and if only a small proportion of humankind become aware of it, mental 
homes... could perhaps be humanized...  But that is not the reason why I want to 
become a writer.  I simply wish to explain more clearly for myself the terrible state 
in which everyone lives today.

A.  But if everyone thought as you do and nobody wanted to dirty her or his hands, 
there would be no more doctors, and the world would be even more terrible than it 
is today.

B.  I am not so sure; if everybody thought as I do, I hope that evil itself as well as 
the means to combat it would diminish.  Humankind has other possibilities.  I am 
not the whole of humankind and my thoughts cannot stand for those of everybody 
else.  The moral principle that each of my actions should be able to stand as a 
general maxim is very dubious.  It overlooks the lesson of history.  Why should 
my own disinclination to become a doctor be equated with the assumption that 
there should be no doctors?...  My own existence as I imagine it to be, my fear and 
will to understand my condition seem as justified to me as the profession of the 
doctor, even though I cannot directly help anyone.

A.  But if you knew that you could save the life of a person who is dear to you by 
studying medicine would you not then take up this study, especially if you knew 
that the person concerned would die unless you did so?

B.  Probably, but you will agree that you have had to take an absurd example with 
your preference for taking an argument to its ultimate conclusion, whereas I - with 
my impractical stubborness and contradictions - have still remained within the 
bounds of common sense.

edited by ken who takes responsibility for screwing up whatever was actually said.