INTELLECTUALS, reason & al.: SUMMING UP

[Ralph Dumain]

As I recall, the Frankfurt School list was pretty dormant when I uploaded my
original query on intellectuals and the division of labor on 12 May.  Then
this list reawakened to feverish activity and vigorous debate, in which I
among others have thrown out a large number of important ideas to chew on.
These are some of the topics we have debated over the past two and a half
months: philosophy, intellectuals and the division of labor, theory and
practice, the instrumental approach to cultural politics, hip-hop, the
academic rut, footnote-whoring and the inability to listen, the deleterious
effects of anti-Enlightenment propaganda on postcolonial theory, the nature
of rationality, Sartre, Adorno, C.L.R. James.  Seems I have contributed
quite a bit.  

There are a few areas in which I have not followed up as thoroughly as I
should have.

I have not adequately answered Doug Kellner's request for an explanation of
C.L.R. James's ideas on intellectuals and the division of labor.  On 26 June
I uploaded one of my favorite James quotes, from STATE CAPITALISM AND WORLD
REVOLUTION.  All the clues are given in this one quote, though there is more
to be said.  I did not receive one word in response to this quotation,
except from Bryan Alexander.  Why am I not surprised?

I did not completely answer the various questions as to how I would define
rationality and simplicity.

I have not defined what I meant by universals.

I took a shortcut in addressing liberation theology while responding to J.
Broad.  So let me say I agree completely with Kenneth Mackendrick's post of
27 July in which he justly trashes the proponents of liberation theology.

McClain Watson protested, 24 July:

>Why do you assume I am white?  Why do you assume I "cheerlead" from a
>distance?  Why do you asume I am not a black parent?

And even more to the point:
  
>Amen!  However, the tendency to immediately make negative assumptions
>regarding other people's motives/abilities is surely a definition of
>cynicism, is it not? 

Touche!  William Blake expressed it perfectly: "They became what they beheld."

There are some points I should have addressed:

Kenneth Mackendrick, 29 July:

>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?

Scott Johnson's post of 29 July hit the nail on the head.  Loved his
concluding paragraph:

>I get disgusted with the whole left-academic schtick (name-dropping,
>bibliography-packing, the conscious attempt at ridiculously abstract,
>masturbatory prose -- in short, Gallomania.) Like it or not, though, I'm an
>egghead, too, and I certainly can't accept the unreconstructed consciousness of
> the "proles". In a war of proles and eggheads, one can only hope for both to
>give way to something else

Johnson's concluding sentence expresses my point of view! (Whereas
Dunayevskaya's rhetoric about listening to the voices from below serves no
other purpose but cultism and self-glorification.)  I'm not sure how to
address Mackendrick's tongue-in-cheek query, but perhaps Johnson's comments
will help.  Why is it not clear that my fundamental point of departure is
the overcoming of a fractured, fragmented and diseased world, hence my claim
that the universal is human development and not social protest?  Why is this
not clear?

Jim Jaszewski forcefully addressed the essential issues, though I have
outgrown his sectarian leftist rhetoric about party work.  I am enjoying
Curtiss Leung's recent interventions.

What else to say about my own performance and where I should go from here?
Admittedly I am a tease at times.  I have thrown in curve-ball one-liners
when least expected, esp. with the intent of disabusing people of their
stereotypical assumptions.  First I attacked hackademics.  Then I said I was
not doing so from the point of view of political activism.  Then I talked
about everyday life.  Then I insisted I am neither a pragmatist nor a
plain-folks simpleton.  Then I said I don't ask intellectuals to get
politically active, because guilt-ridden people who need to belong and
overcome their feelings of uselessness are easy prey for totalitarianism.
Naive person that I must be, I think: you highly educated geniuses out
there, trained up to the gills in the subtleties of textual exegesis,
reading these various provocative one-liners, might think: this character is
not what I expected, he must really have an unusual and interesting point of
view, maybe I should inquire into it more deeply.  That so few of you have
demonstrated the perspicacity to do so only confirms my suspicions of how
useless you really are.  That is why I wash my hands of you.  I have no need
of your thoughts, but I do need your specialized knowledge, with the hopes
of putting it to productive use.

I want to thank all those who have provided valuable information and
feedback concerning Adorno and Sartre, as well as those who attempted to
answer my original query.  I continue to welcome all further information
that could assist me in my research.