dianne writes,
"i still believe that in choosing to respond publicly, i assume a
responsibility for the words i write and the ideas i try to communicate.
one thing a writer can never control is the reader, of course.
that is the peril of writing, and all the more reason why academic writing
involves a kind of responsibility that is particular to academics - we
hold positions of privilege and so on,"
well diane, I am not an academic although I do consider myself an
intellectual and I do intellectual work (research) in education . . . but
basically I'm just a wage slave when push comes to shove. I don't know what
position of academic privilege you hold or aspire to but I don't hold any.
I know that I hold a position of privilege just by the fact that I'm was
born in america to a middle class family and therefor have an average
participation in the world's energy that is probably at least 100 times
greater than that of 90 percent of the world. at one time I tried to avoid
and deny these peculiarities of my birth but realized that wasn't something
I could really achieve. so I just live frugally and prefer to use whatever
intelligence I have to pursue what I consider "liberatory" action rather
than try to make money or ensure a middle class security until I die. but I
know for a fact that I don't enjoy any "academic" privileges" -- does the
HSU library count? any resident of Arcata or Eureka can get a card -- , and
I have a feeling that a lot of xmca members don't enjoy many privileges
either because they're school teachers at the end of the educational
spectrum that isn't considered academic at all.
Intellectuals here in the "land of the freeways, and home of the <syn::
baseball team that employs John Rocker>:" certainly don't tend to get
popular respect for being welll-read or knowledgeable or critically
thoughtful . Although grateful for the relative freedom from material
necessity, I for one am most sad that I'm an american because of our
incredibly anti-intellectual culture which accords no respect to
intellectuals and where the only viable way to pursue an intellectual
practice is in academia -- which is primarily an institution of the
capitalist system of production both positively (direct ties to corporate
research in every field) and negatively (coopt, segregate, and neutralize
the intellectual opposition to the capitalist hegemony). I guess that
situation preserves a tiny possibility that some truly transformative forces
may emerge (at least the seeds of those forces) out of academic circles but
we ourselves, right here, are witness to how fast the censors move in to
divert, silence, and confuse --doing so, of course, in the name of values
that as coins of the hegemony we're all supposed to accept as having
meaning or value.
Paul H. Dillon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Oct 01 2000 - 01:00:51 PDT