Doug wrote:
> I think one reason that so many political intellectuals are obsessed with
> theory these days is that it's a symptom of defeat, and a hope that
> discourse can in part substitute for "action."
were political intellectuals ever less obsessed with Theory Doug? serious question. stupid probably too as i'm sure i'll get a whippin from someone. but seems to me that the historical context--specifically the academic climate--is seriously different now. i'm thinking here of the following:
1. different standards for getting through grad school in the States (not as many cushy research positions, not as much funding, LOTS of exploitation of teaching assts and adjuncts)
2. wholly different publication requirements, degree-in-hand is the std req.--changes going on with a senior faculty trained under the old system who have neither the ego nor the inclination nor the skills to figure out how to help grad studs along in this regard, leaving most floundering. and what I totally loved, though i'm hoping that this was unique, a feminist fac that didn't quite understand what mentoring also involved using and developing an old girls network. (which i suspect is likely 'cause their foothold in the academic ladder is tenuous at best, but still) good thing i made friends with the nearly dead white guys cause they were shameless in their promotions of me and my work in a way that the feminists often weren't. i've asked around a bit about this and have heard same but can't really know how prevalent it is
3. similar credential inflation for getting tenure coupled with the assault on tenure in gen'l.
now there I think is a materialist political economy analysis of what's largely going on here. are some shameless careerists? you betcha! but there were plenty in the olden daze and there are plenty o' shameless careerist activists too.
to others more generally: why is it somehow ok to demand that people trot out their activist street cred? it would be wholly unacceptable to assume that we had to bring along our diplomas or any other mechanism for legitimating our speech. why does capital-A Activism get this privilege.
Ken, i could regale the List with some stories about how hard my life has been and i how 'got involved' nonetheless, but what's the point? why exactly is it that alex's or my or anyone else's life choices are somehow not respectable enough for you folks who have this capital-A Activist standard that seems extraordinarily narrow?
i totally agree: people w/ hardships engage in movement struggles all the time. but let's not valorize them and deny an historically contextual reading of their lives. why is that activism seems to be something that must be pursued every single minute of the day, every day of one's life with the same intensity? that's what it sounds like to me. there seems to be absolutely NO room for any understanding of the kind of flux involved in the course of someone's life. what i'm hearing is a kind of careerist notion of the Activist that takes no account of the fact that not everyone can sustain that kind of commitment ALL the time and really shouldn't be expected to, whether they are a man or woman.
yes, i realize that you offered examples of women, but as Doug has suggested the standards today are quite a bit different than they used to be. Truth, for ex, lived in a world where children were expected to be on their own much quicker and where there was an ethos of cooperative domestic labor that we do not have today. believe me ken when i tell ya that this doesn't exist much any more--not among whities like meself anyway.
and let's consider the contemporary demands of family life (bracketing work for the moment): compared to the good ole days we demand much more of one another in our intimate lives than we ever used to. for ex, het married men can no longer get away with logging in the kinds of labor/activist time they used to. there's a different standard these days as to what constitutes a good father, brother, partner, son, uncle, etc. and this is probably a good thing i think, but it does make for a different understanding of what Alex might mean by 'family commitments' than what you might mean by it.
and why isn't there room and respect for people who want to get an education and/or for people who want to work in the academy? why is that? i'm sure you sent your kids to college? wouldn't you like to see some folks with activist-sentiments, well-developed leftist passions modeling for them what a life of praxis might look like--one version of it anyway? teachers, for ex, manage to combine--in a dialectically dynamic way--the life of the mind with action-even if it's not quite up to your standards.
i love this work, and i've struggled and given up a lot to pursue it. it is, as someone once observed, a calling for me in the full sense of that word. and it was especially difficult because i came from a world where everyone told me that i couldn't and i shouldn't and it was a waste of time for me to try it. so i flipped them the bird and majored in philosophy. hah! and now i've got people telling me that i need to do more and now. do you realize what i'd have to give up in order to do that? and i did it and do it while 'getting involved'
i get the sense that you cannot imagine what it might be like to have *always* been living just a few dollars over the poverty line and being a single parent despite what you've said. activism at this point in my life? gad i can only imagine how my ex-hubbie would like to use *that* against me in court, it's already bad enough in his mind that i have a career for pity's sake. well, for now, i'm going to be a shameless careerist so i can get a job making less than my mother who's a nurse and works 32 hours a week and somehow or other prove to the family court judge that this is fucking okay and not detrimental to my child. really, i realize that you n alex have a thang goin' on, but i'm reading all this too, as are a lot of other folks on this list. People need whole lives: passion for things like their work and respect for that work even if it isn't activist enough and gee whiz maybe even intellectual; meaningful commitments to family/lovers/friends and some sort of recognition that this *is* a form of 'good activist citizenship' though not wholly reducible to it; and some sense that it really is alright to have fun sometimes and type posts to meaningless listservs when they coulda been stuffing envelopes or oganizing a petition drive.
~~Kelley