The Contempt felt by Left Intellectuals towards their peers (Re: A 'Bad Writer' Bites Back by Judith Butler)

[Carl Remick]

> Honestly, Carl, all this condemnation by Left intellectuals 
> of other Left
> intellectuals for failing to heed "the people" reeks of 
> infantile Maoism. ...
> you wouldn't condemn a chemist or mathematician for being
> insufficiently committed to political "praxis?"  So why hold a
> literary/cultural critic to the same standards?

The object of the literary/cultural critic is not to enable people to
understand the periodic table or mathematical theorems; it is (or should
be) to help people at large understand the rights and responsibilities
that they have as social and political beings.  If you really believe in
democracy, I maintain you have to be a populist.

Carl Remick