Rhetorical Gestures (was Re: Spivak sez...)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Doug:
>>Indeed, but so what?  I just wonder why intellectuals who work in
>>English-speaking countries (especially in the USA) tend to get tied in
>>knots about their being intellectuals and apologize for this fact in a
>>convoluted way (e.g. accusing other intellectuals of being intellectuals,
>>'acknowledging complicity,' etc.).  I find this rhetoric moralistic (the
>>word 'complicity,' for instance, suggests something of prosecution in
>>criminal justice).
>
>Oh, I think there's something to be said for exploring the
>contradiction of being a critic of imperialism and capitalism while
>enjoying its fruits. Otherwise you end up like Proyect and Blaut,
>going on about the evils of the colonizers and the virtues of the
>colonized without reflecting much on how much "development" has to
>recommend it materially and intellectually, and without any sense of
>being embedded in the contradictions of capitalism.

That, too, is a kind of moralism that I mentioned above (i.e. intellecutals
accusing other intellectuals of being intellectuals).  One can't get rid of
this kind of moralism by subscribing to another kind (e.g. mulling over
'complicity').  You are far too smart to waste time doing so.

Yoshie