Question Authority? Hell, yes!

[LeoCasey at aol.com]

Carol Writes:
<< But I am beginning to think that one of the most  dangerous superstitions 
among radical intellectuals is that their radical  politics make them experts 
on medical matters. "Challenge Authority"  fat-headed new radicals proclaim 
with buttons. It is perhaps the most  dangerous political slogan ever coined.

 
Which authorities??????

 
Carrol >>

You allow your own experience to be a very narrow prism through which you 
view this issue. You completely disregard the whole significance, for 
example, of the various movements of people with HIV/AIDS: the crucial 
importance of rejecting the role of being a passive recipient of expert 
advice and treatment, and of becoming an active partner in your own 
treatment, and an active political participant in the politics of expert 
knowledge and treatment.

Just as foolish as it is blindly reject "expert" knowledge, so is it foolish 
to blindly accept it, in medicine, in law, in education, in computers, and so 
on. Always "question authority," and then make informed decisions.       

Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who 
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and 
lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --