Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> Actually, an econ grad student from Stony Brook, speaking some 35 years
> ago at a conference on "Radicals in the Professions" at Ann Arbor (at
> which I first decided that I would probably be a marxist when I figured
> out what a marxist was) put it this way: "Are we," he asked, referring
> specifically to teachers, "radical teachers or teachers who are
> radicals?" (Radical carpenter or carpenter who is a radical, radical
> Walmart clerk, or Walmart clerk who is a radical?) It took me about 5
> minutes to make up my mind that I chose the second alternative. I wasn't
> a radical teacher (and never tried to be): I earned a living by teaching
> (having as much fun and being as useful as possible while doing so) but
> my centre was being a radical -- a marxist.
I've quoted this over and over again in the intervening years, but this time I fucked up the wording. It should be "radical teacher or radicals who teach," "radical carpenter or radical who works as a carpenter," etc. I think what has continuosly threatened to neutralize academics who aimed at being radicals (marxist, revolutionaries, etc.) has been the temptation to somehow make their _job_ politically "relevant." There is nothing wrong with doing that _unless_ it leads to self-deception -- i.e., to the illusion that one teacher (or social worker or lawyer) _as_ a teacher makes all that difference.
Carrol