-In fact, in my experience, the National Lawyers Guild -for example suffers from this and it is an -organization made up of left lawyers whom one would -not imagine to be so averse to intellectual debate etc
Why? Lawyers are not necessarily intellectuals, just because they deal with words, any more than advertisers are. Most Guild lawyers are issue tacticians who are probably more action-oriented and less strategy-oriented than most organizers, since their focus is on a series of unconnected legal cases. Organizers by nature have to think more about strategy, since they depend on movement power and coalitions to have any effect on the world.
It's one reason I am working so hard to get the Guild to focus on that broader view.
-- Nathan