oh intellectuals! was Re: Bash your own country

[Steven McGraw]

At 02:07 PM 2/15/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>
>--- Steven McGraw <stmcgraw at vt.edu> wrote:
>> At 07:27 PM 2/15/2003 +1100, you wrote:
>> >Steveb McGraw writes:
>> >
>> >> I often wonder what exactly the charge of
>> anti-intellectualism refers to.
>> >> I have been called anti-intellectual for saying
>> that dockworkers should
>> >> make more than English lit profs, 
>
>I dont understand the point of this discussion at all.
>The dockworker should struggle to get as much money as
>he can and the English lit professor should do the
>same.
>

Privileged individuals should not "struggle to get as much as they can."
That is the logic of a market.


>What is the use of pitting the one against the other?
>

I am not pitting anyone against anyone else.  The professional and the
laboring class are already in competition.


>
>Pugliese has told me he had encountered people on the
>Left who complain that Martin Jay, author of
>"Dialectical Imagination", drives a BMW.  

A Neiman Marxist, so to speak?


>So what
>is he supposed to do?  Ask UC Berkeley to pay him less
>so that he can be poor and "look" like somebody's
>stereotype of a "leftist".
>

Yes.  Or make donations to some worthy cause.  Why do you consider this an
absurd idea?  Are you also against a graduated income tax?  

Consuming at a responsible level does not mean "being poor."  Jay's
obnoxious habit of tooling about in a BMW may not weaken his analysis,
which I hope we can look at with some objectivity to avoid resorting to ad
hominem, but everyone has a moral obligation not to take more than his or
her share.  This might even entail (gasp) making personal sacrifices.