>"Poor people can't afford a dozen years of school
>and then poor pay for most of the rest of their >lives; and people with any kind of ideals or >conscience or integrity, will have a rough time >in academia. If their parents did it, they are >likely to be more reconciled to the "process."
To recall an earlier theme here - that of the "Welfare State" - I was fortunate to have the last of the salad years in the UK. I got a full grant (on means testing) from the capitalist state, & thus was able to go through six years of an undergraduate degree. It would never have happened without the good old 'Welfare State'. I have seen that a lot in hte UK of my past. It does not happen now I am told in good old UK.
Another related aspect: I was the first generation of an immigrant family in the UK. I was the first of all my extended family to have even gone to what the Brits call the 6th form. Let alone a university. I suspect that this type of thing, applies to a lot of immigrant families. This seems to actually apply a lot to even North America now.
Joanna:
>What am I trying to say?....that it is not class >background that distorts the view of leftist >professors....but the process of being
>incorporated into academia....which is a >privileged, hierarchical, elitist, careerist >milieu.
I could not agree more. The process in some fields of learning is even more intense than others. For example - medicine versus the 'liberal' arts. There is by the way a series of novels from the grimy 50's and 60s in the UK that talk of this "socialisation" isn't there? But even these hark back to an older era, of "Jude the Obscure" by Tom Hardy. Hari