andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> This is sanctimonious and insulting. I am glad you
> have such god ideas about how I should live.
I've told this anecdote a few times already I believe, but it seems appropriate here.
In 1966 I attended a conference of "Radicals in the Professions" at the University of Michigan. At one of the plenaries a grad student in econ from Stony Brook posed the question, "Are we radical teachers or are we radicals that teach?" "Radicals that teach would be analogous to radicals who are carpenters, radicals who are Walmart clerks, radicals who are attorneys, etc: i.e., one makes no pretence that a radical need make his/her way of earning a living radical in itself. It took me about two minutes of thought to decide that I was not a radical teacher but a radical who earned his living by teaching. I think this whole conversation is pretty preposterous. It verges on the silliness that leads some would-be radicals to claim that one's consumption choices need to be "radical," which in turn is as stupid as the "Buy American" drives of the past.
Radicalism is involvement in collective political action, not the kind of food one puts on the dinner table.
One does not, of course, become a prison guard or a cop etc. But otherwise, piss on all this flimflam about "useful occupations."
Carrol