"Intellectual considers enemies 'apologists', praises friends as 'organic.' News at 11." ;)
Well, if they play broadly similar economic roles, with similar antagonisms with people outside their class, sure. Concepts like "apologist" or "organic" aren't in our analysis, just as "red" or "periwinkle" aren't.
Instead of economic power based on rights to property (capitalists), their power is based on ideas and knowledge. As capitalists desire some scarcity in their property, we might predict that the professional-managerial class desires a scarcity of people wielding its skills. (So for example, sane professionals create professional organizations which limit their supply.)
> I guess you could throw
> them all in the same bag and drown the lot in the river, but that seems
> to be a bit counter productive and, as many have said, somewhat
> anti-intellectual.
Is that the intellectual class's version of "anti-Americanism"? Just as capitalists aren't fond of class analysis, I can hardly expect intellectuals to enjoy this sort of analysis turned on their class interests. Simply look at the bitter denunciations of Chomsky by those he criticizes.
> After all, who are Ehrenreich and Dijas in your
> account? Aren't they intellectuals as well?
Wasn't Engels a capitalist? Chomsky an intellectual? A broad social analysis is not like physics; people in a given class aren't identical particles.
> This, I think, points to the need to specify ideologies in relation to
> historical blocs of socio-economic power and the process through which
> they are able to gain what appears to be a hegemonic dominance (defined,
> as Perry Anderson has pointed out, through a varying combination of
> coercion and consent. In other words, ideology always operates best
> with the threat of force for non-compliance, a threat which, at least in
> western, industrial society, usually corresponds with a certain capture
> of the institutions of the nation-state.)
The "father of modern public relations," Bernays, leads me to the opposite conclusion. Controlling beliefs is more necessary in societies where physical force is less of an option.
"Emil Ludwig represents Napoleon as "ever on the watch for indications of public opinion; always listening to the voice of the people, a voice which defies calculation. 'Do you know,' he said in those days, 'what amazes me more than all else? The impotence of force to organize anything.'" It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity." http://www.pentaside.org/article/propaganda-bernays-1928.html
> In so far as intellectuals
> work to justify or legitimate this status quo, then they could be seen
> to be supporting instruments of the dominant ideology, but this would be
> something to be discussed on a case by case basis. And, even if one
> were to be able to analytically consider this, it still doesn't quite
> explain why or if people believe them. In other words, there's still
> plenty of room for discussing and making ideology more technical as a
> concept which operates in different ways in different social and
> historical contexts, yet still has common functions in general.
There's a great literature of how ideology works. Often by people who create them in the first place. Like those employed in the public relations industry, who promote extreme individualism, hopelessness and commodity fetishism.
And I'm absolutely fine with the idea of social "scientists" dissecting ideology too. But that does not imply immunity to the institutional critique they happily dish out, regardless of the fine intentions they ascribe to themselves.
Tayssir