> Certainly. The critical study of propaganda certainly strikes me as
> worthwhile. So does critical study of the intellectual classes.
>
> Take Lacan, who you just mentioned. Even the self-described
> "card-carrying Lacanian," Zizek, claimed that he actively tries to
> mentally repress Lacan's fakery and false obscurity, while
> interpreting Lacan's more legitimate body of work. (What a burden it
> must be to interpret such a chimeric half-scholar/half-charlatan,
> while maintaining some semblance of integrity!)
I've heard Zizek say things sort of along these lines, but I think there's a difference between overlooking the places where people obviously went awry in order to think about the things they got right and the integrity crushing acrobatics you're attributing to Zizek. I also think that the project Zizek is working on is much larger than just him, Lacan being taken up in Eastern Europe as an entry point into thinking about the political. This may be a misguided enterprise in your eyes, but it obviously speaks to something about the intellectual experience going on there. And here, while I agree that the intellectual production of a society must be critiqued, I think it is important to also think about it in context. This also means having some distinctions between what we mean by intellectuals. One of the biggest problems for me is how this concept is defined. What makes someone an intellectual? Is it a self declared identity based on the materials one works with? Is it necessarily a full time job? Is it necessary to have some sort of institutional consecration? The recognition of other intellectuals? An audience for your analysis? A certain method? To say that they are a class, to me, assumes that they all have the same relationship to capital. But I guess you talk more about this below.
> > I'd also point out that intellectuals, particularly those on the left or
> > who vaguely feel that they should be, are almost annoyingly vigilant in
> > their consideration of how they do or do not support the dominant
> > interests of gender, race, capital, class, etc.
>
> Not only that, but I hear they have a class tendency to think of
> capitalists as buffoons. Their institutional role may be to uphold
> dominant interests, but their class interests lie elsewhere. To the
> extent that their jobs are cushier and more privileged than the
> working class', many have quite some latitude in their jobs.
I'm losing the thread here. Maybe because I'm still confused by talking about intellectuals as a whole (a definition which I'm also still uncertain of) as having the same institutional role or class interest. As for the cushier-ness, I think this really depends on how you're defining it. Many adjuncts who work 4 jobs at three different schools, miles apart, grading papers late into the evening and all weekend long--who might be part of the university employees you'd throw into the same class--have very little latitude in their jobs. This is probably the exception for the most part, but the institution in general would like it to be a rule because it's much more cost effective and helps keep them flexible according to the demands of the student consumers. In this way, at least in the case of the academic employee, I'd say they have pretty similar problems to most other workers. A few weeks ago, Doug mentioned higher education as a growth sector--one of the few other than service industry jobs. Though it might have a different connotation than being a waiter, it's pretty much the same kind of jobs that will be created: uncertain, seasonal, and, for the most part, focused on serving a certain consumer. Even if this isn't the norm, the threat of it becoming the norm is real.
> (An analogy is how some dictators have to worry about their priesthoods' power.)
>
> In fact, the definition of "class" requires class antagonisms. (As I
> mentioned earlier.) And one ultimate class interest is a society where
> intellectuals and technocrats dominate. As with Djilas' New Class,
> which ruled Communist nations and jailed him for his writings.
But even here, isn't Djilas an intellectual in practice? Are you saying that he isn't an intellectual because he doesn't serve the dominant class interest? That would explain a lot about how you're defining this term: intellectual = mental labor in service of capital and dominant social interests::not intellectual = mental or other labor who criticises all the other interests.
> > (I'd also note that the
> > idea of intellectuals as a "class" doesn't seem very precise, but maybe
> > I don't understand the context in which you're using it.)
>
> I doubt there's anything precise about the social sciences. Even in
> the hard sciences, physicists point out their knowledge is necessarily
> imprecise and approximate. And mathematicians didn't pin down concepts
> like "functions" except when necessity required more clarity, if I
> understand my history correctly.
Yeah but they try to be as precise as possible. They don't start out from the position that concepts can't be precise so why try.
> > >> 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.
> >
> > This is basically saying that Chomsky (like all the 9/11 conspiracy
> > theorists) are validated as correct simply because they are critiqued
> > (or ignored).
>
> With all due respect, that's an odd interpretation of my words. Quite
> some hermeneutics-fu you got goin' there! ;-)
Actually there's no reason to be all that respectful of that comment. it was sloppy. I was reading your last sentence and my understanding was that you were saying intellectuals didn't like to be criticised (a position that Chomsky might take) and the evidence you were providing was that Chomsky is denounced by those that he criticises. To me this seems like a circular argument which cannot be proven in the terms in which its stated--or in so far as it is proven it requires no outside evidence or close analysis:
Chomsky (who isn't an intellectual, I guess, based on the above definition of the intellectual as being someone who has a specific relation to upholding the dominant relations of power, even though he has a pretty cushy job at MIT) criticises intellectuals; intellectuals denounce Chomsky: therefore intellectuals don't like criticism. We don't know the content of this criticism, whether it is legitimate based on the facts or, therefore, whether there might be some legitimate grounds on which Chomsky should be denounced for his criticism of them: all that's required for evidence that intellectuals (again, in this case, loosely defined as the people Chomsky defines and criticises as intellectuals) don't like criticism is that they denounce Chomsky for his criticism of them. It becomes a situation where Chomsky himself is immune from this kind of criticism: he is just a guy who's making some points that people don't like to hear because they're just so invested in their own intellectual class status and alliances.
All of this, in other words, takes us completely away from a conversation about ideas or methods --which I agree we should still be debating about--and into a crude kind of default delegitimation of anything so-called intellectuals say in their own defense or in defense of their ideas or methods simply because they have now been dubbed the same thing as anyone else who provides any intellectual assistance to the status quo or has a similar relationship to capital as the professional managerial class. Doesn't matter what you think or what you say: you're workin for the man, man.
I know the inclusion of the analogy to 9/11 theories was a bit off, but I'm reading my students' final papers right now and two of them have written completely glowing reviews of them, mostly because there is no response from "the government or its mainstream media lackeys" and, thus, the theories must be correct. And the burden of proof is now shifted to everyone who believes a plane hit the pentagon to prove that a plane hit the pentagon. After all, that's just another theory we have to consider.