[lbo-talk] How to Deconstruct Almost Anything

Jerry Monaco monacojerry at gmail.com
Fri Dec 22 13:17:34 PST 2006


On 12/22/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Jerry Monaco wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > I don't like institutions that perpetuate intellectual priesthoods.
>
> On this point, it is no different now than it was 50 or 100 years ago.
> Veblen's proposed sub-title for his _The Higher Learning in America_: "A
> Study in Human Depravity." And 75 years ago it was admirers of Shelley
> who were The Priesthood, defending Western Civilization against the
> Barbarians at The Gate.
>
> But further: Those institutions make possible people like you and me.
> Without those institutions someone like me, a bright son of a rural
> school teacher (already at 12 showing signs of depression) would have
> ended up in a dump heap someplace.
>
> We have to live in the World we are born with, and while we have to seek
> to destroy the world you and I happened to be born in, we don't forward
> that task by kvetching about particular people who are just themselves
> trying to survive in it.
>
> Carrol

In frustration Carrol, i ask, have you read what I have written? Where I said similar things? For instance:

"Now nobody blames a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at some department specializing in logical positivism for producing and reproducing the lexicon and technical goop of her supperiors. A gal has to make a living after all, and in general it is a better life if you can get a job as a professor than it is working as a taxi driver. But don't try to sell me on the fact that in doing this you are striking a blow against hierarchy. The same goes for any other specialized lexicon, but especially the ones that don't provide light on their subjects. If you can conform to such jobs and also maintain your integrity, then you can divide your time between the dark and the light, the obscure and the clear. I know of many law professors who in their own way do just this."

And I added later, that with privilege comes an obligation especially for those of us who favor more democracy to try to make ourselves comprehensible to others and try to work for openness of the institutions that we are in.

That these institutions have existed in these forms since the rise of class society I have been arguing all along.

Frankly, I don't understand why you need to tell me this? I am sure we agree on the basic point, and even my amendments, here to the basic point.

Since we agree, and I am pretty sure you know we agree, why not engage the issues where we don't agree?

Jerry Moanco


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-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/

His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/

Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/



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