[lbo-talk] Inorganic Intellectuals and the Mythical Ideal of the Marxist Tradition (Re: Moderation)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 1/14/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 14, 2007, at 11:20 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > Secular intellectuals on the Left in the USA are largely inorganic
> > intellectuals: our ideas are for the people, but not of the people.
>
> Who are these people? Is there some analogue of the Oregon Tilth that
> certifies organic intellectuals?
>
> Speaking for myself, I came from the people. I'm only the second
> generation of my family born in the U.S., and the first to go to
> college. Yeah, I got a fancy-ass education from a hoity-toity
> college, but what is this authenticity you're alluding to? The
> spontaneous ideas of The People aren't all that impressive in my
> experience, and hostility to intellectuals is as American as violence
> and apple pie. So education and reading will ruin all the lovely
> rooted spontaneity you seem to valorize.

Notice that I'm not saying that we as individual human beings are not
of the people -- most of us are in fact from working-class backgrounds
or remain wage workers as I am.  I'm talking about our _ideas_.  Our
ideas are for the people -- 99.99% of Americans -- but not of the
people, in the sense that most of them do not share them.  That is
neither our fault nor their fault -- that's just a fact.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>