[lbo-talk] Inorganic Intellectuals and the Mythical Ideal of the Marxist Tradition

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 1/16/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 16, 2007, at 2:29 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > If intellectuals in global cafe society think alike, that is
> > not because American intellectuals have become cosmopolitan but
> > because intellectuals in the rest of the world have adopted many of
> > the American ideas.
>
> The traffic isn't just one way. American intellectuals have long been
> Europhiles, and quite a few have dabbled in Eastern religions; more
> recently, Latin American culture has made its way into parts of
> American intellectual and cultural life. Besides, when we're not
> being arrogant provincials, Americans can be open to the world's
> cultures because we come from all over the place.

According to the National Endowment for the Arts, "fewer than 3% of
all books published in the U.S. . . . were translations," writes John
O'Brien ("A Simple Question," Context, No. 14, 2003, at
<http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no14/simpleQ.html>).  In
contrast, says O'Brien, "In Western European countries, the percentage
of translations is about 40-50% each year.  Many of these are from the
United States, but a significant number are from a wide range of other
countries."  I submit that American intellectuals are not cosmopolitan
at all.

-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
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