[lbo-talk] Identity vs. class politics

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Sat Jan 27 17:56:54 PST 2007


On 1/27/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/26/07, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> > Among left intellectuals in the U.S. there is no more regressive and
> > really stupid attitude than this widely prevalent contempt for
> > university faculty. Miles is wholly correct, and it is really sad that
> > the argument even needs to be made on a progressive maillist.
>
> Education, from primary schools to universities, is a big industry,
> and it's largely impossible to offshore. And that's the only secular
> social institution in the United States that almost all working-class
> people go through, a significant fact in a nation where an
> increasingly smaller proportion of Americans belong to, and can hope
> to belong to, trade unions.

Unfortunately, schools until college are often antipolitical environments, as far as students are concerned. Students are set to compete against each other, in a way probably not very different from Einstein's observation in 1949 that, "An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career."

In fact, it is maybe a little sad that the best critique I currently know of on our educational system is not from a typically "leftist" source, but rather one which won awards from right-wing libertarians. <http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm>

But I don't believe that US citizens are frothingly anti-intellectual. Chomsky (and I believe Zinn?) comes straight out of the ivory tower, has impeccable leftie credentials, and he's often the most requested guest on talkshows like Bill Maher's. He's claimed that speakers who offer an interesting, useful viewpoint are highly in demand across the nation and attract similarly-sized audiences. (I suppose he's referring to speakers like Naomi Klein, etc?)

Tayssir



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