[lbo-talk] High Hat (Was Re: Taibbi (was Re: Fwd: Antioch College Closing!))

[Miles Jackson]

andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> Miles, the technocratic arrogance that oozes from
> every letter of your recent compositions about them
> goes a long way to illustrating why people fighting
> oppression often include knowitall professors as a
> group among their oppressors and  want to smash their
> glasses and send them to the countryside to learn
> something. I'd a rad prof with too many advanced
> degrees myself and reading what you have written makes
> me wish I had a crowbar, Brian's patience throughout
> these recent discussions as been positively Buddhist.
> Let apologists for the existing regime take this tone;
> it's our job to respectfully offer assistance. That
> doesn't mean, no criticism, it means, respectfully. 

Assuming that people can intuitively understand the complex social 
relations that make possible various forms of oppression is about as 
plausible as claiming that people can intuitively understand cosmology 
with no training in physics ("sure, I can tell that the earth must be 
circling the sun!  It's obvious!").  --Or to use an example that may hit 
a little closer to home, as plausible as a person with no formal 
training in law conducting an effective self-defense in a federal 
courtroom.

It seems obvious to me that certain forms of knowledge and practice 
require rigorous education and a lot of hard work.  I know you think 
that's true of the law; why should it be any different for the study of 
society?

Miles