Chomsky is in principle an an anarchist, not a Gramscian, also he's a real down-home 'Murican guy from Philly in a lot of ways, for real, not a put on.
I think the anti-intellectualism he sometimes manifests may be a reaction to his Fabian environment -- Cambridge, MIT, Harvard, where it is just assumed that white liberal-minded people with elite advanced degrees who teach at prestigious institutions and sometimes rotate in and out of government really are better than anyone else, really do know what is good for everyone, and if there just in the world would either rule the country or (more likely) write the policy papers and legislation for the Kennedys who would rule it.
I know from what you have told me that you are intimately familiar with the attitude. It's totally sick-making. I have no great belief in the wisdom of the masses, if growing up in the South didn't cure me of any such belief then being a trial lawyer did, but I do agree with Chomsky that I'd rather be ruled by the first hundred names out of the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. (Another one of his anti-intellectual remarks.)
A qualification. When you or Gramsci says we are all capable of intellectual activity, that doesn't mean in the same way, as you know and I knwo you didn't mean to suggest that we are all equally qualified to analyse economic statiutics or analyze Hegel. Lots of smart people don't know one end of a number from another; other smart people don't read books; some people who are very politically smart are totally lacking in what a scholar would call analytical ability; others may have mechanical brilliance but be inarticulate; some people have common sense that profound thinkers lack, the ability to size up a sityuation and make the right move. And so forth. Howard Gardner was only starting when he identified six types of intelligence. And there are people who have or or less of all of these.
--- On Mon, 7/7/08, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Growing moderatism in academia
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Monday, July 7, 2008, 9:59 AM
> On Jul 6, 2008, at 7:41 PM, Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
>
> > It's almost like a paradox to be a leftist and not
> be
> > "anti-intellectual." (At least for certain
> values of "intellectual.")
> > If we take the most elite of elite academics -- the
> most cited living
> > prof -- he claims that American anti-intellectualism
> is healthy:
> >
> > "In fact, if you compare the United States
> with France, or with
> > most of Europe, for that matter -- I think one of
> the healthy
> > things about the United States is precisely this:
> there's very
> > little respect for intellectuals as such. And
> there shouldn't
> > be. What's there to respect?"
>
> It's elitist to think that intellectual activity should
> be the
> province of specialists. It's revolutionary to think
> that it should
> be open to everyone - in fact, that that should be one of
> the
> desirable features of a better society.
>
> As much as I admire Chomsky, this passage is silly. What is
> he if not
> an intellectual who is widely respected for his
> accomplishments as
> both a linguist and political analyst?
>
> Doug
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