[lbo-talk] "Theory's Empire," an anti-"Theory" anthology

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 10:11 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Just what does "your neighborhood mechanic" say about the world? He
> - and they're, what, 99% male, right? - is quite likely to say that
> global warming is a hoax, blacks have it too easy, the Ay-rabs
> wanna do us in, queers should just keep to themselves, etc. And just
> who do you have in mind as an archetypal "Theory professor"? I know
> one famous Theory professor who didn't know the difference between
> monetarism and supply side economics until I told him, but they're
> likely to be on the correct side of most of the questions that
> matter. Why should looking at the world from the underside of an
> automobile make you wiser than someone who reads, writes, and talks
> for a living?

If you compare the archetypal left-wing social theoretician with the
entire population of US mechanics... then almost by definition, our
ideal theoretician will align more with people reading the Left
Business Observer forum.

And this ideal Theory Prof is very subjective. Some guy who writes for
the Wall St. Journal's opinion pages might construct a different view,
like one based on that Dartmouth teacher who had serious problems in
some undergrad class:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120995103004666569.html

Incidentally, I delved deeper into the WSJ story, and the prof
discussed how a colleague explained that "the classroom is not a
democracy and the way she runs her classroom is with an iron fist."
The prof further claimed that while she's "a little more lenient" than
that, "I think a lot of professors are like, I'm the boss of the
classroom and you listen to me, and that's probably the norm." About
her disrespectful students, she claimed:

    "The fact of the matter is that by being so arrogant about their

    command of knowledge about arguing with me about every point that

    I was making and that's really arrogant. That's very arrogant

    because frankly, and I'm not trying to be an academic elitist, but

    frankly, they don't even have a B.A. They're freshmen. They're

    freshmen. The maturity that they had, and I think that's what it

    is, I think it's a lack of maturity, I don't think it's any

    character flaw, I just think it's a lack of maturity and when they

    grow up they'll find that it's really tough to succeed in the real

    world and I really will start respecting my professor."

    http://dartlog.net/2008/04/tdr-interview-priya-venkatesan.php

Whatever went on in this odd case, I think it demonstrates that not
only does the "correctness" of someone's opinions count, but also how
they actually act when they achieve a position of a little power over
others.

And that said, I once met a really cool mechanic who focussed on
preventative maintenance, and people came from neighboring states
because they trusted him. He respected people regardless of gender,
sharply questioned why an ecovillage I was visting offered to send him
a newsletter by snailmail when there's email, etc. I don't know what
he's like to coworkers, but we might sketch out the ideal leftist
mechanic...

(Incidentally, I don't really understand Avery Colter's point that you
were responding to.)

Tayssir