[lbo-talk] posh as fuck

[Jordan Carroll]

"[WS:] True, academic workers are to the left of the US mainstream. But to
borrow from the repertoire of the more radical wing of this forum, this
means that the role of academia is akin to that of the Democrat Party: to
attract people with a subversive potential and then defuse this potential.
Instead of being in the 'real world' organizing, these folk sit in their
academic offices, fart into chairs, and fancy themselves of being radicals
by speaking in tongues of the pomo newspeak. What is bad for the goose is
bad for the gander, no?"

Is that really true? Many of my graduate student friends are involved in
activism and virtually all of them attend demonstrations on a regular
basis. Most of the professors in my department show up, too, and several
have spoken about their political work outside of the university. I'm not
saying that there aren't "armchair radicals," but I have met more active
leftists in academia than anywhere else. Again, there's a lot of work to be
done on universities but, at least in the humanities and social sciences,
they are in many ways better for promoting left politics than the average
workplace.

And I would say that leftist engagement also has a strong correlation with
departments that engage in "pomo newspeak." The student movement here is
led primarily by students and professors in history, sociology, English,
and comp lit. Meanwhile, departments in disciplines that pride themselves
on clarity and immediate practical application have pushed hard to keep
Chancellor Katehi and cops on campus.

J