[lbo-talk] University Bashing

Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
Wed Dec 7 18:58:02 PST 2011


On Wed, 7 Dec 2011 21:36:06 -0500 "shag carpet bomb" <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:


> ALL institutions in capitalist society must misrepresent themselves.
> Businesses always do. They talk about how they are job creators,
> pillars of the community, donors, places where people find family and
> can be a part of a team.

Mmm. Well, yeah, but I'm not quite sure it's the same thing. Business certainly tries to paint itself in rosier colors than it deserves, but if you ask a businessman why he's in business, he'll usually tell you it's to make money. Very few businessmen will tell you they're in business because they want to create jobs; *that* would be a lie on the same order as the Unis' lie about Excelsior and Videbimus Lumen and so on.


> The family represents itself as this wonderful refuge from the harsh
> world of capitalist rationality and state discipline.

Does the family represent itself at all? It it not rather the object of (mis)representation by the ideological apparatus? I hope this doesn't sound like a mere verbal cavil; 'the family' is certainly an institution, but it's not an institution in the sense that Columbia University -- to take a nearby and thoroughly loathesome example -- is an institution.

-- --

Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com

Any proposition that seems self-evident is almost certainly false.



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