[lbo-talk] FW: [URPE] Come off the cross,

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Thu Feb 9 06:45:23 PST 2012


I agree with you that there's a difference in tone or tenor between someone who, like Angela Davis, positions herself as part of the struggle vs others who spoke at OWS as experts and who positioned themselves as outsiders, not part of it, observing.

but I didn't read the URPE member as generously as you. He does recognize the need to get involved, yes. But I don't see how he sees this as mutual engagement from which he will learn anything much. It'll be rewarding for him, I suspect, in the way teachers find it rewarding to see "the lights go on". There's nothing wrong with finding pleasure in that process. But is it an admirable attitude to have toward colleagues and comrades? Who says, "I love me some academic conferences since everytime I go it's so great to see fellow members of Academic Bullshit Society annual conference attendees' lights go on over their collective heads when they hear me speak!"

they may feel that way; they don't dare express it that way terribly often. Those few that do will be seen as eccentric or assholes who get away with it due to tenure.

<> <> On expertise. What is at issue in this post is NOT the correctness or <> incorrectness of a given expert; assume whatever expert is in question <> is <> correct; THEN the question becomesd the relationship assumed/enacted <> by the <> 'expert' to the Occupation. That relationship, I argue, has to include <> _real_ acknowledgement by the "expert" that he/she must learn from the <> Occupiers as well as _offer_ them his/her expertise. The expert who <> does not <> _really_ and not juse nominally recognize this mutuality of learning, <> who <> does not _really_ and not just nominally recognize that his/her <> expertise by <> itself is empty, _that_ expert is not needed. The writer whose post I <> fwd <> does recognize and act on this process of _mutual_ learning, as <> revealed in <> the content and tone of those last two paragraphs. Put another way, at <> any <> given point a given abstract 'truth' may or may not be a _relevant_ <> truth. <> That relevance cannot be determined by the expert who offers that <> truth; it <> may well be irrelevant, it may well be that the _relevant_ 'view' is a <> technically inaccurzgd ond (as Engels incidentally recognizes in his <> Preface <> to the German edition of Poverty of Philosophy). So the expert is not <> and <> should not be, on her own, a judge of the usefulness, of the <> practical <> accuracy, of her own knowledge. <> <> Carrol <> <> P.S. A query that I considerd sending as a separate post: What is a <> good <> non-sexist and non-ageist synonym for "old women" (as used in Rosa <> Luxembutg's 1898 Stuttgart speeches? She had an extremely important, <> even <> absolutely vital, point to make, dnd the phrase which drives home the <> point <> is "would have been old women and not heroes." <> <> ___________________________________ <> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk <>

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