shag carpet bomb:
what did you think, Wojtek, of Graeber's really excellent arguments about how fucked up the use of "public" and public opinion polls are. I was reminded of this guy on the OWS Demands Working Group email list. LVX was his handle. He was constantly arguing that the Jobs for All Demand would never ever go anywhere because the "public" wouldn't accept and support it.
too bad reading is such a pain in the ass Carrol, you'd totally dig this book!
-------- Indeed, I probably would. On this point, of course, he isn't plowing new ground at all. Yoshie and I were arguing this back in the first year or two of the list. And public opinion polls may not be central to the debate; they just add frosting to the fundamental assumptions of Crackpot Realism -- which is that change comes through intellectual persuasion and argument. And that, incidentallAnd that, incidentall¸is the premise of hysteria over colleges not inculcating some mystic quality called "critical thinking." Thought is the Mother of All Things, and thus the Inculcation of Correct Thought" is a pre-requisite to left politics.
Carrol