[lbo-talk] A short soliloquy on freedom and fishing

[Chuck Grimes]

>I liked this. I can really understand what a huge step it is for a east 
>european intellectual to see that laughing at a farm boy's idea of freedom 
>is a shameful thing.
>
> But this....
>
> "because intellectuals stopped identifying themselves with people who work 
> for a living, and instead became lackeys of the money grubbing 
> entrepreneurial class, begging for scraps from their tables and aping 
> their manners and their speech."
>
> ....makes me wonder: when did intellectuals as a whole ever identify 
> themselves with people who work for a living? It seems to me that's mostly 
> what they have always done.
>
> Joanna
>
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I also liked the essay, but realized at somepoint, Wojtek over thought the 
exampl which is much easier to understand on simple human terms. The catch, 
is you have know something about fishing, gone fishing, and enjoyed 
it---caught fish and gratefully eat them. One of my former bosses, the best 
one, had a boat and we went out on Sundays, the only day he didn't work, to 
go fishing for salmon. It was great to lay around the boat, drink a beer or 
three and watch the poles as we slowly trolled over likely areas where the 
salmon were schooled somewhere below.

Rather than philosophy or sociology to explain, I'd choose literature. We 
have some great American literature on fishing. Anyway, imagine you are 
stuck in the office or on the job at ten in morning, go get in the car and 
drive out to one of piers around the bay and toss in a line, crack open a 
beer and start talking to your comrades, mostly immigrants who don't speak 
English, maybe trade some snack or a beer ... could any of us actually do 
that in this society without the need for a great lie? So the rural kid had 
a point.

CG