"Hope" and "change" are, as we have seen repeatedly, more popular---maybe almost as popular as scapegoating. But given the validity of Joanna's point, the nostrums on offer have to be phony: "We'll change things, but it won't hurt anybody."
Could this be the reason why *class* consciousness is a prerequisite? Change is one way or another mostly going to be bad for individuals, and thus the importance of emphasizing self-centeredness so as to maintain the status quo.
On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 12:36 PM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> The world, such as it is, is a familiar one. One imagines one knows how to
> get around in it.
>
> The world as proposed by radicals is unfamiliar and the feelings needed to
> work to bring such a world about are very painful.
>
> Joanna
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> "Karl Marx's famous dictum sums up my teaching philosophy: "The
> philosophers of the world have only interpreted the world in various ways;
> the point is to change it." As I came to see it, Marx had uncovered the
> inner workings of our society, showing both how it functioned and why it
> had to be transcended if human beings were to gain control over their lives
> and labor. Disseminating these ideas could help speed the process of human
> liberation. From a college classroom, I thought that I could not only
> interpret the world, I could indeed change it.
>
> Thinking is one thing; the trick is bringing thoughts to life. How,
> actually, does a person be a radical teacher? How, for example, can
> students be shown the superior insights of Marxian economics in classes
> that have always been taught from the traditional or neoclassical
> perspective--taught, in fact, as if the neoclassical theory developed by
> Adam Smith and his progeny is the gospel truth? My college expected me to
> teach students the "principles" of economics: that people act selfishly and
> independently of one another, that this self-centeredness generates
> socially desirable outcomes. And further, that capitalism, in which we, in
> fact, do act out of self-interest, is therefore the best possible economic
> system. Had I refused to do this and taught only Marxian economics, I doubt
> I could have kept my job.
>
> My students were mostly the children of factory workers, miners, and other
> laborers, just the young people I wanted to reach and move to action.
> However, nearly all of them were hostile to radical perspectives, having
> been taught that such views were un-American. Their animosity was sometimes
> palpable, especially when I pointed out the many things they did not know
> about our country's unsavory relationships with the rest of the world. A
> retired Marine told me that, after we watched a particularly radical film
> about U.S. imperialism, he wanted to come down the aisle and strangle me"
>
> I welcome comments. Please pass along to anyone you think might be
> interested. If you post this to a website, please let me know.
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