American Intellectuals' Widespread Failure to Stand Up to Billionaires and Authoritarian Power

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/books/widespread-failure-intellectuals-stand-authoritarian-power-america

This article is an excerpt from Robert Jensen's new book, We Are All Apocalyptic Now: On the Responsibilities of Teaching, Preaching, Reporting, Writing, and Speaking Out, available in print and on Kindle.

Given the considerable resources in the United States spent to subsidize intellectual work, why are so many intellectuals—journalists, academics, writers—not critiquing the many hierarchical institutions and not highlighting the disastrous consequences of these systems? Why are so many intellectuals instead providing support for the institutions and systems? Why is the majority of intellectual work in the United States not challenging but instead helping to prop up the unjust distribution of wealth and power, and the unsustainable extractive/industrial system?

Both intellectuals and the people who provide the resources that allow intellectuals to work should ponder this crucial question.

I am not suggesting that to be a responsible intellectual one must agree with me on all these issues, that anyone who does not agree with my approach to these issues is a soulless sell-out. My argument is that if we take seriously the basic moral principles at the core of modern philosophical and theological systems we claim to believe in, in light of the data on social injustice and the serious threats to ecological sustainability, these questions should be central in the work of intellectuals. Based on my experience as a journalist, professor, and political activist—a life in which I have always worked in intellectual professions and interacted with many other intellectuals in various settings—I have learned that the story is complicated but that a sharp critique of intellectuals as a social formation is warranted.

First, let’s recognize that intellectual work generally comes with considerable privilege. That does not mean that intellectuals don’t work hard, make sacrifices, or feel stress. But in general, intellectuals are compensated well for work that is not physically hazardous and can be rewarding on many levels. There are many intellectuals-in-training (graduate students) and underemployed intellectuals (adjunct faculty) who face overwhelming workloads and few perks, and so we should be cautious about generalizing too much about the category of “intellectual.” This analysis focuses on those doing intellectual work with the most privilege and the most autonomy.

[KG]

1. too many of the so-called 'intellectuals' stand to benefit from supporting the status quo.

[Demeter]

2. The "Status Quo" is the only game in town for employment, membership in society, etc

We are a monoculture--it's My (1% Elitist) way, or the highway.

We don't have the experimental communes, the expatriate colonies, not even the anonymity of the '60's anymore. We have been engulfed by fascism in our lifetimes.

[maddiemom]

11. And, God forbid, they might be labeled a Socialist.

[Octafish]

22. What Upton Sinclair said...

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

[Kurovski]

31. That quote is likewise a banner for anyone working in the privatised,

government Information gathering industry. Or even for those taxed with the job of convincing others against their own self-interests, liberties, what-have-you.

Well, not for Mr. Snowden it wasn't, but...

[Octafish]

32. Precisely. The way things are heading, soon we may not be able to post it without being accused...

...of being sock puppets for Alex Jones' InfoWars.

There's a reason one can't copyright a title or word under modern intellectual property law.

That would limit it's use. And that would make its absence (or presence) of major import in the first and ultimate battlefield, the human mind.

Did you see this from bobthedrummer? NSA Architecture of Repression. The devil really is in the details.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

3. In this climate, Intellectuals would be assassinated in character, marginalized in intelligence and

ultimately dismissed by the general public as wonkish crackpots. Bumper sticker logic is not something most intellectuals are good at.

[NewJeffCT]

10. They're "Ivory Tower Elitists" who

don't know anything about the average person on the street.

[a la izquierda]

13. wow, that is a mighty broad brush...

I would be classified as an intellectual, as a university professor. I grew up dirt poor. I mortgaged my future by taking out loans for my education. I understand the plight of today's students better than most.
And my mother was a single mom. So try not to be so anti-intellectual. You sound like my teabagger sister-In-law.

[NewJeffCT]

15. gee thanks

I've only been here for 10 years and over 30,000 posts.

But, that is how anybody with more than a high school education is painted by the right - unless they have an MBA and work for a fortune 500 corporation.

[a la izquierda]

35. If you meant your previous post as sarcasm...

My apologies. I am a serious black sheep in my family and I get a lot of shit for being uppity.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

4. Pretty powerful excerpts provided by Alternet.

Intellectuals and their magic thinking! On Playing God, and on maintaining neutrality.
He states that most intellectuals are not sociopaths. Like those employed By think tanks?

[NoMoreWarNow]

5. there is actually no academic position or specialty of "public intellectual"

Academics in fact have a huge range of specialty fields they have to worry about being productive in, and so can't spend all their time advocating.

Plus there are the facts that:
1) academics do speak out but the media doesn't typically pay attention
2) academics aren't a monolith, and have a wide variety of opinions on the topics of the day

[Squinch]

6. Seeing this article after watching the movie "Hot Coffee" on tort reform. So big kick from me!

[maddiemom]

12. A highly recommended watch.

[raouldukelives]

7. They are smart enough to tie themselves into mental knots justifying corporate obedience.

All in an effort to mask the lack of courage to live a life that mirrors their true convictions.
Moneys a hell of a drug.

[WinkyDink]

8. Money don't get everything, it's true. But what it don't get, they can't use.

(If you "correct" this grammar, you're too young!)

[Jackpine Radical]

9. But look at what happens to the few intellectuals who DO speak out.

Unless you're Chomsky or Cornell West. Unless you're tenured somewhere safe, speaking out will destroy your career.

[RVN VET]

17. Hmm, I don't doubt there's some truth there

But it would be great to know how many careers have been destroyed and, even more important, how many intellectuals have stifled themselves in the interest of keeping their jobs.

Has anyone written on the squelching of dissent in academia? Where have all the Mario Savio's gone? What becomes of them? Jerry Rubin died -- I think hit by a car -- after his "Do It" days when he had apparently already sold his soul for a 3 piece suit and a gig on Wall Street. Was he the only fallen saint?

Just curious. Thanks for gettin' me thinkin'!

[certainot]

18. the main tool used for intimidating is the RW radio monopoly, and our universities keep it going!

see post below.

if the heritage foundation doesn't like someone they get limbaugh and then hannity and then a hundred local blowhards to say their names a few times to 50 mil a week.

worked great for swiftboating for the last 25 years and sure helped shut up a lot of iraq war critics and and for years kept the words "global warming" off a lot of people's lips.

[marmar]

14. k/r

[certainot]

16. below: list of 70+ major universities that support RW radio- which counters brains with volume

in the US.

RW radio is virtually invisible- there is no searchable/studyable record of the widespread coordinated think tank-scripted repetition to 50 mil people a week.

not only do the think tanks write bullshit, but they get to spread it far and wide with a giant soapbox that is completely ignored by the left and intellectuals because it hurts their heads and they can't read it or analyze its content. it's been doing that for 25 years. it is the main reason for this mess and there is no organized opposition to it.

and worst of all, 28% of limbaugh stations alone (about half the total RW stations) piggyback the community credibility of our state funded universities because our schools are broadcasting sports on them. the total RW stations that depend on schools is probably closer to 40%.

so our thinkers can study and work on climate change, for instance, while their own unis help broadcast media matter's climate denier of the year (2011) award recipient- rush limbaugh (RW radio is the main reason one major party can obstruction climate change action).

ignoring talk radio - talk about smart people being fucking stupid.

https://sites.google.com/site/universitiesforrushlimbaugh/

[dreamnightwind]

33. +1, thanks for this post and the link - n/t

[valerief]

19. Cuz they're IINOs. nt

[B Stieg]

20. Really not sure about this...

As someone nearing the end of a phd program in English (2/5 chapters approved), in some ways, I'm not really sure what Professor Jensen is talking about. I've been up to my ears in French Invasion philosophers (Deleuze, Foucault, Badiou) for the past six years, and it certainly seems the critique of neoliberalism, neoconservatism and consumption-oriented society is thorough, ongoing and not only not going away, but expanding (into areas like disability and social media, my dissertation topic). I did my own work on Fukuyama, Leo Strauss, Von Hayak. Jude Wanninski, Ordoliberalism and Friedman (in an essay about rhetoric, the Victoria Secret's "Pink" website and consumption, for one), but have yet to encounter any course offerings reminding us of the superiority of hierarchy. Of course, I attend one of the nation's top 5 ethnically diverse universities and not Harvard where idiots (sorry) like Harvey Mansfield teach courses telling us that sexism is dead while arguing that women still look up to and crave strong, male leaders (see http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300122543]).

My primary area of study is Media Technics where the approach generally taken towards technology is also critical. (see N. Katherine Hayles' How We Became Posthuman or My Mother was a Typewriter). This is a tricky issue, as Mr. Jensen's own position against "technological fundamentalism" puts him in a group with conservatives like Alvin Toffler whose entire career has been about the danger of losing the status quo. Indeed, due to overcrowding and underfunding, the state legislature is poised to force the university system to accept on-line courses for certain required, entry-level requirements, including three, system-wide writing courses. Resistance is firming up on several fronts, and the forms it takes may further invalidate Jensen's appraisal.

The point is that none of this is easy. As the current flap about Glen Greenwald on DU shows, political resistance is not a black and white affair (like the litmus tests used by conservatives) but is instead played out along a spectrum. Jensen argues that "to be a responsible intellectual is to be willing to get apocalyptic, and the first step in that process is to give up on the myth of neutrality," a structural critique more on point. PhD study in English involves agreeing that there is no one correct way to read a book but then basically killing yourself trying to figure out the one, best way to read a book so you can get published (which gets you teaching jobs)! This tends to make academics territorial, defensive and myopic, the absolutely perfect attitude for engaging in "unbiased" intellectual investigation and discussion! After living on $17,000 a year (teaching assistant $) for the past five years, I am now paying back $97.000 in student loans. So, while I am more than willing to sacrifice to attack repressive institutions (and repudiate my debt?) to create a more equitable and just society, I also had better figure out a profitable way to do it (in a very competitive education industry that's not exactly dripping money) or I'll never have a chance to contribute. And, while fitting Jensen's intellectuals-in-training category, my work with science professors and post-docs has shown that the funding hunt never really ends except for those few superstar profs who publish book after book.

But one important question underlying Jensen's article is whether radicalism or gradualism is the more effective form of political resistance, an issue that, perhaps, can never be settled to anyone's satisfaction outside of specific historical contexts. But Jensen seems to be right on when he nails the elitism of the intelligentsia as a barrier to political productivity. My goal is to earn my phd without becoming an asshole (I know; I was already one), but at least now I have some understanding of how and why so many end up there.

So, while I agree that academia's efficacy (I'm no preacher or journalist) is limited by its own structure, all is not lost. Prof. Jensen should check out some American high schools, community and state college classrooms and re-read Postman's Teaching as a Subversive Activity or Gramsci if he wants to have his faith renewed. But I will give the professor's full article and book a complete reading, once I finish my own!

[MisterP]

25. plus there's this to deal with

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School_conspiracy_theory
it's a fave of both the neo-Nazis and the "Mooslims burned Copernicus to stop science" types

[B Stieg]

28. Yup.

And the Frankfurt school really is at the base of the criticism we use. We try to hide behind the illusion that semiotics is the way out, but that's got its biases too.

Everything is political.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

21. Thank YOU! Im so pissed that our intellectuals leave us fighting on www with little support

It has been apparent that we have been left mostly on our own since 12-12-2000, and I have been calling out these sell-outs ever since.

BASTARDS!

[marions ghost]

23. These two professors are speaking out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/the-criminal-nsa.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

~excerpt from a recent NYT article they wrote:

"The Fourth Amendment obliges the government to demonstrate probable cause before conducting invasive surveillance. There is simply no precedent under the Constitution for the government’s seizing such vast amounts of revealing data on innocent Americans’ communications.

The government has made a mockery of that protection by relying on select Supreme Court cases, decided before the era of the public Internet and cellphones, to argue that citizens have no expectation of privacy in either phone metadata or in e-mails or other private electronic messages that it stores with third parties.

This hairsplitting is inimical to privacy and contrary to what at least five justices ruled just last year in a case called United States v. Jones. One of the most conservative justices on the Court, Samuel A. Alito Jr., wrote that where even public information about individuals is monitored over the long term, at some point, government crosses a line and must comply with the protections of the Fourth Amendment. That principle is, if anything, even more true for Americans’ sensitive nonpublic information like phone metadata and social networking activity.

We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal."

--------------

Jennifer Stisa Granick is the director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Christopher Jon Sprigman is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

[xchrom]

24. +1

[marions ghost]

27. And also

if you look at the example of those arrested at Moral Mondays in NC--you can see that a number are professors and other educators, clergy and researchers, doctors and those in legal fields. Many of these protestors have made public statements about why they got arrested.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3178493

We have to applaud those who are taking a stand, as well as being critical of those who don't.

But I do get your point about looking at the reasons why intellectuals don't lead the fight against the status quo but are more often stuck in compromising with the forces that oppress us.

One thing that really strikes me is how business schools don't really teach any serious ethics. They just devise more ways to exploit and overcome consumer protections.

[Doctor_J]

26. Oh, please

Any "intellectual" who dares to speak the truth ends up on the coffee-and-packaged donut speaking tour. Ever heard of Michael Parenti? Didn't think so. He's one of the smartest political thinkers alive, and has been for more than 40 years. The big shots torpedoed his career during the VN protests. David Horowitz is the head of a terrorist organization that makes sure liberal teachers are tormented and run out of their jobs.

Liberal intellectuals are consigned by the PTB to blogs, underfunded periodicals, and small lecture venues, while 3rd-rate hacks who shill for the rich (think Dinesh D'Souza) are on TV more than Flo the Progressive Insurance spokeswoman.

[B Stieg]

30. How true and how sad.

Parenti's media analysis is great.

[RainDog]

29. k&r n/t

[indepat]

34. T'is a puzzlement indeed. Perhaps most intellectuals with the most privilege and autonomy

fully realize that if they rock the boat, they will likely lose their privilege and autonomy and therefore be in the same boat as the underemployed intellectuals: they will be taught a good and hard lesson indeed. Those willing to risk all by exposing the iniquities of the establishment are indeed taught good lessons, a la Snowden et el.

[Rex]

36. The Professional Left was told to go fuck itself.

Actually what they said was worser...but I do have standards and won't repeat it.

[chervilant]

37. Intellectuals as a social formation?

Does such a thing exist?

I recall my days at university, excited by Maslow's work in psychology at a time when Neo-Freudians predominated. I recall male students struggling to accept as peers their female counterparts. I recall my calculus professor--a Hassidic Jew--telling me and the only other woman in the amphitheatre that we didn't belong in his class.

I recall graduate school, where I struggled to get permission to create a peer support group for the young women on campus dealing with relationship violence issues. I was sure that college and high school students were experiencing relationship violence on a level similar to married and conjugal partners--but no one was doing that kind of research...yet.Three of my five faculty members were themselves married to abusers...

I wanted to write a populist treatment of power imbalance as the fundamental underpinning of relationship violence, only to have a male member of our faculty attempt to steal my theoretical perspective ("you could build a lifetime career as a key sociologist!" he said).

I don't want the "wealth" commensurate with an 'intellectual' pursuit. I certainly don't want the misogyny. And, I've yet to find a homogeneous set of 'intellectuals.' I hope I never do.