Doug wrote:
> If an intellectual has spent his or her life studying birdsong or mapping
> the migration pattern of salmon, there are no such expectations. But is it
> wrong to expect that a student of the history and mechanics of political
> and cultural power might have some advice to offer people involved in
> practical struggles? I wonder if behind this stance of modesty there isn't
> an arrogant detachment from the mob.
This is cast in such hopelessly general terms, it seems to me that the
only way to answer it is an equally general "no". If the given intellectual's
studies have not led hir to the kinds of conclusions that can be formulated
as "advice", then clearly offering advice would be inappropriate. The
best that the intellectual can do is present the results of hir findings
and hope that others will continue the studies, use the existing results
in some way they find helpful, etc.
But also, if you force the question into a mental universe where the
concept of "intellectual" is counter-posited against the concept of "mob",
then you're dooming all possibilities of fruitful discussion of the
role of intellectuals, because one is compelled to start by protesting
this concept of "mob" and as soon as one starts to protest, one is
immediately protesting too much. It is quite possible that the concept
of "intellectual" is always already, as soon as it is posited as a separate
social function, thusly doomed. In which case there is no point in faulting
specific intellectuals for not being able to transcend this doomedness.
All one can do is fault them, if one indeed wants to fault, for being
intellectuals in the existing society. Are you prepared to do that?
Me, I certainly am not. There is much too much I owe to intellectuals.
But since I am on a quoting spree, let me quote from Ian Burn, 1975,
about "modern art", which I think applies equally well to the problem of
"intellectuals":
"... Shouldn't we be scrutinizing certain historically unique aspects of
our market relations? How have these wrought fundamental changes in the
'art' produced? I know many of us are grateful beneficiaries of this market.
Nonetheless, we have all ended up victims of its capriciousness, the
'principles' of modern art having trapped us in a panoptical prison
of our own making. Simply, this is the realization that if the arts were
really democratized, we as producers of an elite art would no longer have
any means of functioning -- wanting to abolish elitism in modern art is
tantamount to wanting to abolish modern art itself. [...]
Often-heard remarks implying that it is not enough to be 'just an artist'
are merely public admissions that, as a role in society, 'artist' is a
sterile one. More pointedly, this sheds light on the prevailing concept
of 'artist': it has become an integral part of the meaning of the concept
'artist' that it is politically conservative (or, at its most adventuristic,
reactionary), and that remains its sole possible political role -- hence
its continuing great value as propaganda for an imperious culture.
This is clearly reflected in the desperation of more and more artists
to escape their political impotence, in their attempt to reconcile the
paradoxality of their lives wrought by being hopefully 'radical' in
politics but necessarilty 'conservative' in art.
The inside story of this is that there is no 'radical theory' in the arts
today, and there can be none while the present state of affairs prevails.
That also explains something about the extreme poverty of 'critical theory',
since a critical theory which sets itself the task of revealing the
various forms of conflict and exploitation needs to be informed by some
(prospect of) radical theory, something which denies the current ideology
and economic class values embodied in modern art. Current and recent art
criticism has become at best a means of policing and regulating, at worst
a sheer celebration of the impotence of the status quo.
In this light, most of the chatter about 'plurality' in the contemporary
scene comes over as so much liberal claptrap. What use is a sort of
'freedom' which can have no other effect than reinforcing the status quo?"
-m
> If an intellectual has spent his or her life studying birdsong or mapping
> the migration pattern of salmon, there are no such expectations. But is it
> wrong to expect that a student of the history and mechanics of political
> and cultural power might have some advice to offer people involved in
> practical struggles? I wonder if behind this stance of modesty there isn't
> an arrogant detachment from the mob.
This is cast in such hopelessly general terms, it seems to me that the
only way to answer it is an equally general "no". If the given intellectual's
studies have not led hir to the kinds of conclusions that can be formulated
as "advice", then clearly offering advice would be inappropriate. The
best that the intellectual can do is present the results of hir findings
and hope that others will continue the studies, use the existing results
in some way they find helpful, etc.
But also, if you force the question into a mental universe where the
concept of "intellectual" is counter-posited against the concept of "mob",
then you're dooming all possibilities of fruitful discussion of the
role of intellectuals, because one is compelled to start by protesting
this concept of "mob" and as soon as one starts to protest, one is
immediately protesting too much. It is quite possible that the concept
of "intellectual" is always already, as soon as it is posited as a separate
social function, thusly doomed. In which case there is no point in faulting
specific intellectuals for not being able to transcend this doomedness.
All one can do is fault them, if one indeed wants to fault, for being
intellectuals in the existing society. Are you prepared to do that?
Me, I certainly am not. There is much too much I owe to intellectuals.
But since I am on a quoting spree, let me quote from Ian Burn, 1975,
about "modern art", which I think applies equally well to the problem of
"intellectuals":
"... Shouldn't we be scrutinizing certain historically unique aspects of
our market relations? How have these wrought fundamental changes in the
'art' produced? I know many of us are grateful beneficiaries of this market.
Nonetheless, we have all ended up victims of its capriciousness, the
'principles' of modern art having trapped us in a panoptical prison
of our own making. Simply, this is the realization that if the arts were
really democratized, we as producers of an elite art would no longer have
any means of functioning -- wanting to abolish elitism in modern art is
tantamount to wanting to abolish modern art itself. [...]
Often-heard remarks implying that it is not enough to be 'just an artist'
are merely public admissions that, as a role in society, 'artist' is a
sterile one. More pointedly, this sheds light on the prevailing concept
of 'artist': it has become an integral part of the meaning of the concept
'artist' that it is politically conservative (or, at its most adventuristic,
reactionary), and that remains its sole possible political role -- hence
its continuing great value as propaganda for an imperious culture.
This is clearly reflected in the desperation of more and more artists
to escape their political impotence, in their attempt to reconcile the
paradoxality of their lives wrought by being hopefully 'radical' in
politics but necessarilty 'conservative' in art.
The inside story of this is that there is no 'radical theory' in the arts
today, and there can be none while the present state of affairs prevails.
That also explains something about the extreme poverty of 'critical theory',
since a critical theory which sets itself the task of revealing the
various forms of conflict and exploitation needs to be informed by some
(prospect of) radical theory, something which denies the current ideology
and economic class values embodied in modern art. Current and recent art
criticism has become at best a means of policing and regulating, at worst
a sheer celebration of the impotence of the status quo.
In this light, most of the chatter about 'plurality' in the contemporary
scene comes over as so much liberal claptrap. What use is a sort of
'freedom' which can have no other effect than reinforcing the status quo?"
-m