Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 22:47:15 -0600
From: Mary Murphy&Salstrand <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Becoming Intellectuals Without Organs


Don Smith wrote:

I thought you might like to know what Antonio Gramsci thought
about intellectuals. He divided intellectuals into two groups: those
directly involved in "directing the ideas and aspirations of their
class" through hegemony, known as organic intellectuals and the rest,
known as traditional intellectuals.

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

Just a quick response here - It seems as though part of the problem in
this discussion of intellectuals is the assumption that the intellectual
is a subject, regardless of whether or not this subject is the rational,
universal fantasy of Kant or the situated class subject of Gramsci.

What if the concept of intellectual did not need to involve a subject at
all?  How is an intellectual without organs possible?  (How do we become
Deleuzian without becoming delusional?)

Perhaps in Lyotardian terms, an intellectual is an articulation of the
impossible phrase, giving voice (silent or otherwise) to feeling; to
libidinal desires (even without a set-up).

Perhaps the intellectual is simply a becoming; a singularity, not an
individual; an event, not a person.

Not who is an intellectual, but rather "Is it happening?"