Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 18:50:21 +0200 (EET)
From: j laari <jlaari-AT-cc.jyu.fi>
Subject: M-TH: Re: 2ND TRY


Ralph,

originally I had in mind something like that

"Gramsci's intellectuals seem to constitute what Europeans call an
intelligentsia"

but there's still a supposition that intelligentsia is a distinct
group. I've understood that for Gramsci it was rather another way:
there emerges among different classes 'organic intellectuals' due to
general societal questions. His point was to emphasize the importance
to help the creation of organic intellectuals of working class.

"my question remains: what has Gramsci to say about how one should do
original intellectual work and connect it with the proletariat, which
is the question that preoccupies the leftish intellectuals in the
American academy today?"

But what if they are already (more or less organic) intellectuals of
bourgeoisie? What if people like Bruce Springsteen are closer to
Gramsci's view? That is, Springsteen didn't became first an
Intellectual who later realised his belongings, but who was so
'organic' to his class that he didn't even realised how overwhelming
his belonging really was.

"... statement appears as nonsense to me.  If the content of their
work is not ideological, then they could only be judged ideologists by
their social function or professional identity.  To say that the
content of a _mathematician's_ work is ideological, especially without
examining the work itself, is the most extreme sort of relativism."

I had to read what you wrote earlier: "According to Gramsci, what
would it take for a mathematician, physicist, or chemist to be
organic?"

I thought you were wondering scientists' societal and political roles
as intellectuals (not as practizing scientists) and I had in mind
typical figure of scientist as Intellectual (as public figure, a wise
man, Professor) who gives instant answers to professional questions as
well as to general political, philosophical and such questions. When
a neurologist or brain scientist, for example, tells how social
relations should be arranged, he usually (that is, when being not a
marxist or marxian) gives ideological answers. Such as 'culture is a
creation of brain, and therefore...' and something reductive follows,
for example how important it is to maintain the social order at any
price, after all even ants know this...

In other words, I wasn't saying that the content of scientist's work
is ideological. Rather my point is that scientist easily slips into
ideology when he tries to fulfill the (intellectual etc.) needs of
audience or public.

Finally, it seems that our concepts of intellectual are different.
Bourdieu once defined it as independent cultural producer, who enters
public (political) discussion as himself, not as representant of some
societal or social power centre (capital, party, church). Emile Zola
was his example as, perhaps, the first (modern) intellectual.

I have usually had difficulties with these issues, partly because in
FInnish there's three words that can be used to refer intelligentsija
and intellectuals. All those words are collective words; there isn't
necessarily a word for individual representant of such groups. Root of
first term refers to reading, so the group consists of those who have
'read' (or who are well-read), who have some surplus education. Second
term has its root in a word by which we have translated German
'Bildung' (education & formation), so the group consists of those
people of university education concentrated on aesthetic, ethical, and
intellectual development in the spirit of trad. Bildungsuniversitaet.
Third term has its root in what means 'intelligence' in Finnish. And
as I said, all are collective words. There's word for only individual
of third group and that's quite a new neologism (perhaps from the
seventies).  Real joke is that we can use also term 'intelligentsija'
(from Russian origin) if we need to do a sociological four-way
distinction... Gramsci would have loved it?

Jukka



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