Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 13:35:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: "J.M. Adams" <ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: [postanarchism] Re: Is there anyone on this list who isn't a current or  aspi..


While I reject specialization and privilege in general
I should also point out that I don't think that just
because someone is a student or a professor that this
means that they are the 'enemy'. There are many within
academia who, like the students and professors in the
Events of May '68, are actively working to subvert
their own positions and to open up the university to
the entire community. In fact I would assume that most
of the academics on this list would fit into this
description, being that this is an anarchist list, so
I don't think it makes sense to single them out as
though they were somehow 'worse' than computer
programmers, librarians, carpenters or other
specialized laborers who make more than $10/hr and
have their own apartment. 

There is no denying that most (but certainly not all)
academics come from middle-class backgrounds but as we
hopefully learned after May '68 this does not mean
that they will not be involved in future insurrections
against power - in fact in the past several decades
students have been involved in almost every major
revolt around the world! I think the question that
should be asked here is not, should academics be
researching anarchism and trying to develop new
insights, etc. since obviously I certainly do think
they should, but rather, what is the role of the
academic in the movement toward an anarchist society?
I dont think that they should act as a vanguard by any
means but I do think they have a role - some argue
that they should be giving speeches, standing on
street corners, giving the movement their 'all' etc.
like Sartre or something, while others such as Paul
Virilio reject this because it makes the academic
appear to be the 'leader' - in fact he says  it is for
this reason that he prefers to just write on his own
and to develop new concepts that might help people to
see things differently, and perhaps to act differently
as a result, while doing minimal activism of his own
without making a big deal of it. Ironically then, by
holding back a little bit, being somewhat less
involved in activism and more involved in academia,
but from a radical standpoint, the academic may in
fact do more to bring about social change since they
will not be playing the role of vanguard, but will
help to get some fresh ideas out there! 

This is kind of how John Zerzan acts in Eugene from
what I hear, he will go on activist radio and TV shows
once in a while but primarily he stays out of the
limelight so as to avoid the Sartre Syndrome. This
seems to be the appropriate position for the academic
to take in my opinion, especially for anarchists,
there should be a certain humility before popular
movements for social change in the early stages, and
then when it eventually gets to the point that the
universities and workplaces are actually being
collectivized, as in May '68, the professors and
students can join in and help to make it happen
without pretending that its 'their' university. Thus I
am not so disturbed that academics fall into their own
little sub-cliques within anarchism so long as they do
not think that they 'have it all figured out' or that
they will one day lead the behooded black-clothed
masses into the new world or whatever - in fact I
think it is probably healthy that they do so since
this allows the popular movements to develop more
organically.

As far as class struggle goes, I think there should be
every effort made to bridge the gap between working
class and middle class movements, as happened with the
Worker-Student Action Committees in May '68 where each
supported the other despite their differing life
experiences, since all were subject to some form of
authority or another even if not to the same degree;
while some would say that this amounts to changing the
system from within I would question whether there is
anything but 'within' - for instance is it really the
case that a student is within the system and a
carpenter is outside of it? Is a longshoremen making
$100,000 a year really 'outside' of the system? Is a
middle class dropout anarchist living off a trust fund
while trian hopping around the country really
'outside' the system? There has to be some common
ground here between all of the various positions we
are coming from and there also has to be room for
those who are not academics as such but who are
'organic intellectuals' who teach themselves radical
theory or who learn about this stuff on their own - I
have a freind for instance who never graduated from
high school who could probably debate any PhD on this
list about poststructuralism, situationism, Frankfurt
School Marxism, etc. and do quite well indeed - so in
short I guess what I am saying is 'hate the game not
the player', or whatever.

Jason

===="The world is the natural setting of and field for all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not 'inhabit' only 'the inner man' or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world and only in the world does he know himself."

— Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 1945

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