Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 21:54:05 +1000
From: Mark Davis <m.davis-AT-pgrad.unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Re:  Re: No Subject


<fontfamily><param>Times</param><bigger>Language of the privileged? How
interesting it is to be deemed elitist. Definitely a first for me. But
let's talk about class and 'the masses'. Coming from a working class
family in a car manufacturing town, I'm the first and so far only
member of the family to ever get a university degree, let alone a
higher degree. Funny thing is, I sat down with my ageing aunt, who was
a union rep for forty years, and explained Foucault's repressive
hypothesis to her - she wanted to know just what people did in
universities. She had no trouble understanding it. Indeed, her main
comment was, 'Shit, if only we'd had that sort of knowledge in my day.
That would have stuck it right up the bosses.'


It seems to me B Mills, that your charge of elitism is mainly based in
underestimating the intelligence of those who you implicitly claim to
speak on behalf of. That's your elitism, not anyone elses. If we're
going to talk about class, masses and elites, perhaps the issue, then,
is one of access to education, rather than conceptual content. 


M

</bigger></fontfamily>

>I don't believe that 'unlearning privilege' comes from learning the
language

>of the privileged--it's not what I would call conservativism to
eschew

>obscuring one's meaning from the masses (to leap behind the arras of
class

>lingo for a New York minute!)  

>

>Whether a discipline has specialized terminology doesn't interest me
in the

>slightest--whether in has substance (horrors!  subjective!!!!!) does.

>

>B. Mills

>

>

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