Re: AUT: Re: Academia....

[asc <satellitecrash@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Nate,
I disagree and I don't think I really overstated
anything...

I would agree, though, that my analysis problematizes,
for one, student movements as a social movement (that
is to say student movements have played valuable roles
in many nation's politics), but i just think it's
erroneous to call any academic department 'radical'...
basically because of the reactionary nature of the
university and the university's role in turning out
sheep, but also b/c of the apathy and distaste for
organizing of the intellectuals, and the antagonism
that one often finds between universities and the
larger communities that they are situated in (no
organic bonds being fostered to develope a true
community of resistance)...

so everything i've suggested really problematizes the
role of the university for anarchists and libertarian
communists, but hopefully most of us are busily
involved with social movements, and we have plenty of
time to figure this out...
love and rage,
-Sean

p.s. sorry if there are any typo's my computer is
messed...

p.p.s. the fact that the university turns out some
ultra-left theory i don't think is significant...
prisons also turn out ultra left theory i recommend
lorenzo komboa ervin's 'anarchism and the black
revolution'...

--- Nate Holdren <nateholdren@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Sean-
> No disrespect, but I think you take good points and
> overstate them, making
> your analysis pretty inadqeuate. I think I agree
> that the function of the
> university as a site internal to capitalist society
> is a reactionary one,
> maintaining and advancing social relations of
> capitalism. No one in the
> discussion on this or on students has really made a
> strong argument for the
> reactionary nature of the university, myself
> included, but I do think this
> is right.
>
> Still though, to say that universities and colleges
> produce wholly or solely
> reactionary results seems silly to me. Like any
> other place in capital, the
> university is a site of antagonistic struggle, and
> its behaviors are a
> result of the outcome of struggles. The reason I say
> this is that your take
> sounds very close to advocating abandoning the
> university as a site of
> struggle. The point that "hey there's a world beyond
> the campus" is one that
> many students regularly forget (at least I did) but
> struggles on and in
> sites of higher education (by students, teachers,
> and various staff) are a
> part of the antagonism which characterizes every
> moment of capitalist
> society. To make the 'real world/campus world'
> dichotomy sounds very close
> to a host of historical examples of people saying
> where the struggle is (the
> factory) and where it's not (the bedroom, the
> kitchen, the segregated buses,
> etc).
> Plus, it simply is the case that SOME folks employed
> in the academy DO read
> and propagate ultra-left ideas, including some folks
> who are on this list.
>
> all the best,
> Nate
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: asc <satellitecrash@xxxxxxxxx>
> >Reply-To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >Subject: AUT: Re: Academia....
> >Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 21:08:14 -0700 (PDT)
> >
> >Hi autopsy,
> >just want to get my two cents in on the academia
> >debate that seems to have morphed into something
> else
> >(like everything thread on the list), but anyway
> i'm
> >surprised no one has advocated the position that
> EVERY
> >academic department is wholly reactionary... it
> took
> >me quite sometime to figure this out, but i think
> that
> >was because i'd been trapped on university campuses
> >for four years! there's a whole world out there
> with
> >real social issues, people dying, emperors starting
> >wars, etc, etc... the university is just like a
> little
> >gated community on mountaintop insulated from all
> the
> >stuff outside of where the class struggles,
> ecological
> >devastation, fight for control of resources,
> >extermination of native populations etc., etc. is
> >taking place... every once in awhile (or all the
> time
> >with the really 'radical' profs) some of these
> issues
> >are paraded out in front of the student body/given
> the
> >spotlight, and it's really unclear what else can be
> >done further than discussing the issues and writing
> >eloquently penned critiques of the unjust
> >situations...
> >
> >i'm not saying i'm not ever going to go to a
> >university again, i'm just saying take the
> education
> >with a grain a salt, i mean i basically view
> >university as the training ground for the ruling
> class
> >and their sycophants; there's a reason why even the
> >most radical academics aren't reading and teaching
> >things like the texts on a lot of the far left
> >websites that are plugged on this list all the
> time...
> >it's because their radicalism is limited by an
> >incomplete critique of both society and it's
> >institutions, reactionary elements that have been
> >grandfathered into control of their discipline, and
> >their own inability to reach outside the ivory
> tower
> >to engage in the real movements of the day that
> will
> >destroy the present state of things.
> >love and rage,
> >-Sean
> >
> >
> >=====
> >
> >
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>
>
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