Re: On Academe and the list was Re: NACLA and Colombia

["Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

En relación a On Academe and the list was Re: NACLA and Colombi,
el 16 Dec 00, a las 15:05, Gary MacLennan dijo:

> To begin with I am happier as an academic here than on most of the other
> lists I have been or am on.  Granted Lou runs a different kind of list from 
> that
> which many academics may be comfortable with. His emphasis is on political
> activism.

That an "academic" needs to explain this is a good measure of the sinkhole
where most Academia have fallen into. Back during the 70s and 80s, Marxist
academics (and allow me to quote David Harvey here) were _glad_ to explain that
the only academic endeavour worth living through was political activism. I
still remember the Swedish-American geographer William Bunge, whose activities
in Detroit (Ann Arbor) made the Academia vomit him out to the job of taxi
driver --a job he considered prime geographical work!

Things have happened since, however. In the end, academia and other groups are
always prone to suffer the fate of the "middle classes": neither bourgeois,
neither proletarian, they (we?) lean to the stronger side in class struggle.
That there remain Marxist academicians today is a good demonstration that
Marxism is a strong, a VERY strong, theory. That most academics who call
themselves Marxists, however, tend to first sever their links with practical
action and later to sever their links with Marxism is a good demonstration that
we are traversing a reactionary period of humankind.

When Mariano Moreno, the great Jacobin of the River Plate, died in the high
seas (most probably poisoned, not unintentionally, by an English captain), his
political enemy Cornelio Saavedra -the conservative President of the first
Governing Council in Buenos Aires, 1810- is said to have commented "All that
water was needed to put an end to so much fire!".  The fire was not finished,
however, we are still alive and fighting. Much the same can be said of academic
Marxism.

> If Michael ever visits Brisbane I will take a great deal of pleasure in
> introducing him to quite a number of former leftists who fit this
> description exactly.  You only have to knock on a few doors at Griffith
> University!  We could also take a trip down to Sydney and we would be
> falling over them.

And, since we are already South from the Equator, a tour among Argentinean
academics, particularly self-appointed "Marxists", would also be instructive.
These guys have historically had a twist of mind that (mysteriously?) put them
against the actual working class and its necessities. Academic Marxists in
reactionary situations are a redoubtable weapon of reaction, indeed. And please
keep in mind that yours truly has obtained a National Prize in Geographic
Research, 1995, and not due to stone slinging in road blocks, but due to hard
academic work. So that I know what I am talking about when I say that what goes
on applies like glove to hand to the situation in Argentina (BTW, need I remind
list members that Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the current and awfully
subservient President of Brazil, was a bold "academic Marxist" up to the
late 70s and even early 80s?):

>
>
> It is my experience (in Australia at least) that the former beautiful
> people of the 60s have set the tone for academic life.  In my own field the
> contributions of Hirst, & Bennett & co has produced a new generation of bright
> young pragmatists.  Instead of fighting out the good fight and holding on,
> Bennett and the others led the counter revolution. There is no other word to 
> use
> than "sell out".

Perhaps many didn't even "sell out".  At least here, most of Academic Marxism
was as useful for revolutionary praxis as a nail made of chewing gum.

This does not mean that I dismiss academic work, as stated already above. Much
to the contrary, I believe it is of the greatest necessity, _only that_ if it
gets delinked and becomes futile embroidery it may be not only useless but even
reactionary. I think of lists like this one, or L-I for that matter, as a
strong vaccine against this tendency. They are means that convey at least a
breath of air from the open spaces into the cabinets. Marxist academics should
feel not only at ease here, they should resort to them as a kind of research
resource (not few of us do it, by the way).

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx