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

["Dr. George Snedeker" <snedeker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    "academics" are a category of workers. actually, we are glorified high
school teachers now that everyone has to go four more years of high school
in order to get entry level jobs. like others, we engage in labor struggles
at the work-place. our primary form of praxis takes the form of propaganda.
you might call it ideological work.I mean "teaching."  yes, we describe the
world using Marxist concepts. the problem is the absence of a real Left in
the United States. some of us get paid better than others. there are also
both mystifications of what it is that we are doing and very real material
interests. the administration of the college, what might be called
"management," are also a mean lot.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lou Paulsen <wwchi@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2000 9:11 PM
Subject: Re: On Academe and the list was Re: NACLA and Colombia


> How about me?  I'm sort of an academic.  I recently did my first peer
review
> for the Sociological Quarterly.  I'm a "self-hating academic" though ;-)
>
> Yoshie is right that there is no "academic class" but you have to admit
that
> a lot of academics haven't caught on to this fact.  False consciousness
> burgeons.
>
> My experience with the "Marxist section" of the American Sociological
> Association is that there is an almost complete disjunction between them
and
> the socialist parties, unlike anything you would find in Europe.  Some of
> them do interesting and valuable research and would very much like to see
> the revolution happen somehow.  But for the majority, the motto is:
> "Previously philosophers have described the world; the thing, however, is
to
> describe it using Marxist concepts."
>
> L. Paulsen
>
>
>