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

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

this is true enough, but how does it all work?  we come up for
reappointment, tenure or promotion and our fellow teachers and the
administration look at our personnel file for signs of "professional
development." they look for team players. the rewards are not great. still,
they matter to many. after all, there is no revolution in the streets. life
goes on. the barbarians are already over the wall. they run the universities
as well as the factories and the banks. students are only pawns in their
game. my job is not to credential the work force. it is to inspire the life
of the mind...tomorrow I have to get up at 7 am to go to graduation
exercises for some of my students, who are not revolutionaries...
----- Original Message -----
From: Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx <xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2000 10:37 PM
Subject: Re: On Academe and the list was Re: NACLA and Colombia


>
>
> Lou Paulsen wrote:
>
> > > 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
>
> Hi Lou! This is really an interesting observation. Some academics who
describe
> themselves as Marxist, or at least as radical intellectuals in the United
> States, use Marxist concepts to describe the world *only* (since Marxism
has
> really an explanatory power as a method of scientific inquiry) instead of
> *changing* the world in some revolutionary sense. I guess this is what you
meant
> by false consciousness.  I was just reading an article by two radical
academics
> having had the chance to publish their article in _International Studies
> Quarterly. This is the most mainstream journal in IPE you can ever
imagine. They
> say in the introduction of the article: We "thank to the editors of ISQ
for
> comments on the first draft of this essay. which was presented at the
Annual
> Convention of the American Political Science Association". Once you look a
t the
> title of the article _Global Hegemony and the Structural Power of Capital_
(By
> Stephen Gill and David Law), it sounds quite radical, because it draws
upon
> Gramsci's theory of hegemony. AFter you read it in details, however, you
will
> probably sense that it is no more different than the "geo-political"
discourse
> of  neo-realist theory in its common criticism of Marxism. I quess, now,
after
> observing all these maneuvers of misrepresenting Marx, I have recently
become
> more interested in how the mainstream coopts the radicals rather than
> marginalizing them in some exclusionary sense. For example, look at the
titles
> in the Leninism conference of Zizek.  It is nothing *but* Lenin.  Just add
a
> couple of *sexy* titles to the list;  put together a conference, and say I
am a
> progressive.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx
> PhD Student
> Department of Political Science
> SUNY at Albany
> Nelson A. Rockefeller College
> 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
> Albany, NY 12222
>
>
>
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