Re: Singing to Tractors (was Re: O Happy Day)

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx 12/15/00 05:24PM >>>
>CB: In general I agree with movement to resolve the ancient
>antagonism between predominantly mental and predominantly physical
>labor.
>
>There is some issue of "workerism" , romanticising physical labor by
>some radicals.
>
>However, not touched here or on LBO-Talk is the wellknown,
>platitudinous even , but true ANCIENT SNOBBERY OF PREDOMINANTLY
>MENTAL LABORERS which is part of the elitism of ruling classes which
>exploited predominantly physical laborers down through the class
>societies.

As a matter of fact, I think that _workerism is rooted in ancient
snobbery of intellectuals against predominantly manual laborers_.
Workerists think that manual laborers are uninterested in questions
of culture, sexuality, etc., patronizingly under-estimating manual
laborers' intellectual capacity & interest.  I have very little
tolerance for workerism, because I was brought up by blue-collar dad
& pink-collar mom who were & still are deeply interested in books,
movies, etc.  Politicized workers _especially_ have _no_ time for
Philistinism, which workerists -- emblematized by the college-boy
"junior Stalin" who is surprised to find a book in a back-pocket of a
steel worker's pants that Mike LeFevre remembers in his oral history
collected by Studs Terkel -- imagine is appropriate for the working
class.  Workerism turns off workers from socialism.

(((((((((((

CB: Workerism may be ironically rooted in intellectual snobbery, but the main snobbery of intellectuals is not workerism. The main snobbery of intellectuals is expression of not wanting to be "manual" laborers or preference for thinking over heavy hand and foot work.  This turns off workers to intellectuals much more than "workerism" , which is a very minor phenomenon compared to "anti-workerism" among intellectuals.

So in emphasizing not being workerist, one should not let intellectuals off of the hook for their main error , which is anti-workerism not workerism.