Ecology in Mind: Silent Critical Dummies
Christopher Koliba
| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| • February 1992 | Newspaper: Funded by Syracuse University students. | |
| The Alternative Orange: Vol. 1, No. 4 (pp. 12) | ||
| • August 27, 2000 | Webpage:  . | |
| DocBook XML (DocBk XML V3.1.3) from original. | ||
This here column is devoted to you — the reader out there who may be asking if you need to have a PhD. to understand the most of the articles in this paper (including, of course, this one.) I raise this topic while critiquing Adam Katz‘s article last issue on “The Politics of Personal Transformation and the Limits of ‘Experience.‘”
Let me begin by acknowledging something about my position by admitting right at the start that i am guilty of all of the things i am about to accuse Adam of. When last i wrote on the “Cult of Consciousness Raising” i pretty much stereotyped all dogma (theories and ideologies included) as “manipulative stench.” While doing this i constructed my own ideology — an “anti- ideology” ideology, and to some extent i glorified the role which “experience” plays in the process of social change. As Adam accurately stated, i professed an “ideology of experience.” Yet, i ask what can we learn from valuing experience? Let us consider the experiences of you, the reader of this column.
If you are forced to struggle to make sense of what i am writing, how do you feel? Adam seems to think that what you feel (what you experience intuitively) lacks “actual significance.” Apparently how you feel when you read something that “zooms over your head” is not “actual,” but rather a product of the capitalist/bourgeois/liberal forms of interpreting experience that you have been forced to live by. For this reason the “apparent” should not be trusted. This places those who value that experience in a very subservient position to the “intellectual” who, through his/her ability to demystify reality, will interpret our experiences for us.
Adam mystifies the authoratative position of the intellectual by places him/her in association with the “oppressed” as “critical solidarity.” The oppressed are here defined as you — the stupid dummy who has his/her experiences mediated by capitalism and, in addition, won’t take the time to understand what the intellectual is saying. The oppressed dummy in turn critizes the intellectual my remaining silent.
Let me try to clarify my point — if all of us are to engage in “critical solidarity,” as Adam has put it, should we not then be able to criticize those radical intellectuals for oppressing us with words and sentence structures and ideas we can‘t understand???
My call to take heed and respect the experiences of those we are writing for pertains to the issue of power relationships. Power relationships are communicable ( i . e . they exist when and where information is shared. ) For example, i have recognized my abuse of power when i am conversing with women. I have found myself not respecting the words of women — this situation becomes manifest in the fact that i am more inclined to interrupt my female friends, than i would with my male friends. I liken this situation to the relationship between the radical intellectual and non-intellectual layiety. Why does this situation arise? We will not find the answer by ignoring “power” in relationships. People experience power or a lack of power (stress experience).
At this point we must ask who is in a position to “demystify” reality, surface the contradictions in society, admit to our abuse of power?
With all of this critism directed at intellectual let me stick my foot in my mouth and say that there must be a role for the radical intellectual in this function. But this will require a new brand (oops, sorry for the capitalist lingo) of radical intellectual who possesses the flexibility to adapt to the ever changing reality. If one is so thoroughly grounded in a particular brand of dogma, he or she may be faced with some serious identity problems. For example, suppose your finance professor suddenly realizes that the assumptions he has been using to construct his most excellent model of the stock market are totally “unrealistic,” phoney, wrong, bogus... etc. And yet, he has built his career building these models — what oh what is he to do? He is left with two choices : fight to maintain his identity as a professor who constructs most excellent models of the stock market, or suffer through the consequences of having to change.
We are seeing this battle brewing in most of our hummanities and social science departments. As the irreversible(?) currents of “multiculturalism, ” fueled by feminism, radical pluralism, post-modernism, deconstruction... etc., confront the identities of scholars who have built careers on “unrealistic” assumptions, emotional responses will be evoked. I am arguing that the dialogue which Adam and i (and others) are engaged in is a ritual bloodletting among the “radical contingent” of academia. The insight i’ve gained from the process is that “critical solidarity” can only flourish when individuals possess the flexibility to adapt.
With this said, please let me note the dangers of being overly flexible . To be too flexible in one‘s ideological outlook will place one into the very vulnerable position of being subject to the whims of new academic “fads. ” Some have argued that this “multiculturalism” thing is a fad. I hear Adam saying that ideologies of experience are fads. The only way to find out whether these movements possess historical significance is to engage them. Through critical interaction (active debate and organization of effort) we engage them by recognizing the contributions of these movements to our intellectual identities as contempoary radicals.
With this said, i must comment on the utter experiential non-sense i have just laid right on your lap. We may ask, what relevance does all of this have to the “real” world? Given the relative impotence of radical intellectuals to effect systemic and personal change, i may want to answer this question skeptically. Or perhaps i can get sappy and ritualize the signigance of the times we live in. (que the brass band)... Perhaps there are people out there ready to take risks — ready to question the tenure system — ready to work in critical solidarity with others — ready to laugh at themselves — ready to take the world a little less seriously — ready to find joy in listening rather than spout off at the mouth.
I hope, that when new currents of change finally sweep across this great country of ours that i will be able to possess the flexibility to change, or have the nerve to step aside and retire to some hovel to write science fiction novels about a world governed by a static ideology constructed by some intellectual with a messiah complex.
Until next time, sustainable peace, and stuff like that...
