July 12, 2005
Why Not Kill the Professors?
Compare this mindless hatefulness and anti-intellectualism with this long and thoughtful post defending literary theory by a professor. Note: I'm not asking you to compare the substance of the posts—that would be patently unfair—but the mental and emotional stances that inform them. The former is the product of close-mindedness, laziness, and hate, an unwillingness even to attempt to understand different ideas or people; the latter, curiosity, hard work, and a desire to teach. Neither sets of qualities are exclusive to the left or the right of the political spectrum, but it certainly seems sometimes like the unfavorable ones are more likely to be found expressed by someone like an NRO writer and the favorable ones by those evil professors. My motivation for this post, however, was not to compare the worst characteristics of one group to the best of another (or even of two individuals). Instead, you should just read the second link, a detailed discussion of literary theory focusing on Deconstruction by Michael Bérubé. Ignore my rant.
It is curious you should write this post the day before I came across this one, by a Moroccan-born Frenchman living in Oulu, Finland, in which he ponders the death of the Spanish philosopher and University of Salamanca rector Unamuno, who stood up to the fascist general Millán Astray who had cried in a public meeting on 12 October 1936 "Muera la inteligencia", which can be translated either "Death to intelligence" or "death to intellectuals". Unamuno replied "This is the temple of intelligence. And I am its high priest" All of which only got him fired from his job, after which, broken, he died of a heart attack on 31 December 1936. So, the idea of killing professors is, alas, nothing new in certain circles.
True; we only have to remember Socrates to find analogies. As one prof I had put it, "When the revolution comes, the professors are first against the wall." I guess it's a little nice to know that people instinctively recognize the power of ideas... not much comfort that they want to crush them, though.
Well, I think there's two ways to look at it. We all know that NR is, increasingly, an organ of Limbaugh/Faux populist right wing. Limbaugh constantly refers to NR. And anti-intellectual rants generate links and discussion. So this kind of blog post is part of NR's bread and butter, even if it's mostly a joke.
The other way to look at it is to consider learning from right-wing discourse. Namely, the problem with left-wing cultural theory is that it is extremely difficult to relate to practical life. These kinds of jokes--so popular with the masses--underline the gigantic gulf between university discourse and popular discourse.
In this vein, we shouldn' be suprised that even Kevin Drum's readers (as Berube notes) are hostile to it. I rarely read Kevin Drum, but I imagine his readers are similar to the TPMcafe crowd--liberal, political, and highly skeptical. They were probably good students in college and were perhaps briefly infatuated with existentialism or Freudianism, but now they look back on these things as adolescent. They resent literature professors, who they feel are indulging in adolescent nonsense as a career. Resentment is, of course, mixed with envy.
Naturally I think this attitude is counterproductive, and I'm glad there are people like Berube who take the time to make the case to smart, non-theory oriented readers. Still, the right-wing doesn't seem to suffer so much from these problems. The dominant intellectual wings--Straussianism and various forms of theological conservatism--tend to be elitist and difficult to penetrate, yet somehow their ambassadors are able to establish mutally fruitful relations with practical political intellectuals. The most imporant left-wing university intellectuals, by contrast, often avoid concrete political issues, mostly out of a concern for objectivity--the illusion that literary theory isn't about values (ie, questions about what sort of things make us better people). Meanwhile, if left-wingers do become politically active, they are usually so far out of the mainstream that the popular mind is incapable of empathizing with them and they are easily smeared by the press.
It is interesting to note that the Straussians believe (roughly) that a real understanding of philosophy is reserved for the elite (mainly because philosophy is dangerous stuff), while the masses need to be guided through popularizations. Left-wing theory, by contrast, seems to make few attempts to dumb-down or popularize its theories. Since the decline of Marx and Freud, what has emerged to replace them? Where are the avenues (outside the academy) where left cultural theory is even discussed?
One of the reasons left-wing cultural theory is idiosyncratic is because it is most concentrated in literature, while right-wing cultural theory is most concentrated in political science (of course, there is a left-centrist wing in political theory--just read people like Yglesias--but this doesn't seem to have much popular appeal). I don't think this is an aesthetic dimension is an intrinsic handicap because concern for aesthetics is a big part of the Left. We have to stop imagining that aesthetics somehow lies outside of reality--the opposite is true.
The most important service left-wing cultural theory should contribute to politics is to articulate left-wing values. To the extent that this is not happening, I think people on the Left have a right to be concerned that left-wing cultural theory is not all that it could be. Namely, it lacks realistic dimension, practical application, and non-academic popularizers.
In short, the Left has to accept that populism--bloated by radio, TV, and the Net--is here to stay. The fight for the soul of the nation is outside the university, even if the university remains an essential training ground. As long as the Left has nothing to teach the nation outside of the university, the citizens of the world will eventually turn away from them.
I am curious, Ludwig, as to what you mean by the phrase “Left-wing values”?
I am no philosopher, nor do I have much knowledge of Straussian beliefs, but it seems to my naïve self that “liberals” or those who profess at least some of a panoply of “left-wing values”(whatever these may actually be) rather believe in the essential “goodness” of mankind taken as a whole (ie, through democratic analysis of data, which of course does not prohibit enormous misjudgements all too frequently) in order to choose social and economic priorities, while “conservatives” or those with “right-wing values” distrust the bases of human actions and prefer to allow the mechanism of markets, more or less “free”, depending on how one defines “free”, to determine the allocation of human resources, with a rather survival-of-the-fittest sort of justification, even when that is not accurate.
Both points of view possess their own “romantic” appeal to listeners, who will respond to them on largely personal, subjective grounds — I personally feel the power of logic to convince anyone of anything is far less than one would assume or hope, while personal prejudice drawn from hidden sources is far more likely to inform most people’s philosophical outlooks. “Benevolent” and “fuzzy” opt for the “liberal” and “humanitarian” while the “tough” and “clear-cut” choose the “conservative” and “realistic” approach. Again, I feel the decision is more telling about the person than about the political philosophy.
But that’s fine, too. I have been reading a lot on evolution of late and I wonder if this apparent dialectic between those who look to the future with some sort of positive feeling (“liberals”) and those who fear the future with its unknowns (“conservatives”) isn’t hardwired somehow into our species, a sort of natural give-and-take that ultimately serves some higher, though currently invisible, purpose.
And I agree that the National Review’s and Rush Limbaugh’s angles probably have more to do with ratings than with real opinions. You seem, however, to put “populism” firmly and for ever on the right, while, in different circumstances from what we have now, I can certainly imagine a form of populism that would tend towards the left, very much as seems the case in much of Europe today. (The religious angle of course may be particular to us and to certain Middle-Eastern countries.)
To return to the question of “left-wing values” and how to articulate them, I’m not sure the task feels to me that difficult, even if academics are having trouble. Take, for instance, the (left-wing) motto of the French republic (since, after all, it’s Bastille Day today): Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Pretty straightforward and self-evident, it seems to me — except for the “fraternity” part, I admit, which seems to want to make me like my fellow man more than I may be naturally inclined to. The left would represent the liberty to exercise one’s choice in living life as one pleases (religion etc being left entirely up to the individual) or “the pursuit of happiness” if you like. Equality means to me that in principle (if not in fact) no one has special privileges based on happenstance of birth (but of course tell that to Bush I and II or Roosevelt or Kennedy) and can be interpreted as “equality of opportunity” — this concept may bomb in Greenwich or River Oaks, but it works well elsewhere. Again, with fraternity, I am personally sort of creeped out by the presumed brotherhood of man, but I do understand that we are all in this moment together and therefore share in its outcome.
These “left-wing values” don’t seem to me to need complicated academic explanations or exegeses. But, again, I am certainly naïve, and I appreciated your comment and how it led me to think about your points.
Good points. I certainly do think the "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" have enormous potential for left-wingers.... I think much of their power here in the States has been undermined by the discourse of multiculturalism. Today, we witness the painful spectacle of "freedom" harnessed as an ideology of imperial domination and forceful conversion of the 3rd world.
I also agree that evolution is a good example of differences between the left and right--the left seems to be more optimistic about how experiments in collective action can transform human beings. But now, these sorts of definitions are becoming blurred--the GOP in particular has appropriated a number of traditionally left-liberal themes to their advantage...among these the idea of democracy's transformative effect.
"Populism" certainly isn't reserved for the Right, but I think we have to agree that today, the right wing is harnessing populist energies, while the left is completely on the defensive (indeed, the Democrats are basically the conservative party right now). It is telling that there is so much discussion on Democratic blogs about how the party lacks an "overarching message".... The GOP suceeded in drilling its values into a loyal following, and the Left simply has no coherent ideology to answer them.