The Closing of the Princeton Mind
Though some of this on this blog don't see the merit of reading our fellow students' opinions, I find the experience to be quite stimulating. Often, I find it disturbing. This op-ed, from the Daily Princetonian -- for some reason linked to from politicalytheory -- is one such example. I urge you to read this brief piece before continuing.
One could do a Scantron-esque rhetorical analysis with ease. It would go something like this: "Could it be," the author J.R. de Lara questions, "in purely Marxist terms, that the revolutionary caste of 1969 has seized administrative power in some departments and now uses its position of authority to maintain a certain ideological superstructure?" I'm not sure, but when the author writes that "there is an institutional stigma associated with teaching their works," and that one professor has been said to tell her class, "Don't tell the philosophy department that you're reading Hegel," there doesn't seem much like anything administrative or superstructrural about it.
Also, when the author asks us to observe "the discrepancy between investigating the 'teleological influence of Hegel on Marxism' and finding a job in a modern economy, I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Does Mr. de Lara read only books that help him get a job? If he finds the whole business to be too theoretical, does he not realize that the 'teleological influence of Hegel on Marxism' is a historical question that might help us understand how Marx's ideas came to be, and how the notion of inevitability might have influenced the Soviet Revolution, the Stalinist regime, and even the fall and decline of Marxism and Communism themselves?
When de Lara talks about "superstructure" and "teleological influence" he does so clearly as a Princeton student who has neither understood nor likely read either Hegel or Marx. He deplores the use of the term "scientific Hegelianism" as "academic fraud," but never says why. Perhaps if he had gone and done some research he would have discovered Engels' essay on "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific." If he thinks Engels' was wrong, I'd like to know why, and I'd like to see textual (call it 'scientific') evidence.
The reason Mr. de Lara 's piece disturbs me is not just because he failed to do any homework (why not try to read one of these theses on Marx, for example), but because it never even crosses his mind to do so. It is the closing of a student's mind even before it was opened. And it is this closed-mindedness about ideas that so troubles me. There is nothing so anti-intellectual as dismissing a body of ideas and texts without even reading them, without even attempting to understand them. When I read Marx, for example, I do indeed disagree with the teleological aspects and the "metaphysics of the proletariat." I see his assessment of capitalism as at best only historically accurate, and his predictions as historically proved wrong. Nonetheless, I still read Marx because on some things I think he's on to something. The materialist and dialectical approach to social, political and intellectual history; his disgust of religion; and his conception of ideology as something active, forceful, and often aligned with interest are just some of the aspects of his philosophy I appreciate. Understanding these aspects, furthermore, help me better understand the ideas and thinkers I find myself more sympathetic with: Dewey, Hook, Foucault, Hofstadter, etc.
But if de Lara had his way I wouldn't be able to appreciate these aspects of Marxism. For de Lara, ideas are like shopping for fruit at a food store: you look around a bit, discarding the ones that look kind of bad and admitting those that look good.
And thus the bottom line: we're better and smarter than every student at Princeton.
One could do a Scantron-esque rhetorical analysis with ease. It would go something like this: "Could it be," the author J.R. de Lara questions, "in purely Marxist terms, that the revolutionary caste of 1969 has seized administrative power in some departments and now uses its position of authority to maintain a certain ideological superstructure?" I'm not sure, but when the author writes that "there is an institutional stigma associated with teaching their works," and that one professor has been said to tell her class, "Don't tell the philosophy department that you're reading Hegel," there doesn't seem much like anything administrative or superstructrural about it.
Also, when the author asks us to observe "the discrepancy between investigating the 'teleological influence of Hegel on Marxism' and finding a job in a modern economy, I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Does Mr. de Lara read only books that help him get a job? If he finds the whole business to be too theoretical, does he not realize that the 'teleological influence of Hegel on Marxism' is a historical question that might help us understand how Marx's ideas came to be, and how the notion of inevitability might have influenced the Soviet Revolution, the Stalinist regime, and even the fall and decline of Marxism and Communism themselves?
When de Lara talks about "superstructure" and "teleological influence" he does so clearly as a Princeton student who has neither understood nor likely read either Hegel or Marx. He deplores the use of the term "scientific Hegelianism" as "academic fraud," but never says why. Perhaps if he had gone and done some research he would have discovered Engels' essay on "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific." If he thinks Engels' was wrong, I'd like to know why, and I'd like to see textual (call it 'scientific') evidence.
The reason Mr. de Lara 's piece disturbs me is not just because he failed to do any homework (why not try to read one of these theses on Marx, for example), but because it never even crosses his mind to do so. It is the closing of a student's mind even before it was opened. And it is this closed-mindedness about ideas that so troubles me. There is nothing so anti-intellectual as dismissing a body of ideas and texts without even reading them, without even attempting to understand them. When I read Marx, for example, I do indeed disagree with the teleological aspects and the "metaphysics of the proletariat." I see his assessment of capitalism as at best only historically accurate, and his predictions as historically proved wrong. Nonetheless, I still read Marx because on some things I think he's on to something. The materialist and dialectical approach to social, political and intellectual history; his disgust of religion; and his conception of ideology as something active, forceful, and often aligned with interest are just some of the aspects of his philosophy I appreciate. Understanding these aspects, furthermore, help me better understand the ideas and thinkers I find myself more sympathetic with: Dewey, Hook, Foucault, Hofstadter, etc.
But if de Lara had his way I wouldn't be able to appreciate these aspects of Marxism. For de Lara, ideas are like shopping for fruit at a food store: you look around a bit, discarding the ones that look kind of bad and admitting those that look good.
And thus the bottom line: we're better and smarter than every student at Princeton.
posted by Robot at 7:56 PM
1 Comments:
Here begins a somewhat disconnected set of replies and rebuttals:
(First off, I have to hope that the professor who issued the caveat to Hegel and the philosophy department was joking. I can't really understand how Hegel has all of a sudden become some kook or something)
In truth, this seems little more than snide anti-intellectualism and an uncritical approach towards an enormous and disparate set of works. I completely agree with Robot, insofar as this seems to be a position totally ignorant not only of Hegel and Marx, but also of an enormous amount of Hegelian/Marxist writings. Much of the current, sometimes reckless, usage of particular philosophers and theorists is deplorable indeed, but to flippantly write them off is a sign of either fear or (unfounded, unwarranted) ignorance. Especially amusing (actually, disgusting in this case) is that the author of the piece is a politics major. To think that one can approach studying politics without posessing/understanding critical models of politics is narrow-minded and at best a conceit; at worst it is an example of a dangerously self-congratulatory and unreflexive praise of the so-called clarity and facticity of a very tenuous and contingent 'mainstream' of politics. Does this make sense? Can one really grant a coherent response to this set of hateful, spiteful ravings? I fear that if Princeton students are to become leaders in our world, then we'll all be cast out to sea simply so that they can laugh and watch us be drowned by storms of their creation.
Post a Comment
<< Home