seesaw wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 6:23 pm
1) What is the 'ideological project' of western academic theory and what does it mean for a theory to be 'effective'? (Note how unconsciously we measure the 'effectiveness' of a thing by quantifying its 'ends' or outcomes. Was May '68 a failure because it didn't radically alter the politics of France?)
Point taken that there's no central organizing body analogous to the Heritage Foundation or the Federalist Society that's publishing mission statements, but I feel that, broadly speaking, the majority of people who are invested in the academic humanities and marxist/leftist theory are generally interested understanding/opposing capitalism and the myriad power differentials that emerge thereunder. And, even though everyone's perspective, focus, discipline, conclusions, etc are different, there's a more-or-less commonly held belief that, by studying this stuff, we can eventually make something better in some way, shape, or form. To me, that seems coherent enough to be called an ideological project.
And while I agree that ends shouldn't have to be something you can quantify on a quarterly earnings report, I also don't think its controversial to say that everything the students were opposing has gotten worse in the half century between 68 and now. Is there a basis for calling 68 a success, even in qualified terms?
2) 'Leftist academics' in the west are, by and large, salaried professionals who earn firmly middle-class or upper-middle class wages. They also bear enormous institutional power. The institutions in which they work are capitalist institutions and these institutions protect them. This isn't to say that there is no true Scotsman in the cultural studies department, but I find it hard not to roll my eyes at the Marxist that is reaping in 300k yearly (plus benefits!) and that hasn't been involved in any direct actions in over a decade.
I agree completely with your class analysis. But if we cut out academic departments wholesale (and, for that matter, anyone financially dependent on the global art market or marketing industry) then what's left?
3) To put it flat-footedly, theory demands a certain level of expertise before it becomes 'useful' in a strictly pragmatic sense. This is not elitism, but a simple acknowledgement that theory is a complex discourse and, like any other complex discourses, produces complex knowledges that won't be immediately accessible to a non-specialized audience. Similar to how I would be baffled upon reading a scientific paper about quantum mechanics, a general reader will likely get nothing from reading a book by any of the aforementioned dandies without doing the requisite homework. However, for reasons I do not fully understand, knowledges produced in the humanities are presupposed to be 'simple' such that anything that might appear complex is accused of being 'intentionally obscure'. I think that the virulent right-wing narrative that the humanities are 'infantile' or 'pointless' (read: not useful to the ruling class) has indoctrinated the masses into the mindset that the knowledges produced in the humanities are, in essence, elementary, and therefore when readers encounter a difficult piece of theory they immediately accuse it of obscurantism as a kind of ego-defense mechanism ("I am not lacking in expertise/skills, but rather the author is trying to confuse me!"). Society and culture are complicated and analyzing society and culture will necessarily yield difficult works. Is there any reason for these works to have quantifiable effects on the world? Why do we demand simplicity and clarity from the theorist and not the physicist? Is it even possible to "simplify" theory? The value of theory is, for me, its ability to spark debates and dissensus rather than orthodoxies. Its effects are difficult to track using the simple input-output logic of capital.
Except for very few fringe cases (Nicolas Bourriaud comes to mind) I do not believe that academics are intentionally obscure, nor would I demand simplicity or clarity from them. But I don't think that complexity is incompatible with effectiveness.
The Antitrust Paradox is as complicated as anything D&G ever wrote, but it fundamentally altered American regulation of monopoly power and economic concentration in empirically demonstrable ways. I totally agree that debates and dissensus are valid goals in and of themselves and that strict input-output judgment is inappropriate, but it also feels unsatisfying to say that any real world benefit of theory and discourse is too indefinite/qualitative/speculative to ever identify or evaluate with precision.
I don't want to seem like I'm asserting that left theory somehow "needs" to be effective in order to justify its existence or value. Most of the things I value in my life are not politically-effective mechanisms of change. But, as conservative legal and academic movements demonstrate, novel academic theory combined with the right forms of political organization
can effect material change, so I still think its worth discussing why left theory doesn't have comparable influence and what, if anything, can be done about it. Maybe the answer is just that conservative groups explicitly serve the class interest of the wealthy and that they therefore have better access to capital, but if that single factor is dispositive in all cases, then the future of the left seems pretty bleak to me.
bels wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 7:27 pm
Feels a bit convoluted, are the conservative academic movements spearheaded by Olin different from the Western academic theorists? What separates them?
Sorry for the imprecision, I was using "theory" as a catchall for critical-theory-influenced humanities and social sciences, which seem to have a near-universal leftward bend, as opposed to a donor-funded conservative academic movement that has mostly targeted American economics departments and professional schools (law, business, and public policy). Granted they all have the class interests that go hand-in-hand with tenure, but I think the two groups would generally profess to diverge on the question of whether finance capitalism is amenable to continued human progress.