I
Now listen to the second part of West’s discussion, and the third. Via Qlipoth.
I also like this lecture of Cornel’s, given at Brown University earlier this year.
I would like to have it on CD, to listen to while driving.
II
In other radical Sunday news, I have discovered a new career alternative: leftist mental health practitioner. Why? Because the NIMH has this to say about depression:
A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be willed or wished away. People with a depressive illness cannot merely “pull themselves together” and get better.
That is very nice of them but it is limited. For all the strengths this analysis has, and it has them, it also enables the NIMH to elide discussion of societally based causes for depression. Itis not a character flaw or a fault, but it is still an organic problem or a result of having poor, but remediable life skills. It is not, for example, a result of systemic and systematic oppression. The burden remains upon the sufferer, society remains innocent, and the results of structural inequality are driven from view.
III
One of the reasons I maintain this weblog is to heal myself each day from the effects of working on a type of plantation, where abuse is endemic.
It is very fashionable here to turn to G-d for support. But I only believe in the spirits and their reign is the kingdom of this world, and not another. I realize it is not fashionable but still I think the best form of support is revolutionary consciousness.
And academia became a space of pain for me when I was informed by sources within it that I must not put any of myself into it, and by Reeducation that I should not have a self at all.
This is why work became so hard for me for so long – I was prohibited by my advisors from bringing my own interests and perspectives to it, and encouraged by Reeducation to renounce individual interests and perspectives altogether.
I cannot imagine making such recommendations to anyone.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Revolutionary consciousness is, indeed, the one thing that can keep you sane, I think. But for a lot of people it is hard to leap from one side of the precipice (acquiescence to the dominant social order) to the other side. They can’t let go of what is familiar to them, in order to make the leap. That is why crisis or trauma sometimes helps people to make it. You can let go of what you thought you knew if holding on to it becomes sufficiently traumatic — but even then some people will find that too difficult to do.
Actually I was lucky. My time of crisis came when I was still malleable — when I was young enough to remould myself. I actually realised at the time, “I’m melting, I’m melting!” What could I shape myself into during this non-solid stage? That was when I began to read Nietzche from cover to cover. I didn’t want to have aspects of personality in me that I, personally, did not respect.
My background is odd because from what I can tell I was always already radical … I was born with attitude and I never changed, despite my mother’s traditionalism and the way she tried (thinking it was her duty) to pass it on in a yet more conservative form, even she is a secret Bohemian and my father’s family are all socialists, basically; and I was raised in comparatively revolutionary times.
Although we were comfortably middle class and all, I never really met the bourgeoisie face to face until I was 30. I was shocked, did not know what had hit me, thought it was adult life, and tried to fit in. It did not work well and I kept falling out of the mold, yet not understanding. Now I do understand.
“Philosophical thinking,” began the first lecture of my first and only Philosophy class, “is radical thinking. By that I mean it seeks the roots of things, and it intends to think from the roots.” I liked these sentences then and I like them now. Radical, not as fringe but as root.
Yeah, I also see myself as radical in the sense that the paragraph describes. That’s why it irks me when people describe me as “not mainstream”, as if this were a slight insult.
Anyway. My own background is exceedingly odder than yours is. The reason for the oddity is that I was brought up with rebellion as a right wing motif. To rebel against the British and their bourgeois stuffiness was considered de rigueur according to where I come from. So, it was with dismay that I found, upon arriving in Australia, the institutionalisation of British bourgeois stuffiness.
Anyways……then I was attacked by some stuffy superficial leftists for not submitting myself sufficiently to their power structures. That was when I realised how much of the bourgeois individualistic pretensions (particularly of ‘professionalism’) I had internalised, against my greater good. (Professionalism is an ideology in which the higher individual as ‘professional’ operates on the basis of a strict morality of conscientiousness that is supposed to raise them spiritually above the herd.)
So, I deprofessionalised myself so that I would not remain the victim of my superego.
For a while (because my assailants were nominally left wing –although perhaps not much more than that), I embraced a right wing version of Nietzscheanism. But gradually it began to dawn on me about the entrenchment of misogyny in right wing views and approaches. So, over the years I have begun to see that I more properly belong on the left.
Wow! You *do* have an interesting history. I told a friend about you today – because the insight about being allowed, in bourgeois society, an official, fixed identity but not a self, was germane to the conversation – and she was quite impressed with the combination of influences and activities you have. And here is yet another layer.
“Professionalism is an ideology in which the higher individual as ‘professional’ operates on the basis of a strict morality of conscientiousness that is supposed to raise them spiritually above the herd.”
Yes, it is supposed to do this. But professionalism also ties you to institutions, puts them ahead of you, etc., and makes you Establishment. So in a way, it just makes you ultra-herd. There was a really interesting discussion of this a few months ago, involving the blog Amy’s Brain Today, although some of the discussion took place on a thread at Heart’s.
Yes about professionalism (and thanks for the compliment). Actually one of the things I do have to thank my putatively left wing colleagues for is releasing me from the ideology of professionalism. Because I saw that in the union organisation I worked for, a high degree of conscientiousness in my work (especially my tendency to see errors in my work and want to work hard to make up for them) was undermining my ability to stand up for myself in a social situation which really wasn’t all that rational.
Yes … and there’s also a way in which “professionalism” means, or can mean, not being serious about the content of work.
A *real* professional isn’t like that, of course, but in popular discourse now it seems there is sometimes a disconnection between ‘professionalism’ and knowledge, ‘professionalism’ and competence, with the simulacrum (‘professionalism’) taking precedence over substance.
yes. And I should probably take care to clarify that distinction above, for those who might read what I’m saying and misunderstand me.
I think it’s quite clear already.
P.S. on superego, observe Philp’s comment on a post of mine a while ago.
https://profacero.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/great-imperative-meme/#comment-4486
I didn’t get it that well then but I am starting to get his comment now. Yes, da whiteman is in part superego.
The thing about superego is that we all have one and that bullies use their knowledge that we do (or maybe the pure fortuitous tendency of some of us to be extremely harsh with ourselves) in order to gain control over us.
That is why you need to know your own superego and keep it under control. It is the same as having a garden and pruning the rose bushes. Personal self-maintenance — which, however, we are not taught to do — necessitates the fact that we grab secateurs every so often, and make towards the growth of superego.
Ah yes, that is exactly how bullies do it!!! Quite right too on knowing and controlling the superego.
(Hm. I am *so* much better at doing that when I have a beach to go to. I have still not found an adequate substitute for this. A really *good* yoga class, for instance. But a good one.)
Hm.
As I said before, superego is like a dog, and the best way to show him who is boss is to go directly against his will every so often. (once you’ve worked out what his will is.)
Aha. All this time I thought my superego was about succeeding at school but I may have just realized it is Reeducation – duh. It’s not even really Da Whiteman, or to the extent that it is, I have him controlled. Who is Reeducation … perhaps my mother as she was way back when, not as she is now (far freer, she’s turning into one of those wise old ladies).
Superego may be your mother back then. Could be. What does reeducation specifically NOT want you to do? You should make a point of doing it tomorrow, no matter how trivial.
I love Cornell West. He enlivens matters.
I’m busy today writing a proposal so can’t comment at length but I will try to keep up with your blog–at least look at it once a day.
Great work!
Thanks, Hattie! CW is definitely fun to listen to.
Here’s interesting conversation on him on another
thread, though:
http://epahey.blogspot.com/2007/10/cornell-west-on-barack-obama.html