What is the task of the intellectual at a time when, at the heart of liberal democracies, genocide is normalized and protest suppressed?
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Gaza names the moment when the mandate of the oppositional intellectual can no longer be deferred, aestheticized, or selectively applied. The annihilation of an entire intellectual class; the destruction of Palestinian education; the targeting of teachers, students, archives, and universities; and the criminalization of Palestine solidarity expose not only the brutality of the settler-colonial state but also the bankruptcy of the liberal institutions that claim to safeguard knowledge while facilitating its erasure. At this historical juncture, the question is no longer whether the intellectual can afford to speak out, but whether silence is itself complicity.
“intellectuals”, with their entitlement & privilege, ought deign to intervene…
Perhaps some people find the cloying class-based-“superiority” in that to be nauseating.
The question is a fundamental misframing:
It is integrity, not “the privileged upper-middle class who identify with their exclusively-more-valid intellect”, as “intellectuals” ought be unpacked to,
it is integrity which is the needed chisel, right now, & since mainstream “journalism” sold-out, it is Journalism, with a capital-J, which is the required antidote.
I remember seeing people from the Philipines reporting that Marcos’s election was via district after district reporting 2/3-votes for Marcos … invariantly.
NO “journalism” picked that up, as a fake election??
Only the 1st few results showed chaotic variability.
There is NO Journalism-with-a-capital-J left. It’s ALL “owned” or “pwned”, now.
The pushing of normalizing gaslighting, altering framing, eradicating actual-opposing-to-corruption, etc, all of it serves corruption, now.
I remember seeing the photos of The Guardian, showing how they systematically minimized Netanyahu’s “Israel”'s genociding, while speaking openly about Russia’s…
That isn’t Journalism, that is “journalism”.
Integrity’s more-fundamental than intellectualism.
Class-based-“validity” can go eat rocks.
For all who claim that class-systems are inherently-wrong: parent-child is THE fundamental class-system.
Class-systems are inescapable.
Class-based “validity”, however, isn’t.
Nor is the prejudice+pretence.
Honestly accepting, honestly valuing, honestly collaborating-with, people of different classes, in our combined-committing, would be … too much to ask, of class-based-“validity” people.
As one Sun Media writer noted, years ago, the condescension in the middle-class for working-class determination, is drenching.
That absolutely is true.
Cracking prejudice, including class-prejudice, takes visceral-experience, not more class-segregation.
You CAN’T get people who grew-up in “prep” schools, with their prejudices, to accept “their inferiors” as valid.
Therefore class-segregated education is a strategic-enemy of our viability, & the Scandinavian system whereby EVERYbody goes through the same public-school-system, is right: NO class-segregation permitted.
It’s always deeper than the pretences “cartoon” the issues to be.
& the real antidote always costs segregated-privilege’s habit deeply.
& we automatically balk at that, because our “identity” is wrapped-up in our cultural-habits.
But … this-century will enforce enough destruction that IF humankind earns transforming into being-viable, THEN that adapting will have to have happened.
Either that, XOR humankind can do its “tantrum/pogrom” until there’s nobody left, & then … universe will just move-on.
All our ego’s narcissism, all the “G-D revolves around ME!!” delusion, like all narcissisms, like “intellectuals” narcissism, all of it means nothing, to universe-itself.
The error is that we mistake different-specialization “classes” for “validity”-classes: THAT is pretence.
THAT is anti-viable.
Growing honest about that SOON would be wise, but … would go against habit, & that … won’t happen without a fight.
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There should be no classes. That’s the problem. As long as classes of humans exists there will be class warfare. Someone from poverty usually has more common sense than a highly “intellegent” person. The highly intelligent person will tell you the answer. The person with common sense will tell you why that is the amswer.