Subject: Re: Beaver Coats Cloaking Section Men on the Web
From: PAUL KENNEDY (Paul_Kennedy@CBC.CA)
Date: Tue Nov 20 2001 - 21:48:38 GMT
Did somebody say "media savvy"?
Oh dear. This probably disqualifies me from participation in this
particular thread....
But the Subject line mentions the word "Beaver".... And I'm a
Canadian.... And what the hell....
So Will's worried about "section men".... So Jim thinks we might have
every reason to fear ALL academics....
Where--the media 'heavy' asks--are the public intellectuals?
Ever since I left the ivory tower, where I was once an enthusiastic
inmate, I've encountered overwhelming evidence that section men are not
confined to university departments of English-or-American-or-whatever
Literature. A waiter in some greasy spoon can be a section man if/when
she/he destroys the experience of eating there by projecting a
personality of supercilious superiority. Dwight Macdonald once wrote
(and I'll send a postcard of a beaver to whomever can find the
reference) about being utterly humbled and humiliated by his dealings
with garage mechanics who berated him for waiting too long between oil
changes. It seems to me (and Scottie will correct me) that section men
are so overcome with self loathing (disguised as self-love) that they
feel compelled to destroy any positive experience--for anyone--of their
"area of expertise"....
Sure, we all come across our share of section men in universities....
(Once in a while, by the way, we lucky ones also come across a REAL
teacher....) But section men, unfortunately, are EVERYWHERE.
And who's surprised?
My complaint is about the lack of public intellectuals. Great
teachers--even good teachers--are "public intellectuals".... They stand
in front of classes, day after day, week after week, and they try to
communicate or transmit their personal love for whatever happens to be
their "area of expertise".... Non-academic "public intellectuals" once
performed the same task for a wider audience.
Where are they now?
It was ever a rare (and wonderful) professor who became a "public
intellectual" in the larger--really PUBLIC sense.... (I think Noam
Chomsky would be one today, only the public is plainly not ready to hear
what he has to say.) And it's always been probably a bit too easy to
dismiss all the others as 'section men'....
I really don't think that "media savvy" has much to do with it.
Cheers,
Paul
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