At 01:05 PM 9/28/99 -0500, Mathew Forstater asks: >What is one to say to this? This is so disheartening. in response to my remark: >>Max, I am totally with you on that, I do not think third worldism is about >>political struggle, abroad or here - it is a kulturkampf waged by >>intellectuals in the symbolic realm of blame and guilt. It has the signs >>of a religious guilt trip cum denying the obvious to claim a moral victory >>written all over it. Mat, I think truly disheartening is that such ideologies exist. I grew up in a developing country, a 'third world' if you will, and I am thoroughly familar with the genre. It is the countless allovariants of a single theme: scapegoating, i.e. attributing causes of what happens in a society to external forces and factors. Its purpose is generally to mobilize support for- and deflects criticim from- the local ruling elite or the nationalist/isolationist faction of it. It is, in effect, saying 'we as the nations and its leaders are valiand and brave, work hard and do all the right things, so if things do not work as expected, it is because those damn Yanks or Ruskies meddle in our internal affairs and rob us of our precious resources. If anyone is interested, I can tell some really amusing stories of that genre, e.g. how an ant (Poland) supported an elephant (Russia). I can even match them with the festung-amerika variety how all those damn foreigners conspire to rob hard working US-ers of their way of life. I think that the fundamentally reactionary and pro-status quo character of blaming imperialism for all national woes should be quite apparent. It diverts attention from domestic problems, binds common people to the ruling elites, fosters bigotry and nationalism. It usually served as an ideological prelude to witch-hunts and purges in the former Soviet bloc states. The anti-imperialist mythology is also present in the US academy and its offshoots, but it serves a different function here -- that of the merit making. In medieval Europe, merit making was the practice of alms giving (usually by the nobility) to the poor not to relly help them, but earn a 'merit' for the giver in this life as well as the afterlife. In the same vein, certain academics earn 'merits' by paying the lip service to the 'wretched of the earth' (the farther away, the better) and fighting the imaginary demons (imperialism, racism, eurocentrism, capitalism etc.) on their behalf. That allows them to take a high moral ground, earn a mini-celeberity status among graduate students and maverick intellectuals for their 'controversial' and 'uncompromising' stance, look down on their colleagues as suckups and lackeys of the status quo, or deflect any criticism of their shoddy scholarship as being 'ideologically driven.' That is not to imply that there is no outstanding scholarship on the above named subject (e.g. Barrington Moore, Jeffery Paige, Alexander Gerschenkron, Dietrich Rueschemeyerto name a few), but that the gems are often surrounded by trash, moral-intellectual entrepreneurship. One more thing. You may wonder why I am so concerned with what appears to be a realtively minor aspect of the culture wars waged in this society. Well, academy is where i work. So instead of fighting monsters in distant and exotic places (which is what many US academics love to do) - I believe that we need to do some stable cleaning much closer to home, perhaps even in our own instiutions and ranks. wojtek
