Cognitive Dissidents discussion

Well, this is a very interesting discussion. tENT, I find your history fascinating. You seriously should write a book about this and about being an outsider. Following your book reviews has been interesting for me because you really have been immersed in outsider culture for a long time.

First, I agree with Bruce (I thought your posts have been quite good, too) that there are probably several topics here that could branch out. Every time I read these heavy posts I find numerous topics I would love to discuss. I think a topography would be helpful.

I wanted to comment first about the notion that working class people are stupid. I have learned that class oppression (and all oppressions or "isms" such as sexism, racism, etc.) manifests on a personal level in the individual in numerous ways. The one you describe is one of the primary ones that helps to keep people in their place. Working class people are not supposed to be different or creative or smart - they are supposed to work and shut up. They are allowed certain outlets like spectator sports, etc. It has been a tremendous coup on the part of the powers that be that the working class has pretty much bought into it (of course, they were more or less bludgeoned into it). All traces of radical working class culture have been eradicated and replaced with crap by PROPAGANDA (see other discussion in CD). But anyway, the oppression has to take hold psychologically in order for the individual to buy it. People must internalize the oppression, so working class people must come to believe that they are stupid. Of course, this is reinforced at each step, with the club and gun if necessary, but this psychological element in crucial for long term success of the oppressive system. It works on an emotional level and operates on our concepts of identity. It helps explain, too, how people act against their own best interests. There is a great identification built up in people an those imagoes are hard to break free from. Sometimes the brainwashing doesn't take, however.

Now for some of my biography. My father quit college to work in his parents grocery store to help them out financially. He worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week without vacations. Then he decided to become a Presbyterian minister. He went to school for 2 years or so and then got a job since he had 3 children. Because he was 40 years old and did not have a higher degree he was consigned to being a country preacher. He was paid shit and we had to live in some pretty horrible backwater southern towns seething with the Klan and fundamentalists (which my father also hates). So my dad was semi-educated in higher learning, but we generally had less money than many of the farmers and truck drivers who surrounded us. My mother had to drop out of nursing school and work in sewing factories and school cafeterias. But my parents had a great interest in at least a certain kind of education and knowledge. I realize now that they were pretty open compared to the cultural neathertals we were mired in. Then, when describing my father to an anarchist historian friend of mine he said, "Oh, he's a working class intellectual". That term struck me as really significant and has stuck with me ever since. It is a concept we have certainly lost due to class oppression. I think it is a real threat to those in power. It breaks too many molds and leads to unruly people.

I went to college to escape Southern small-town hell but dropped out. I, too, travelled around (though not as extreme), did nude modelling, and did construction work but in an anarchist collective, so it wasn't so bad. I do remember how differently I was treated on the street when I was wearing work clothes as opposed to other ones. It was amazing. I also remember seeing a reflection of myself in the mirror at the house of a girlfriend with rich parents and instantly thinking, "there's the plumber here to fix the toilet". The place made me feel very uncomfortable.

After 10 years out of the unversity system (and I seriously had no intention of returning during that time) I did return and am now one of those people about to become somehow legitimized with my degree, or so it would seem (perhaps this classifies me as an over-the-counter revolutionary). I intensely self-educated during those 10 years and there is a signficant difference between me and my colleagues. No one I have met in the university setting has had anywhere near the range of experiences and exposure I have had and I know that there are plenty who make me look rather culturally sheltered.

There are two points that emerge from the previous bit (surprised I have a point?). One is that I realized that I am an intellectual. I had to go through an anti-intellectual phase and lots of questioning, but I realized that I had an insatiable appetite for certain kinds of learning. I also realized the things you guys have said about higher education and do not feel that it is needed in many cases. I realize that my reentering indicates to a certain extent my priviledge, though I am still quite in debt from it and the school I went to was comprised of working class Philly residents and not rich kids (they all went to UPenn). This intellecutalness of mine had nothing to do with education and I still don't think it does, even on the brink of having a Ph.D. These days I do not use the word "smart" to describe people. I talk in terms of mental skills or aptitudes, since this strikes more to the heart of the matter. There are different modalities of intellect and different sets of skills. Some are culturally recognized and others are not. Some are rewarded and others are punished. I also use the term "thinking people" since this does not reference education level or status. I think thinking people are hard to find in most any social stratum, but they are there in all of them.

This brings me to my second point and that is how underwhelmed I have been by "the smartest people in the world" with whom I am supposed to be in contact. It is true I have seen some people who are wickedly clever in some specific subsubfield, but are disappointing otherwise. And they can't seem to apply their "smarts" in other areas. Their intelligence is greatly compartmentalized. It still astounds me on a regular basis and makes me realize I am a different creature than these others.

The other term that comes to mind here is one I was exposed to by tENT, actually. That is NORMALS, which I believe was the name of a bookstore in Baltimore. That concept as a counterpart and contradiction to WEIRDOS, with all its derogatory connotations, has stuck with me and I use it a lot. I am always telling my wife, after she goes off on the total lack of imagination she encounters, that she is dealing with normals and that is how it often goes with them. Elitist? Perhaps.

Part 2

My post is quite long, but I wanted to briefly address the "conservative cultural drift" and co-optation. I think this is a great topic that deserves a lot of discussion. Is anyone else out there? Again, I think the situationists covered this best in their notion of recuperation. Radical or outsider elements are often incorporated by capital. The problem is, I think it is relatively easy to do because of the money and power behind the recuperation and hard to stay outside. It only takes one Stewart Home to wreck what many others put years into. (BTW, I met him at the Art Strike in London in 1988 and was distinctly unimpressed. One of his "events" was just a boring old art opening like any other in the art world.) I need to think about this more, but I wonder if any movement or mileu or project must change and morph or face becoming something quite contrary to what it started out as. Once a concept is fixed and there are some cultural identifiers then it can be pigeon-holed, taken away and made 2-dimensional and eventually sold back to us(which is ultimately the goal). I remember the folks at the Avant-garde Museum of Temporary Art in Madison (Liz and Miekal at that time) always changing the name and concept of their projects, switching it up perhaps so it wouldn't be pinned down. This may be a symptom of our technologically-overdriven society, but that type of fluidity and flexibility makes a lot of sense to me. It is essentially a step away from brand recognition, which is one of the driving forces of recuperation. Something must be made into a brand in order to be sold effectively.

Anyway, there is lots more here but no more time for me.

Sorry, I meant to say that higher education is NEVER needed to make someone an intellectual. They are either a thinking person or are not, and just as art school cannot teach creativity, grad school cannot teach a thirst for knowlege and mental openness. In my case, however, I wanted to be taught math and physics because I knew I would not teach them to myself and do not mind being instructed in these things. This is similar to my martial arts training. I did not mind being instructed in this since I wasn't about to sit down and make up my own martial art. I'm not saying this can't be done, but I wasn't about to. But I did not want to imply that anyone need go to college to learn what they needed. Even in physics, the really great people were usually self-taught, outsiders to the field, or did poorly in school and were mediocre students, like Einstein. This says something, in my opinion.

Whew! One of my main problems here (aside from still having pneumonia & major computer problems) is just trying to keep track of what everyone is writing & to reply point-by-point. The form in emails of replying as one goes along is a bit easier for me. One of the things that I've done to try to clean things up here a bit was to delete Brian's apparently accidental posting of the 1st 2 of these comments twice. I hope that was ok.

Brian wrote: "It has been a tremendous coup on the part of the powers that be that the working class has pretty much bought into it (of course, they were more or less bludgeoned into it). All traces of radical working class culture have been eradicated and replaced with crap by PROPAGANDA (see other discussion in CD)." Well.. I think that saying that "All traces of radical working class culture have been eradicated" is putting it too strongly. I think radical working class culture is alive & well but censored or disguised on the mass-media map. For an interesting analysis of how working-class culture is suppressed, I highly recommend Stefan Szczelkun's bk "The Conspiracy of Good Taste" published by his own "Working Press" in 1993.

It's great to read yr brief bio. I've known you off & on for probably 20 yrs & you've always kept yrself active & alive. That, in itself, is one of the greatest revolutions we can personally experience. IMO, much of the way society is structured is toward funnelling people into fewer & fewer choices, essentially trapping people in the rat race. To be able to continually side-step this narrowing-down is essential.

By the by, I shd clarify that I'm not against Institutions of Higher Burning (as I prefer to think of them), I just think people shd engage w/ them w/ a critical mindset - as w/ everything else. Much of importance can be learned in Universities - but buying the accompanying hierarchies lock, stock, & barrel is a big mistake. A bit of trivia here is that, according to author Neal Stephenson at least, the term "Ivory Tower" refers to a specific university tower that was funded by Ivory Soap. Don't know whether Stephenson threw that in as a fictional detail in one of his novels ("Quicksilver") but it smacks of historical detail to me.

As for "I also remember seeing a reflection of myself in the mirror at the house of a girlfriend with rich parents and instantly thinking, "there's the plumber here to fix the toilet"." - Boy!, can I relate to that one!! One of my favorite stories about Jean Genet I think might've been told by Paul Bowles: the story goes that after Genet became a reknowned & reasonably financially well-off author, he enjoyed going to hotels where he'd be staying wearing filthy clothes that he hadn't changed in mnths - knowing that the hotel wdn't throw him out b/c he was 'famous' & b/c his rm was pd for. As I recall, Bowles didn't 'get' this but I relate 100%!! & I love Genet for it!

As for being an intellectual? I'm all for it! Alas, intellectuals are all too often the justification arm of the police state - see someone like Henry Kissinger. But we need to be intellectuals too not only to balance the Kissingers but also for the sheer joy of having a mind & using it. The world-views that intellectuals create are as strong as their articulation can make them. W/o intellect, visions are all too easily lost in the murk. Not that intellectuals are some sort of super-being of revolt - just one aspect of it - but, metaphorically speaking, paradigm shifts move forward w/ the whole body politic - not just w/ the hands or the feet or the genitals or the mind, etc..

As for ""the smartest people in the world"".. well, I don't know who you're specifically referencing here, but I think of MENSA, eh? Everyone has weaknesses & strengths & people who've been taught that they're "very smart" who haven't been knocked down a peg or 2 from time to time to teach them some humility are just living in an insulated world. If you're a great physicist suddenly thrust into a situation where you have to save someone who's just ODed on heroin, just how stupid are you if that person dies?

If anyone ever manages to single-handedly stop Nation-States from needing to wage war for self-perpetuation, then I'll be impressed. Heck, I'll even call that person a GENIUS & take them out to dinner. Until such an accomplishment, however, we're all a bit on the idiotic side, eh? ESPECIALLY people who specialize so much that they can't see outside their field.

Oh, & yes, I like the term "thinking people" too. Although I think I prefer the somewhat more historically reverberant "free thinker".

Regarding "NORMAL'S": of course, I usually use that term derogatorily, but, thank the holy ceiling lite, a normal person is hard to find when one looks closely. As for the store? Well, we were tossing about names for it & some of them were pretty perverse but then we all decided that trying to take control of our economic lives a bit more was a pretty "NORMAL" thing to do (although it probably isn't!) so we just decided to call the place "NORMAL'S" - wch we thought was pretty funny. Some people think that it's a reference to NORML (the group for legalizing marijuana) - wch it's not, or that it's a conflation of NORMan's & AL's (as in Norman Yeh who was a manager of a bkstore where most of NORMAL'S founders had worked & either ALfred Merchlinsky (one of the cofounders) or AL Ackerman (one of the employees)) - wch it's also not.

Elitist? To quote myself "The masses are different from those who are different." I don't consider myself to be an elitist but finding anyone who has any idea of what I'm going on about sometimes ain't easy. That, in itself, creates a type of elite - intentionally or not might be sortof beside the point.

Co-optation?! Sheesh, I cd write a bk just about that! It's interesting that I have video of Stewart as a young college student just introduced to neoism saying something to the effect of "I want to be rich, famous, & glamorous." We all laughed - how stupid! We thought Stewart was being witty. Not long after he co-organized a Festival of Glamour (or some such) - probably w/ Ian Baxter. This was meant to be critical but Stewart has somewhat single-mindedly pursued his stated goal since then.

Some neoists have been loathe to accept the Festivals of Plagiarism as neoist festivals for precisely what you describe above. Actual apartment festivals have usually been action oriented & haven't been geared towards producing any objects other than documentation of the festival (bks, audio tapes, videos, films..). The Festivals of Plagiarism were the 1st festivals done somewhat in the name of neoism to just exhibit objects.

I think of myself as "self-taught" but I have to qualify that by saying that I've learned from bks, from movies, from people. If I haven't learned something from someone I've met then my mind probably wasn't open enuf at the time. An inquiring mind finds something to learn everywhere they are - & if something important is learned in an unexpected place than so much the better!

First, thanks for correcting my error. I thought it didn't go through the first time.

I agree that "All traces of radical working class culture have been eradicated" is way too strong. I was a bit fired up and it was late when I wrote it. Of course it has taken a beating but it is not dead. I know there are lots of exceptions and I would do well to keep them in mind when I get down about this. Since I have had more contact with Normals, I have been amazed at how much these kinds of things are off the map for so many. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this anymore, but it still does amaze me. It makes it so it is hard to relate to most people I'm around, but I guess you know a bit about this. I essentially have very little to do with people I work with outside of work. I tried a bit but couldn't hack it.

I agree with your comments about intellectuals and have become more comfortable with being one over the years. I think one thing you exemplify is a certain playfulness in intellectualism that is refreshing. It helps counteract the dreariness people often encounter. Also, I find radical intellectuals inspiring in a certain way, just knowing that someone pushes on in a certain direction to see where it leads.

Yes, by the so-called "smartest people" I refer to my colleagues and scientists in general who consider themselves, and many agree, that they are this purported group (lots of MENSA types, for example). Your comments on this pretty much sum it up. I do think some lessons in humility don't hurt.

You SHOULD write a book about co-optation (right after you finish all of your other projects).

From what I know of you, which is admittedly not that much, you certainly seem to qualify as self-taught. I think being self-taught has a lot to do with outside sources because we don't live in a vacuum. It is very important to explore what is out there and see how our ideas fit in or don't. I think being well-grounded is a plus. I know that a lot of what is important to me are concepts or ideas or experiences that I picked up along the way that seemed particularly profound. Eventually I worked them or they worked themselves much beyond their original context and I began to integrate them or real-ize them and they became my own, part of my own context.

The continual side-stepping of the narrowing-down is truly crucial. Now that I have 2 children I worry about this even more. Rachel and I talk about this often and are strategizing so as not be pigeonholed. I am glad to be living in Germany on that account. It is much easier to be a parent here and still have a life. I also worry about my current training in this regard, too. As I become more highly trained I can see the pressures build. But this just requires resisting all of that and some clever ways around the bullshit, I suppose.

Anyway, hope your health is better now. Pneumonia is bad stuff. I had it twice as a child myself.