Bending it like Benda, Fallen Mantles, Propaganda and Pussy Riot, Treason of the Intellectuals

        Those with the power now can easily support that hypocritically and rhetorically, greater democracy, more power to the individual to control their own governments and their own lives, they always will and always do say such things, but they are never so isolated and out of touch that they can't do the math of what it would mean to their power base if it actually was attempted or achieved. If intellectuals are working for anything other than making people see that hypocrisy and gulf between whatever their current system and leaders say and want people to believe, against what they actually are and do, and they are not rich, they are either severely underpaid or inept, because that task is no one else's job within any given society and not doing so would be priceless to some.
        Everyone else can only play their own parts, paid and allowed only to promote and propagate whatever system they live under from their places within it. If intellectuals are not filling that critical yet indefinable dynamically changing outsider role of always promoting and advancing systemic changes within their societies, they ought to be handsomely rewarded by the powers that be for not doing it or doing it purposely poorly. No one else can without first assuming their roles, taking up their fallen mantle. Sadly, it is still as yet solely in the intellectuals domain or charge, and they, everyone else's last line of defense against those with the power, the will, and the devastatingly well-honed rhetorical weaponry to make all others nothing more than puppets for life. *
/
I leave it for incompetent journalists paid on the side by the government to try to get the truth about things my government is currently doing which it should not do, and legally cannot do yet constantly does, and could not survive the truth coming out's light of day if they ever did come out. Yet none of those involved see those cover-ups protecting crimes or subversions of the Constitution, diversion of Congressional oversight or powers, or for advancing what can only be described as One-Man-Rule as being even illegal anymore, anymore than bribing reporters is thought to be illegal anymore.

* Below: Defining Intellectuals' Roles:Is Thinking Outside the Box Ever Really Outside the Box? / RCP2
Nov & December 7th, 2005

Of any lead or highly ranked (top of the) news stories by major (news) services, I find only 20% or so of my interest is motivated by the "facts" presented, even when I believe them to have been attempted to be put forward without biases and prejudices, difficult to do and too rarely now (unslanted news) even attempted. At least twice as much or 40% of my interest is what effect this story will have on peoples' attitudes, actions, and beliefs as that is at least twice as important as the "news" itself. Equally as important as that, say the other 40% remaining of my interest is how and why that story was chosen to be considered of major or more emphasis than the thousands of other things equally as important that will be covered less or, as with most, not at all. What is it editorially, financially, politically, sociologically, or psychologically that says this is what people will think is important or want to be told about, or what those with the power to decide such things will decide to be placed in front of peoples' eyes to read, to hear about or to see. Those who see things in the news (hierarchy) in this manner can learn from it. Those who follow it (the news) without putting most of their attention on its effects on them and others, and who, how, or why it has been decided that that information should be told to many to inevitably wish to produce an effect by the telling, (those who) simply react to the news, they are simply sheep being lead around wherever anyone with the power to influence what the media decides to lead with or considers of more importance, wishes to take them.
/
The media stranglehold likely to get us all killed, the public debate in America, when existent at all which now even this is not, is which party's “different” “Bold Ideas” to get us out of the world crippling downward spiraling situation, with machine-like unthinking polls and pundits alike whose thinking processes are limited to left, right, and now the “neither left nor right” neo-con neo-fascist “majority” ideology, which of these ideologies' jockeys, these cookie-cutter prepackaged types of ideological state-approved islands of thinking embodied in parrot talking suits, out of whom which one of them should try or can bring about a stable world in light of constantly escalating weapons of mass destruction, both present ones and damningly new types to come? The blindness and myopicness of it all is both frightening and hilarious at the absurdity of it all. Cheers.

Notes Part 5
January / Spring 2006

Media (makes people) stupid (on purpose, this much disinformation and banality in the face of unprecedented serious world crisises cannot be accidental. Please tell me which celebrity is screwing which other one who used to be screwing someone else. This is “news”. The wars are optional and a downer.)

Puff them up to shoot them down – how (government and media) organizations build up the value of their critics to then embarrass and undermine their causes by the messengers they either put in place completely or helped (them) behind the scenes to have a voice to begin with.
 /
The more a political party says it stands for life, the more people it can kill. The more it says it stands for democracy and promoting it and enhancing it, the freer it is to erode it and consolidate power to itself. The more it says it stands for liberty and less government, the more it can pass draconian laws, monitor what you say, do, who you associate with, and take away whatever civic rights you might have had, publicly admitting to it, or behind your back you never know about until they want something from you. The only thing that keeps the government's lines, the rhetoric, in any relation whatsoever to the truth of what is happening, is the Press, the Media, and they have now lost all compass and credibility. Truth, journalistic truth, now belongs to the highest bidder, and the liars, the most hypocritical, will always have the most money and the most power without a referee. The media is no longer a referee. It writes whatever it is asked to write and accepts payoffs, knuckles under to corporate or political pressure, and puts out one-sided government press releases as "news", and shamelessly distorts, swift-boats (the modern equivalent of tar and feathering) anyone who dares to interrupt the feeding frenzy at the trough of money and power. Journalism is now creating false histories purposely.

Notes Part 6
June & July 7th, 2006  

        I have mentioned him before in my writings, and mentioning him now is because so many have not heard his most famous words, now dead in the hearts of Americans, many but not all, and need rekindling now more than ever. All that was great about America, the government at least, that small portion of what is America, has gone terribly wrong. Former President James Carter's belief in a self-correcting mechanism is unfortunately seemingly misplaced at the moment. We have been fed illusions of our worth, blinded to the suffering we are inflicting all over the world in the name of values it is apparent to all all over the world we are not living by and seemingly no longer believe in except to use as an excuse to take what we wish and do whatever is our will.
        Nothing can I remember having moved me more deeply than when I read the words below. It is not just words, not just pain or agony at the reality of war we have been sanitized from, protected from, and because of which, that distancing, we watch men and women without hearts advocating things on television to us and to children, what they are teaching to a new generation, advocating avoidable attacks that would cost thousands of innocent lives, without guilt over what they say, without hesitation in what they are advocating, and without regrets. Joseph's pain inoculated me against thinking like that, and his words will outlive the hate mongers, the torture advocators, and those who scorn diplomacy and the avoidance of war as "weak".
        These words, his words, will outlive those people because the world they advocate cannot endure, would not survive. A world which not only remembers these words but learns from them, takes them into its heart as I have into mine, that is a world which can endure. That is the future I work for, hope for, would live and die for, but the future we are creating now, what our present leaders wish to give the world, that is nothing I would want to be a part of. That world in which we have already recently killed tens of thousands of innocents in cold blood unnecessarily, and would kill millions if not billions to prevent the world from growing beyond the systems we have now, based on the need for war, the rewarding of aggression, and the sanctity of mass murders beyond scale in the name of country and in the name of God. May their notions not be passed on. Humanity could not long survive it if they do.

When I think I might never see Hawaii again
September 24th, 2006
JaredDubois.com / Blogger.com/jareddubois

                                     

           The press, when it so chooses and united, can bring down any government. They can brand a new much less corrupt administration as more corrupt just by the number of stories they run about them linking them to possible corruption scandals. Indeed, from seeing the coverage in countries of extreme disparity in wealth, a populist government can or could be far less corrupt than its predecessor and still get many times more stories accusing it of supposed corruption. And often this is the case. It is called “perception management.” ...
… What they don't realize is that that image outside the concentric bubbles of the Washington beltway and American ignorance of the relevance of other countries legitimate views of us as out-of-control, is long dead anyway. Likewise, our very national security is no longer served by keeping covered these festering and poisonous actions, treacherous when not treasonous.
           Yet instead, greed to those who make their careers and tax cuts, their access to power and all its perks and privileges possible, and even loyalty to that common grouping that politicians and those who cover them now can be thought to comprise, these have kept them from openly asserting that what they are being asked to put out they often know to be lies and disinformation. The backhanded 'corrections' about previous lies are meaningless, when they are even called outright lies, because it does not affect, or has not yet affected, the ability to put out new ones completely unchallenged.

The Washington Press Corps No Maas Moment Approacheth
By Jared DuBois, April 13th, 2007
Truthrevival.org (truthrevival02.htm)

          I am not pointing fingers at anyone. It is a dangerous world we live it. Torture being done, scientists perfecting it. People have been promoting it here on TV or making it palatable to the general public and are getting multi-million dollar salaries in return. But others have silently, and some no so silently, rebelled against this. It is in them and in their lives the hope of any bright future is to be found. Some when asked to torture, to murder unjustly, to go on TV and say how it is debatably reasonable to do such things to people who quite possibly are completely innocent to "possibly" "save" others, namely yourselves from some threat, real or imagined, they quit.
          Others, they do something else. If they are not brave or secure enough to quit, they do what they are asked, but they do it badly. They, though purposeful ineptitude, choose to leave behind a record for the day when a new leadership is in charge who would wish to right the wrongs (or at least recognize them) of the past. It is apparent to all the world now and to themselves, the Democrats in America are no such people. They, in the equivalent of terms of the USSR, would shoot those who would come forward just as much as the previous dictatorship would, they would build towering structures over the mass unmarked graves, and they would bury the past crimes completely and forever.
          Where others saw the "most incompetent administration ever," I saw a group of people seeing the atrocities going on all around them and did the best they could to try to walk the middle ground, those who did not quit outright and those unlike those without consciences, they did what they were asked as badly as believably possible, but so far, to no avail.
          It probably does not matter if Rudy "if we do it, it is not torture" Giuliani becomes the next President, or Hillary Clinton, or Dick Cheney. The mantra is the same. The bodies will stay buried. Torture will become more mainstream. Trials, when allowed at all will become more farcical to the greater ratings and laugh tracks of the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Those who did the unconscionable will watch their superiors who ordered it all go not only unpunished, but becoming more wealthy and respected than ever because of it all, and they will only have what remains of their own consciences to be propped up by the fact that they, at least, did not do it well, and that if anyone of power ever had cared worth damn, it all could have been exposed and stopped.

Open House at US Torture Sites, If We Do It, It Is Not Torture Giuliani
By Jared DuBois, October 26, 2007
Truthrevival.org(truthrevival22.htm)

This is from that article, "The Careerists," (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/23-0)(July 23, 2012)...

        "Computer programmers. Men and women who know no history, know no ideas. They live and think in an intellectual vacuum, a world of stultifying minutia. They are T.S. Eliot’s “the hollow men,” “the stuffed men.” “Shape without form, shade without colour,” the poet wrote. “Paralysed force, gesture without motion.”"

         Its not that I don't get what he (Chris Hedges) was trying to do. Name lots of professions, people he dumped on as mindless automatons, people not able to rise above their programmings, what Paul Craig Roberts seems stuck on as calling being 'plugged into the Matrix' these days. ...
         How is dumping on lots of professions who are not well-read writers as he is, saying they all are not doing anything, really going to gain their sympathy enough for them to do more? ...
         The reason for going on like that is because there are supposedly at least 2 former computer programmers in not so open spaces who showed more balls in standing up to what they thought people ought to know about what is going on than a whole convention hall of people in Chris Hedges profession, Seymour Hersh excepted.
         Not that I would wish to mention said others at this time, as it is far too complicated to put in a short post like this. I do not agree with everything they did anymore than I agree with everything Pussy Riot did. With the former, it is because I do not know enough about it to speak with any certainty, and with the latter it is because I know more than most do about what they did. I can agree somewhat with the intents, meaning well, but not always with how people go about the follow through.
         Maybe one day I will write more, if I have more time to write. Time for another clip show again...

Bravery, Fearlessness, and Ignorance: Going all Ilves on Chris Hedges
By Jared DuBois, August 6th, 2012

Truthrevival.org

Julien Benda argued in his 1927 book “The Treason of Intellectuals”—“La Trahison des Clercs”—that it is only when we are not in pursuit of practical aims or material advantages that we can serve as a conscience and a corrective. Those who transfer their allegiance to the practical aims of power and material advantage emasculate themselves intellectually and morally. Benda wrote that intellectuals were once supposed to be indifferent to popular passions. They “set an example of attachment to the purely disinterested activity of the mind and created a belief in the supreme value of this form of existence.” They looked “as moralists upon the conflict of human egotisms.” They “preached, in the name of humanity or justice, the adoption of an abstract principle superior to and directly opposed to these passions.” These intellectuals were not, Benda conceded, very often able to prevent the powerful from “filling all history with the noise of their hatred and their slaughters.” But they did, at least, “prevent the laymen from setting up their actions as a religion, they did prevent them from thinking themselves great men as they carried out these activities.” In short, Benda asserted, “humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honored good. This contradiction was an honor to the human species, and formed the rift whereby civilization slipped into the world.” But once the intellectuals began to “play the game of political passions,” those who had “acted as a check on the realism of the people began to act as its stimulators.” And this is why Michael Moore is correct when he blames The New York Times and the liberal establishment, even more than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, for the Iraq War.

“The desire to tell the truth,” wrote Paul Baran, the brilliant Marxist economist and author of “The Political Economy of Growth,” is “only one condition for being an intellectual. The other is courage, readiness to carry on rational inquiry to wherever it may lead … to withstand … comfortable and lucrative conformity.”

Treason of the Intellectuals
By Chris Hedges
March 31st, 2013
Truthdig.com

The principle at work here is not new. Julien Benda raised it long ago in The Treason of the Intellectuals. As Benda said, “There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and justice it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and justice.”

In our time we may identify Noam Chomsky and the late Alexander Cockburn among those who follow in the tradition of Benda. They represent the best in the tradition of PEN.

The question is which way will PEN go – the way of Benda or continue along the way of Nossel. Today a search on the PEN, America, web site readily yields entries for Pussy Riot, Ai Weiwei, and Liu Xiaobo, but nothing is to be found for “Bradley Manning” or “Julian Assange”! That in itself speaks volumes about Nossel’s PEN.

As Chomsky and others have often pointed out, the primary duty of intellectuals is to critique their own ruling elite. After all, we can most affect our own rulers and it is their actions we are most responsible for. And that is what requires genuine courage. Criticizing elites in countries that are America’s official enemies is an easy and secure career path.

Co-Opting Another Human Rights Group
By John V. Walsh and Coleen Rowley
April 4th, 2013
Consortiumnews.com

         At first I wanted to just write about Chris Hedges latest article, not that it was especially that good or like the previous one I wrote about, that it was particularly insulting, but then I saw a chance to make this more in scope. First I was like, oh, it is not enough for him to piss on computer programmers as a profession by name, and just about everyone else not a "very important person" or writer for not doing more against things he thinks people should stand up against, but now he is going after CLERKS too! Just kidding on that. But I don't think 'intellectuals' is the best translation of 'clercs' either because if going by the supposedly intended literal medieval definition of clercs, 'scribes' would be more appropriate, at least as a translation of the title.

         But then with a second article in the same week I read mentioning the same Julien Benda book, 'The Treason of the Intellectuals', I figured to broaden the subject of this to deal with both the concept of intellectuals and their responsibilities or roles. Foremost, I wanted to write about the failures of the press, and those who the media passes off as an 'intellectual' class, or at least what the corporations who rule the airwaves would have them defined as, and who place most of the ---- that goes into peoples minds these days, conveniently in there for them. In addition, I thought to repost the last paper I ever wrote for a college class (in 2005) about the role of intellectuals in societies as well.

         And I also wanted finally to cover a particular thorny topic for me to write about for some time, as evidenced from the chosen quotes above: the Pussy Riot controversy. As someone who wrote something called "The Heretic Papers" which was not so much heretical as the title would suggest, but none the less might offend a lot of people, it would be advisable for me not to throw stones at glass houses of others called "heretics" unless by fawning over their actions. I cannot nor would not do that, as my previous post "Churches in Europe" might lead one to think, but I am sympathetic to their stated aims of their actions, and said so previously above. But for me, the greater issue I wanted to talk about in that controversy was the completely propagandistic way in which the story was talked about. And not by Fox News. By far the worst, at least of what I saw, was Democracy Now.

         Starting with the most obvious with the last quote above, (By John V. Walsh and Coleen Rowley), several news sites made a big deal about the months it took for the Pussy Riot case to get to trial, partly because the defense requested more time, yet those same sites were far less accusative over the YEARS Bradley Manning has been held pending his trial. There are too many items to list on how the same things held up as horrible when other countries do them, by our corporate press and the BBC, which are completely fine when the US or Britain or the EU does them. And I am talking strict "news" reporting here, not the far worse "commentaries."

         But when I read the initial reports of what the members of Pussy Riot did, and then saw how the narrative was shaped and redefined over time, it was downright scary. People are used to the idea that the corporate press does not always tell the truth but rather "shapes" it to fit a "narrative" of a "story" they want to tell. But they still believe "independent" or "alternative news" sites are usually more truthful. Maybe they are, but not when they wish to "shape" how the story is thought of for whatever reason, even if it is disingenuous to the point of outright fallacy.

         For being sympathetic to the plight of those accused and sentenced to what most would consider too long a time in what is by most reports a harsh prison system, I too admit I would be inclined to want it to be seen in that light. But almost NONE of the many "news" reports in the US or Europe about the incident bothered to state actually what Pussy Riot did which caused more than half of Russia to be upset with them and to think that they deserved at least some prison time.

         To get that desired result of gaining Western sympathy, what caused offence was either purposely omitted from the news reports or completely misrepresented. Very few reports even gave vague references to "offensive language" and that was rare. Again, this is hard to deal with because one would think I find it offensive, or would think that I think they should be punished harshly, SIMPLY FOR STATING WHAT HAPPENED! How so-called "news" organizations can do a story on something, often why Russians were so upset by what happened, and then never say what was done that caused that outrage, this is probably the most propagandist thing I can think of. And Democracy Now went even further than that!

         Imagine if a Russian network or Fox News ran a story about a song that offended many Americans, gave a "sample lyric" of the song which was not sung, and purposely omitted any reference whatsoever to what it was about the song that DID cause the offense. To top that off, Democracy Now, after having a guest calling it simply punishing people for "singing a song in a church" then quoted a Nobel Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi for stating, to the effect that she stands by speech "unless speech is meant to be offensive," thus implying that it wasn't. I have no idea where she got her information about the event from. 

I don’t see why people shouldn’t sing whatever it is that they want to sing, and there’s nothing wrong with singing. I think the only reason why people should not sing is if what they are saying is deliberately insulting or if they sing terribly. I think that would be the best reason for not singing at all. So I would like the whole group to be released as soon as possible.

         Again, I am not saying I took or take offensive at the song, but NOTHING was reported on what the offensive lyrics were or why in report after report, and Democracy Now went even further by completely, and purposely, misrepresenting why Russians were offended. All news organizations except a brief article or two on Counterpunch.org stayed away from reporting what they were supposedly reporting on! And those articles were widely and quickly condemned. It is hard to think of any 3rd rail topic that universal which was not a war!

         As was reported, a song was sung in a church that was then recorded on a video, and that was posted on the internet. The song did contain anti-Putin lyrics, but some of the ones quoted on Democracy Now were supposedly not on the video or sung before it was broken up. What was on the video was a song which was sung to the tune of a Russian church hymn, and the controversial words transposed were those which roughly translate to "Holy, Holy, Jesus is Holy," but sung as "Shit, Shit, Jesus is Shit."

         Now it easy to see, if you are more sympathetic to them and not to the harsh sentences they were given, why you would want to leave that out from your reporting. But to completely omit it, and then make it seem like Russians were objecting to "blasphemy" for simply "singing a song in a church" which had lyrics against Putin? Sorry, but as much as I condemn the press for sometimes being biased in their coverage, that reaches disinformation of levels hard to compare it to anything else.

         Beyond just the lyrics, other things mentioned about it being offensive were that it was done where the average people are not allowed to go, where church services are performed (though pictures of other non-clergy people have been shown to be standing there), and not least of which satirizing church services which some people are quite reverent about, not to mention filming it and then posting it. I am not saying that I object completely to that, though I would not condone it and I think it was meant to provoke a strong reaction in people. But it is not hard to see, if people had actually been told about what was done, for them to see why so many Russians did find that to be extremely objectionable. Just about everything about it was meant to create controversy, like other things they did in the past, but this only far more so.

         At first The Moscow Times simply stated what was done, period. Later, though there were many later stories about Russians being upset by it, polls, and more opinion pieces, gone were any references to what actually was done that people were offended by, and even having that whatever it was they did which was not mentioned, to be dismissed out of hand. One can assume, in Russia, people were aware of what was being said simply from watching the video and being able to understand the words, and many even knowing the song which was being satirized, and why that would be offensive to many people.

         I too think their prison terms were too harsh, and wonder about how it got to be such a political issue when at first it was a simple disorderly behavior charge. But I also wonder how such a complete blanket of disinforming press could be so absolutely universal. After so many years of misreporting and misinforming by Fox and CNN, it is now simply normal for any "news" organization to "shape" any stories however they choose whenever they wish to.

         Put simply (too late), in news coverage, people are used to being lied to now. They expect it. Hell, they even get offended when anyone now tells an uncomfortable truth. The better you are at lying, the more likely you are to get your own TV show or be a recurring guest, providing that you tell the lies the elite of your society wish to have told.

         But people, once aware they are being lied to, ought to occasionally be wondering what it all is for. Why are these particular lies being told now? What are they trying to get people to do? What is the intended effect or end game? And why now?

         All political types are beginning to be suspect about the news they get, for different reasons, and often in fact think they are being lied to by "corporate" or "mainstream" or "lamestream" (Palin) or "pressitute" news organizations. But yet they still think their own particular diet is lie free. As I said in the quotes above, it used to be thought that the press was a referee. But now I am far from the only person who thinks the press has given up that title for a bag of gold, or a least a hell of a lot of bags of gold. News is a commodity now little different than advertising, served up to order to the highest bidder, created to make the highest return on the investment. Truth, like Elvis, has left the building.

         As I said in the first post here on Truthrevival.org, not only should words have well-defined meanings, but people should believe that there is such as thing as objective truth, that lies cannot be made true simply by repeating them endlessly or by believing them. I said in that post that I started out as a cultural relativist, but moved beyond that, not because I believe my or any particular culture has a patent or copyright on the truth but because people have gotten so used to being lied to by their governments and medias, that they have begun to think there is no such thing as truth. It is whatever is most convenient to believe for you to do what you wish to do.

From my notes...

People instinctively now, they are trained so well, automatically look for a profit angle on any idea they are exposed to, not any longer "is it true or not", but which is the more profitable opinion to take, believe, or propose, which position if argued or believed will please those in power most and advance their careers. This is no longer even conscious in most, simply automatic as an instinct of survival, and noticing it in themselves is not profitable nor advantageous to their self-images.

and

Most politicians, cultures, societies, cannot help but view a little double-think as a good thing. Do as we say, not as we do. A little magical suspension of disbelief to keep the population happy and not likely to ask for more rights or less oppression. But too much of a good thing, people too well-trained in their “thinking” which defies logic and riddled with self-contradictions, and the whole of society can become delusional, that no problems exist if they are not acknowledged as such. America every day now sets a new record on how far that can go without coming apart at the seams. Wait long enough and not only will they shoot anyone who tries to sound a wake-up call, they would rip him or her to shreds like a pack of wolves on a defenseless prey.

  
         This repudiation of an objective truth is pretty much running through the veins of just about every part of society now, and I doubt I am alone in thinking this will not end well. People like to quote what was presumed to be Karl Rove in that "We are creating our own reality." 

 The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."        http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Rove

          Really, that is what they believe, not just in the fact of doing things that will be the history, but inserting false narratives into the media, having those false narratives be written about endlessly, and eventually becoming the historical record. THAT creating of history, and I see little for why he or they who think that, should think they are wrong for thinking that.

         Sadly, I did not read Howard Zinn's "Peoples History of the United States" until 2004. Any books which I took out of the Political Science library in 2004, I would have all summer to read (no late fees!), so I just grabbed a bunch of books based on the titles. It was interesting, but really, though covering a topic most who follow only the official narratives miss, it is misleading to think that the truth is ever recorded anymore. From my point of view, that view is self-evident.

         You see people on TV because the owners of those channels want you see them. You hear "debates" which are well-scripted ahead of time and if they are found to go into things the most powerful in a society do not want discussed, your microphones will be cut and you will be blacklisted. But this is accepted now as normal in most societies.

         In the paper below, again my last or at least most recent, for a graduate program in 2005 on the role of intellectuals in movements and in society, I said in the vein of Benda, if the so-called "intellectuals" are not trying to shake things up, they ought to be well rewarded for not doing so, (and often are) because there is no one else whose job descriptions would cover it. Most, all in fact, are paid NOT to do such things or promote even what will one day be considered positive changes or views. And I mentioned this in the context of changes in Eastern Europe.

         I did not cover so much university based "intellectuals" in the article below, but I have come to see that even they do often spout what they know to be lies because it is politically convenient to not rock the boat, and that often their jobs depend upon not pointing out that many of the so-called emperor's of both politics and academia have no clothes. So wherever these mythical new standard bearers will come from, rest assured, they will have a hard time being heard, or getting paid, and not least of which because people have become so used to being lied to, and are so hostile to that quaint notion of hearing something which used to be called "the truth," when it is something they would not wish to hear about, and now never have to.

         In Tartu (Estonia) I took a course called "Media Under a Totalitarian Regime." In it, they discussed cultural references which were used to hide criticism of the Soviet Union within media content. Not understanding the subtleties of the Estonian language, or even of Russian, I had to take their word for it on how they were considered to be criticism and that the average person would "get it." I obviously take a different approach often when I write, being about as subtle as a sledgehammer whenever possible if I think it important enough. In the Soviet Union, I would not have lasted long, no doubt. However, people think that because you are allowed to write more freely now, it means your society is more open. In many ways it is not, it is the illusion of freedom simply because it is so much easier now to control what people will be able to see and hear and read, while preserving the illusion of unfettered and unscripted debates. Another one of the many, those who say don't know, and those who know don't say things.

(changes from original made only to shorten paragraphs by splitting them.)

Defining Intellectuals' Roles:
Is Thinking Outside the Box Ever Really Outside the Box?
                

By Jared DuBois 

                 The question for me when trying to think of the role of an intellectual within any given society, how to define it, how to judge its value or to judge an individual's success in measuring up to it, is that should the definition of an intellectual be limited to and defined by what a society expects an intellectual to be?

                 So many roles we play are defined by societal expectations; in regards to how we behave in our occupations, how to act within a marriage in regards to our role as a husband or wife, as a parent, obligations toward our parents or other familial obligations, religious identification and societal expectations of expressions of piety and reverence, social or sporting activities, and so on. Even, and I would say especially politicians, have to live up to these expectations constantly and are typically mostly powerless to go beyond the prescribed definitions of their roles and are completely defined by those expectations.

                Politicians have great power, one could say the greatest power to act within a societal framework to achieve their own goals, provided that they are also the goals of those who put them into office, whether it be the majority or an elite who have the resources to make politicians goals whatever they wish them to be. But beyond those narrower aims to benefit a group, to reform the system from within, to change the nature of a given society to become more just, to change in peoples hearts and minds the definitions of the goals or aspirations of that society, in these matters, some outside force is required to give societies that push, but if the outside force is completely defined as being what a society expects it to be, can it really be considered anything other than just another part of the system, or as put succinctly in "Matrix Reloaded"1 , are they just another system of control? In the sense that should all else go wrong, are they there to be turned to so to keep the rest of the system from fundamentally changing, another part of the system the system itself creates to turn to, only seemingly redefining itself should the need arise?

                Though both aspects can be argued of whether most so-called or self-described intellectuals are really outsiders, ideally I believe intellectuals' roles ought to be to reform societal systems as outsiders truly outside the expectations in which society expects; to try to find out or decide where the society is going or should be going as a whole, and attempt to move that society further in that direction. In this paper I will try to approach this question from the angles of the "outsider" intellectual versus the role of the "insider" intellectual, those who see their roles as completely changing the direction or nature of the system and those who prefer moving it further along is present course. Both are often ideologues in their own way, and both seek to move their societies in given directions.

                 Most intellectuals who are considered "artistic" intellectuals; authors, playwrights, songwriters, motion picture writers or directors, they often tend to see themselves as outsiders attempting to change or improve society through their works. However the more acclaimed one is, the more influential they are, the wealthier they become and the more they become the new mainstream voice of that society, one can question whether they are still truly outsiders, even amongst themselves. Can a director who suddenly gets millions of dollars from the major studios for his pictures really still claim to be an "independent" filmmaker? At what point does being successful mean "selling out"?

                 The most assured way to get anyone to support a given system, simply have them become rich off of it, even from criticizing it, and all else will fall into place eventually. Extreme success or notoriety for oneself mitigates the desire in many to really upset the status quo if it would cost one one's role or voice, even if that role is railing against or challenging it. This I feel gives rise to a permanent "dissident" class who never expect themselves and are never expected by others to ever achieve real societal changes because being the moral voice of unheard reason (or angst) becomes their sense of identity, even as they turn it into permanent fiscal enterprises, entire publishing industries, and occupations. This could be argued has been done in the West in music and film, perpetual anti-establishmentism, so constant, prevalent, and expected as to render itself utterly meaningless because of its corporate profit-based nature, shrink-wrapped "revolutionary" thought, just add water and stir.

                 In both East and West Europe, there is a notion that the artistic intellectuals be challenging or opposed to regular politics rather than engaged in it, that the role of an intellectual is to transform society above the current debates and offered programs or choices. This I call a Contrarian view of the role of an intellectual, to criticize society. Pierre Bourdieu writes that "intellectuals who associate themselves with the social movement" against what he calls "the dominant politics, by revolutionary conservatives"2, that they "shouldn't fall into the trap of offering a programme, but a structure for collective research, interdisciplinary and international, bringing together social scientists, activists, representatives of activists, etc."3

                In Eastern Europe under Soviet times, dissidence was political in the sense that it was against a current government which suppressed debate, and therefore they should not interact with that system politically but to try transform it entirely. The mid-1970's, labeled the "dissident period" by Steven Saxonberg and Mark Thompson, is similarly apolitical except for its reaction against Communism, its dominant politics,  "in which the dissidents developed a strategy of building up a civil society - also know as "anti-politics" - which is the type of thinking we associate with anti-Communist dissidence."4

                 Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident turned President, challenged his fellow intellectuals to abandon the view that intellectuals ought to be permanent critics from the sidelines, and that his fellow former dissidents had a responsibility once the reforms came to fruition to work within the system. In a speech before a joint session of the US Congress in February 1990, he stated, "If the hope of the world lies in human consciousness, then it is obvious that intellectuals cannot go on forever avoiding their share of responsibility for the world and hiding their distaste for politics under an alleged need to be independent."5

                   For those raised under a totalitarian-type, dissent-suppressing government, it is easy to see everything in black and white, those who support the unjust undemocratic system, and those who align themselves against it. To work within such a system is to be tainted by it, corrupted by it. In such a light, as in Havel's famous example of what would be a grocer's political statement by simply refusing to put a Communist slogan sign in his store's window, even the slightest act of non-conformity could have been seen as challenging to such a system and making any who would dare provoke it in any way, all in the same boat politically-speaking.

                 Such systems lead to polarization, not true political discussion, for it is not tolerated. There becomes only two groups, dissidents and conformists, the later being those who may or may not believe the lies, but as Havel wrote, "must behave as though they did, or must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfil the system, make the system, are the system."6

                 However, as Havel's turn of fortune showed, going from a political prisoner to the Presidency, once the system opens up to your desires to reform it, he could rightly say from inside his own point of view, that the role of intellectuals should be to work within the system, for it is no longer the system they sought to bring down, but must now try to work together to build a better system.

The problem with this is when everything is polarized between those who support a system, and those whose primary means of definition is also related to that system, in opposition to it, once the system is gone, political discussions need to begin again from the ground up because the opponents of it often find they agree on little else besides how bad it was, with no alternative program or system they agree should take its place. United oppositions to oppressive regimes can often lead to fragmented, disillusioned and directionless societies without a strong alternative with dominant public support to replace it when it in fact it does fall.

                   From Havel's point of view, swept up by a power vacuum into a leadership role, he could rightly criticize his former dissident intellectuals for not being willing to work within the new system. When he gave speeches, he had the whole world's attention. Yet others left to work within the now fragmented formerly united opposition, parts of which took power, parts of which became the new opposition, and others still shut out of power completely, some of these others may have rightly thought their place was to maintain what Havel described as "an alleged need to be independent".7

                 If one questions whether the united oppositions to Communism are or were ever truly united by anything other than what I have called a Contrarian view, if one is to say yes they are or were united, one usually either substitutes united behind greater freedom of expression and democracy, or united behind liberal free market ideals, or both. Whoever gets power usually is able to put forth their idea as to what the revolution was really all about to the fore and get history to record it as the fact, at least until they lose power, if ever.

                 This brings one to another type of intellectual, should one regard intellectuals once they take power as still retaining the right to call themselves intellectuals, what Havel called his fellow intellectuals to become after the fall of Communism in his country; the in-government or pro-system intellectual. Those who work within the system to achieve their aims of transforming society. This definition, that people can still be called intellectuals who completely support the present system and/or the majority opinion, may go against those who have the "artistic" definition of intellectuals, being or representing those who are shut out of the system and are the voice of the minority which the system does not hear.

                Typically those who have such a more limited definition of intellectuals tend to think of them as primarily left or politically liberal. Conservatives, what Bourdieu referred to as becoming the dominant force in politics, with their numerous political think-tanks, also before assuming power completely fit the definition of "outsider" intellectuals, far more than the "artistic" intellectuals did when at the time, their governments were actually more supportive of "artistic" intellectuals views than conservative or neo-conservative views. Who is or is not a pro-government intellectual is defined externally to themselves by what group is currently in power, unless one wants to primarily change the system completely. Then all such "outsider" intellectuals can be seen as having common cause, though their aims once the system is ripe to be changed, can be seen as polar opposites of each other.

                 What happened when Communism fell in East Europe is that many who came to power said the revolutions were against Socialism in general, and eliminated or vastly reduced all social programs aimed toward social justice and protection. These factions either came to be the dominant force, or at the very least, extremely influential secondary parties.8  Also notable is that when such pro-market extreme liberal reformers were not the dominant power in the new legislatures, because they represented the wealthier segments of society, they often had more funds and gained control over the local media, now freely bought and sold to the highest bidder.

                 These right-wing intellectuals in East Europe, and in other typically Western countries, like to point out that intellectuals can be pro-government, even currently in government, and still be called intellectuals. While few could argue Neo-conservative think-tanks with numerous writers and notable influential politically-connected former statesmen, were both "outsiders" and "intellectuals" before George W. Bush came to power, they often concentrated on working within the system rather than changing it, and eventually got enough power to change it from within.

                 Now controlling the system, they are hardly likely to not support changing the system completely, unless to change it to one more to their favor should that become within reach. Havel's political opponent and former fellow dissident, the right-wing Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, author of "Dismantling Socialism: An Interim Report" and "Why Am I a Conservative?", stated as quoted by Timothy Ash, "that in a free country as the Czech Republic had now become, the distinction between "dependent" and "independent" intellectuals no longer had any real importance. Some intellectuals were in politics, others not."9

                 But the question I put forth to begin this paper remains, are "intellectuals", those who are respected, listened-to or read writers, thinkers, or people whose ideas about society are widely known, are they ever really outsiders? If they have a place within a society, can eat, work, are not killed or starved to death, though they may sometimes be imprisoned, often respected by others within or outside that society, are they ever really an autonomous branch of a society? Are they not really just a part of the system? Even in the Communist societies where debate was often suppressed most actively, after Stalinism, what Havel called post-totalitarianism,10  dissidents still had places within society, apartments or some fashion of shelter, food, and other things which some Western societies would never provide for their critics.

                 Being a dissident from the United States, this fact I can attest to well. Starvation and homeless are very much on the menu of how to deal with dissent. And though their views were supposedly against all that their societies stood for, they were not truly revolutionary, in that they often only mimicked what they perceived was right about the West, and those ideas were their goals. Those goals may have been unpopular with their present governments, but they were hardly operating in a vacuum. Once the cracks in the dam of suppressing such notions appeared, they were for awhile literally flooded from outside countries with reparations money, political and economic support and advice on how to restructure their governments, constitutions, businesses, and economies.

                  Though they were defined by their own societies to be outsiders, to the outside world they were reputable, even heroic. And they had an accepted role within it both because by not killing them, starving them, it accepted them to a minimal degree, and because of its harshness and reaction to them, it gave them their primary definition or cause. Being a dissident was a sense of identity, a means of defining their place within that society or the world, if not literally a paying occupation, at least one within the confines of being a part of that society in an semi-accepted, leper sort of way.

                   By my definition of an intellectual ideally seeking to change a system completely, such dissidents were ideal intellectuals in that sense, but the change was not revolutionary in a wider sense. It was not a change to an unknown, nor globally-speaking unpopular, nor even ultimately unpopular in the end with their own leaderships who ideologically supposedly would have opposed such changes to the death against all else. The old leaderships instead became the wealthiest members of society, the new elite, the nouveau rich, far far wealthier then they ever might have imagined they could ever become or they probably would have switched long ago. It was change to what the world community stood waiting to accept their countries for becoming.

                 I do not belittle the achievements Eastern European and Russian dissidents played in affecting such changes, nor how much their societies have grown rich in the sense of finally being able to openly debate for themselves the future of their societies. The bravery it took, the willingness to stand up for what they thought right and face certain recriminations or slow painful ostracism.

                 Suppressive regimes now learn well from each other and have a vast collection of tools of the trade. But truly independent intellectuals are for real system changes to whatever has yet to be tried, ideas which would make those who rule this world nervous, what they would stop at nothing to suppress, not what the largest companies of the world are waiting in the wings to reward, or to what the most powerful countries are willing to back your causes, morally speaking when not financially.

                 When intellectuals are filling a role defined by that society, expected by that society, being what intellectuals are expected to be, doing what intellectuals are expected to do, they are intellectuals, but in the same sense as those who are in government and/or support 100% the current leaderships decisions can be called intellectuals. As Havel wrote of all non-active or passive dissenters, that they ARE the system, I propose such intellectuals are as well, what I call just another system of control, another fallback or safety switch.

                 One can rightly say that is just semantics. Obviously if you are in a society, whatever your standing, you can be said to be a part of that society or else you are dead. In an increasingly global society, there is no going outside it to criticize it. For those who wish to change their society or the global society, the only real target to aim to change because it so completely defines your society within itself, to something else, they need a something else to mention to get anyone to go along with it, respect them, or even have a clue as to what they are talking about. Sometimes when times are desperate enough, people will ignore that they don't have a clue and listen to them anyway.

                But the role of an intellectual, like the end goals for society as a whole, I believe ought to be ambiguous to a certain degree, not confined or limited by what is expected by a society for an intellectual to be, not a definite job description, but the realm of those who possess a never-ending drive to be or create something ELSE, something better, something not yet tried, open-ended. Something ambiguous enough and wide-open enough to make the powerful quake in their boots that the changes they might bring or advocate might not leave them still on top, for if there is ever to be found greater justice in the world, it always would mean power would be more shared and diluted than it is today.

                Those with the power now can easily support that hypocritically and rhetorically, greater democracy, more power to the individual to control their own governments and their own lives, they always will and always do say such things, but they are never so isolated and out of touch that they can't do the math of what it would mean to their power base if it actually was attempted or achieved. If intellectuals are working for anything other than making people see that hypocrisy and gulf between whatever their current system and leaders say and want people to believe, against what they actually are and do, and they are not rich, they are either severely underpaid or inept, because that task is no one else's job within any given society and not doing so would be priceless to some.

                 Everyone else can only play their own parts, paid and allowed only to promote and propagate whatever system they live under from their places within it. If intellectuals are not filling that critical yet indefinable dynamically changing outsider role of always promoting and advancing systemic changes within their societies, they ought to be handsomely rewarded by the powers that be for not doing it or doing it purposely poorly. No one else can without first assuming their roles, taking up their fallen mantle. Sadly, it is still as yet solely in the intellectuals domain or charge, and they, everyone else's last line of defense against those with the power, the will, and the devastatingly well-honed rhetorical weaponry to make all others nothing more than puppets for life.


1)  2003 Village Roadshow Pictures, Matrix Reloaded, Warner Brothers, Hollywood

2)  1988 Bourdieu, Pierre. "Social Scientists, Economic Science and the Social Movement", Acts of Resistance, New York Press, New York, Pg. 52

3)  1988 Bourdieu, Pierre. "Social Scientists, Economic Science and the Social Movement", Acts of Resistance, New York Press, New York, Pg. 56

4)  2005 Saxonberg, Steven, Thompson, Mark. "Opposition and Dissidence in Transitions and Non-Transitions from Communism- A Comparison of East Europe to Asia and Cuba", Opposition and Dissidence in the State Socialist Countries of Eastern Europe, N/A, Pg. 9

5)  1990 Havel, Vaclav, Speech before Joint Session of Congress, Washington DC, Reprinted from...
  1995 Ash, Timothy Garton, "Prague: Intellectuals & Politicians" The New York Review, New York,
   Jan 12, Pg. 37

6)  (orig. 1978) 1985 Havel, Vaclav, et al. "The Power of the Powerless", The Power of the Powerless, Palach Press, New York, Pg. 31

7)  (orig. 1978) 1985 Havel, Vaclav, et al. "The Power of the Powerless", The Power of the Powerless, Palach Press, New York, Pg. 31

8)  2003 Choe, Yonhyok, Loftsson, Elfar. "Elections and Party Systems", Political Representation and Participation in Transitional Democracies: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Almqvist & Wiksell Int., Stockholm, Pg. 50

9)  1995 Ash, Timothy Garton, "Prague: Intellectuals & Politicians" The New York Review, New York,
   Jan 12, Pg. 35

10)  (orig. 1978) 1985 Havel, Vaclav, et al. "The Power of the Powerless", The Power of the Powerless, Palach Press, New York, Pg. 27