On Intellectual Responsibility

Contemplating personal and societal obligations.



On Intellectual Responsibility
By Dru Oja Jay

Even as a university student I am quite privileged: my education is paid for
in large part by the people of Canada, while my parents pick up the
remaining costs. Someone seems to think that it's worthwhile for me to spend
four years, reading, writing, and thinking about things. I am among the
minority of people to whom society extends this privilege.

My social obligations are fairly obvious. I should use the tools my
education affords me to tell the truth. And I should help others, not to see
things my way, necessarily, but to see things at all, to look for
themselves. Never an easy task, but it's gotten harder since September 11.
Most discourse about the "War on Terror" betrays a stark "if you're not with
us, you're against us" attitude. Watching the response to the attacks has
been disheartening, even terrifying. More to the point, the responses I have
read have provided me with an occasion to reflect upon my reponsibilities as
an intellectual.

The reflection began during a conversation with a local business owner in
the small town of Sackville in New Brunswick, Canada. At the sight of George
W. Bush on television, I mumbled my disapproval. To which the proprietor
replied, "I don't know, Bush might be the right redneck for the job. He'll
go ballistic on those people." I managed a weak objection -- "I'm not so
sure that's the right thing to do" -- before scurrying out the door. I
didn't have the courage at that moment to denounce his violent, racist
comments, and I wonder if I have it now.

I have been avoiding The Globe and Mail and other mainstream media. If I had
courage enough to fuel my sense of intellectual responsibility, I would
write or publish weekly critiques, dissenting from the dangerous and
inaccurate things that are written there daily. I would at least point out
how the "War on Terrorism" -- which, like every proper Media Event, has its
own section on the Globe's web site -- is both nonsensical and dangerous.

I would ask if Bush plans to attack Northern Ireland, East Miami, or Ronald
Reagan (who, in the Eighties, compared Afghan "freedom fighters" to
America's founding fathers, hosting them at the White House). I would point
out that mobilizing the resources of war against a concept is dangerous and
leads to violence against arbitrarily chosen, if convenient, targets. The
war on drugs, for example, continues to be a racist endeavor -- African
American youths are 43 times more likely to be convicted of drug offenses
than Whites. Can we reasonably expect the "War on Terror" to be any less
obscene? If I was really gutsy, I would ask at what point our grief stops
being natural, and when it starts to be a offense to the millions who've
already lost their lives for our security and well being.

There is much more that I would respond to, but I can only read a few
paragraphs before feeling my blood pressure rise. I give up before I begin.

The courage to take a stand in difficult situations isn't all that I've
lacked, though. I need to be unafraid of being misrepresented, labeled,
dismissed, or even persecuted too. A day after my exchange with the business
owner, I posted a few messages to the discussion forum of my college
newspaper: the first explained how we might understand the reported
Palestinian "celebrations", after September 11 attacks, as something other
than evil, which is the substance of most explanations. Though I plainly
said that my attempt to understand why people would react that way did not
mean that I agreed with the reaction, at least two people took my message as
an apology for terrorism. One of those people apologized later, but I only
heard from two people. Who else ignored what I said?

It may seem that I'm just complaining how hard it is to be intellectually
honest. And yet I've learned exactly the opposite: it's very easy to be
intellectually dishonest. And the situations I've faced could be much more
difficult. When the people doing the labeling or silently judging have
institutional and social power. Like an editor who doesn't want to risk
losing his privileged access to the White House, or a University
Administration who doesn't want to be criticized, much less face an
organized faculty. Just ask [1]David Noble what it's like to be
intellectually honest when an entire university administration opposes you.

But, now, when people are falling over themselves to kiss American ass, the
stakes are even higher. In the week following the attack, Hugh Winsor wrote
in The Globe and Mail: "within some ethnic communities there is also a
minority who sympathize with or actively support terrorist activities.
Obviously, we need the majority's help to find and thwart that support. We
could go further and develop help to go after the source." Despite or,
perhaps, because of the viley racist nature of Winsor's comment, I realized
that I have yet another privilege, the privilege of being White. In the
utterly perverse world we live in, I get the benefit of every doubt; it's
assumed that I'm not a sympathizer because I don't live in an "ethnic
community". Or rather, people wait until I open my mouth about the "War on
Terrorism" before they call me a sympathizer.

As a result, the obligation to find the courage to tell the truth and
encourage others to do the same weighs even more heavily on me. Indeed, the
safety of my "ethnic" brothers and sisters is now at risk, and I have the
opportunity to share a smal part of that burden, and all it will cost me is
some small measure of my invalid, undeserved White privilege. (And, if it's
anything, support of terrorism is a White problem: more White North
Americans are likely supporters of state and state-sponsored terrorism, what
Edward Herman calls "wholesale" terrorism, than any other "ethnic" group.)

In fact, my obligation doesn't arise merely from social and economic
privilege but also from a deeper, more inward source. I decided at some
point that I wanted to think and write about the world. If I'm going to take
that decision seriously, then I owe an obligation to myself: first, to
understand the world and, second, to act on this understanding. I don't mean
that I'll always have the courage or discipline to respond intelligently,
but starting now, I'll have a clear sense what I should be doing.

In other words, I can begin.

 References:
   1. http://agentmag.ca/features/investigative/noble_p1.html



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Posted on Monkeyfist at http://monkeyfist.com/articles/788