Just popping this in here: “The intellectual today ought to be an amateur, someone who considers that to be a thinking and concerned member of a society one is entitled to raise moral issues at the heart of even the most technical and professionalized activity as it involves one's country, its power, its mode of interacting with its citizens as well as with other societies. In addition, the intellectual's spirit as an amateur can enter and transform the merely professional routine most of us go through into something much more lively and radical; instead of doing what one is supposed to do one can ask why one does it, who benefits from it, how can it reconnect with a personal project and original thoughts.
Every intellectual has an audience and a constituency. The issue is whether that audience is there to be satisfied, and hence a client to be kept happy, or whether it is there to be challenged, and hence stirred into outright opposition or mobilized into greater democratic participation in the society. But in either case, there is no getting around authority and power, and no getting around the intellectual's relationship to them. How does the intellectual address authority: as a professional supplicant or as its unrewarded, amateurish conscience?”
And there is something inherent to capitalism, it squeezes us financially so that we feel that all of our activities must be monetized/professionalized.
Interesting to apply this idea to therapy and the spiritual marketplace as well!
“(school writing/ mfa writing/ professional writing/ serious writing) itself which is silent/ naive/ complicit about the impact of the social process of American/ normal/ racist/ patriarchal/fascist life on our bodies/ minds/ writing/ craft”
All art and culture can be used to further inscribe existing structures of power and violence… and it seems to do anything other than that we must push past the boundaries of professional practice and find the forms that can actually express what needs to be said, how it needs to be said.
And how can our creative rituals help us resist the common forms that keep us in a trance.
The financial squeeze of capitalism seeks to wring out all the radical healing potential of creativity… perfect social process for maintaining the existing order and sliding into fascism
Yes! And Im having fun thinking about how Said’s analysis can be applied to therapy and the spiritual marketplace.
Just popping this in here: “The intellectual today ought to be an amateur, someone who considers that to be a thinking and concerned member of a society one is entitled to raise moral issues at the heart of even the most technical and professionalized activity as it involves one's country, its power, its mode of interacting with its citizens as well as with other societies. In addition, the intellectual's spirit as an amateur can enter and transform the merely professional routine most of us go through into something much more lively and radical; instead of doing what one is supposed to do one can ask why one does it, who benefits from it, how can it reconnect with a personal project and original thoughts.
Every intellectual has an audience and a constituency. The issue is whether that audience is there to be satisfied, and hence a client to be kept happy, or whether it is there to be challenged, and hence stirred into outright opposition or mobilized into greater democratic participation in the society. But in either case, there is no getting around authority and power, and no getting around the intellectual's relationship to them. How does the intellectual address authority: as a professional supplicant or as its unrewarded, amateurish conscience?”
https://cdn.inst-fs-iad-prod.inscloudgate.net/49daf21d-c999-46ac-bbe7-c083462efdea/Said.pdf?token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzUxMiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCIsImtpZCI6ImNkbiJ9.eyJyZXNvdXJjZSI6Ii80OWRhZjIxZC1jOTk5LTQ2YWMtYmJlNy1jMDgzNDYyZWZkZWEvU2FpZC5wZGYiLCJ0ZW5hbnQiOiJjYW52YXMiLCJ1c2VyX2lkIjpudWxsLCJpYXQiOjE3MTYxODUzMzYsImV4cCI6MTcxNjI3MTczNn0.wK2S67rv1wPBPKiYiisGmvJ5hJDOdS1UOtHc-oeMdbmrxf0JgnyTaupTQrbZjE3ChAhx2st2v429UC6_zNqxyw&download=1&content_type=application%2Fpdf#:~:text=These%20I%20shall%20collect%20under,profit%20and%20selfish%2C%20narrow%20specialization.
That’s Edward Said from “Professionals and Amateurs”! Sorry, got too excited and sent without attribution! Lol… I’m at work rn 😛
what i hear you saying is something feral- a refusal to be domesticated
college is a process of domestication and professionalism via the distribution of “opportunities “
Malcolm X- happy 99th birthday- talked about the House Negro and the Field Negro, the latter sought to burn down the plantations
As you know, there also is a difference between the house cat and the field car.
And there is something inherent to capitalism, it squeezes us financially so that we feel that all of our activities must be monetized/professionalized.
Interesting to apply this idea to therapy and the spiritual marketplace as well!
of course i mean house cat and field 🐱🦁
perhaps there are house artists and field artists
This is an awesome observation you are sharing!!!
“(school writing/ mfa writing/ professional writing/ serious writing) itself which is silent/ naive/ complicit about the impact of the social process of American/ normal/ racist/ patriarchal/fascist life on our bodies/ minds/ writing/ craft”
All art and culture can be used to further inscribe existing structures of power and violence… and it seems to do anything other than that we must push past the boundaries of professional practice and find the forms that can actually express what needs to be said, how it needs to be said.
And how can our creative rituals help us resist the common forms that keep us in a trance.
The financial squeeze of capitalism seeks to wring out all the radical healing potential of creativity… perfect social process for maintaining the existing order and sliding into fascism