Categories of Intellectuals by Carol Boyce Davies

I recently read this categorization of intellectuals by Carol Boyce Davies in her biography of black Communist Claudia Jones and thought you might be interested.

The Gramscian binary of the traditional intellectual and the organic intellectual is expanded by three descriptions: 'the co-opted liberal intellectual' posture, which never sees knowledge as moving into transforming action; 'the accommodationist-reformist' intellectual, who aligns her/himself with popular struggles but cannot communicate with people the ideas of the academy; and the 'guerrilla intellectual' in the tradition of Walter Rodney, whose scholarship, life, and activism were all organized for transformative intent.

Our contemporary U.S.-based realities reveal that two other categories are perhaps appropriate. I would add (1) the commoditized intellectual, whose entire exercise of academic production is hyper-market-driven and in the benefit of the state; and (2) the radically transformative intellectual, whose entire praxis is organized around the production of knowledge directed at transforming the social contexts in which we live and operate in and out of the academy. This latter position comes out of not seeing the Walter Rodney position in idealistic terms, because, at its most extreme, it requires a certain martyrdom in order to be activated.

Delightfully interesting

I love archives. I am forever finding amazing things I never would have thought of in them. Sometimes it's a slog, but never without rewards. I thought I would share one of the rewards with you--my favorite definition of an intellectual ever.

Maxwell Bodenheim in the Dallas Texas News, July 20, 1924, in a symposium edited by Walter Holbrook on "Who are the Young Intellectuals?"

Editors note: We have been writing a number of authors, liberal and conservative to ask what they mean by the term “Young Intellectuals” and whom they consider representative of the school. This week we print Maxwell Bodenheim’s reply, which he himself characterizes as ‘at least……….a straightforward, ironical and vicious departure from the cut-and-dried statements of limited prejudice and elated misconceptions which you have been publishing in your symposium (the fault is not yours, of course)” Mr. Bodenheim is a poet and novelist of highly modern tendencies.

[...]

Intellect is a half-logical, half-imaginative struggle against false exteriors, surface semblances, decrepit plausibilities, emotional uproars, and outworn idols accepted and worshiped by large groups of people. It is thought and poetry refusing to be hoodwinked by the realistic pretenses and clamors of life, and forever setting up newer and more daring explanations of the motives, meanings, and essences concealed by life. It is the exquisite, skillful, and at times almost venomous attack on the mental inertia, and emotional complacency which appeals to a majority of human beings, whether they are Socialists or Monarchists. It has little respect for inflexible solutions and ecstatic prohibitions, and it ignores them in favor of an endlessly searching forward motion. It has therefore been disliked in all ages and by hosts of critics, from the early Greek rhapsodists down to H.L. Mencken.

A few different reasons I like this document so much. First of all, this symposium was taking place in a Texas newspaper. It's hard to imagine a similar dialogue today. Perhaps this is a tiny moment when "intellectual" was not a bad word in the States? More importantly, I like Bodenheim's definition because it does not automatically make "intellect" and "emotions" utter enemies. It also explains why intellectuals tend toward that impulse labeled disparagingly as "elitist." Thoughts?

Delightfully interesting

I love archives. I am forever finding amazing things I never would have thought of in them. Sometimes it's a slog, but never without rewards. I thought I would share one of the rewards with you--my favorite definition of an intellectual ever.

Maxwell Bodenheim in the Dallas Texas News, July 20, 1924, in a symposium edited by Walter Holbrook on "Who are the Young Intellectuals?"

Editors note: We have been writing a number of authors, liberal and conservative to ask what they mean by the term “Young Intellectuals” and whom they consider representative of the school. This week we print Maxwell Bodenheim’s reply, which he himself characterizes as ‘at least……….a straightforward, ironical and vicious departure from the cut-and-dried statements of limited prejudice and elated misconceptions which you have been publishing in your symposium (the fault is not yours, of course)” Mr. Bodenheim is a poet and novelist of highly modern tendencies.

[...]

Intellect is a half-logical, half-imaginative struggle against false exteriors, surface semblances, decrepit plausibilities, emotional uproars, and outworn idols accepted and worshiped by large groups of people. It is thought and poetry refusing to be hoodwinked by the realistic pretenses and clamors of life, and forever setting up newer and more daring explanations of the motives, meanings, and essences concealed by life. It is the exquisite, skillful, and at times almost venomous attack on the mental inertia, and emotional complacency which appeals to a majority of human beings, whether they are Socialists or Monarchists. It has little respect for inflexible solutions and ecstatic prohibitions, and it ignores them in favor of an endlessly searching forward motion. It has therefore been disliked in all ages and by hosts of critics, from the early Greek rhapsodists down to H.L. Mencken.

A few different reasons I like this document so much. First of all, this symposium was taking place in a Texas newspaper. It's hard to imagine a similar dialogue today. Perhaps this is a tiny moment when "intellectual" was not a bad word in the States? More importantly, I like Bodenheim's definition because it does not automatically make "intellect" and "emotions" utter enemies. It also explains why intellectuals tend toward that impulse labeled disparagingly as "elitist." Thoughts?