GSG:
>I'll say again: I find it outrageous that just as some of that group
>have the audacity to aspire, even to gain, some of the resources that our
>system does offer, they are told - sorry, you're doing it all wrong......
>Sounds horribly like our attitude towards the developing world...hey, we
>exploited you, but now you're in a position to take some of what we have,
>you can't have it, because we're so enlightened we realise it's been a
>terrible thing all these years.


'Our' attitude? I don't think you will find many on this list share that view.

On the wider point, your argument is totally cynical and defeatist. We all
live in a capitalist society. We are born into it, whether we like it or
not. We can't help what social class we were born into etc. If you then say
: 'Sorry, but you're middle classs, therefore you should behave in a way
that perpetuates the system, and if you don't you are a hypocrit' - where
does that leave you? Either with the status quo, and with a society which
you have no power (or desire) to change, or dreaming of an 'authentic'
revolution by the working classes, to whom when it happens, you can say:'I
was really with you all along in my mind'.

You work with what you have got. In my case, I could have been a
stockbroker or worked for a company of some kind. I chose not to. I have
ended up in academia through a combination of chance and effort. It is far
from the major part of my life. What you say would mean that I deliberately
curtial my political life because of someone else's (your) idea of what
academia is, and what an academic should be.

Sorry, I do not buy it. Your comparison above is totally inappropriate.
Academia does not have to be part of the system in the way that the IMF or
the WTO are. It is very differentiated - witness the differences between
you and me, for a start! This differentiation between people within
different countries and societies is what enable transnational alliances to
be built up between people like RTS and the Karnakata State Farmers (for
example). Not everyone in a capitalist society (or in academia in a
capiatalist society) is a capaitalist, despite the fact that we may all
happen to here been born here.

GSG:
>Academia is so full of ironies.... but you
>don't find me laughing.

Ah, the torment! :-)


'If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution' to
paraphrase a very wise woman. I'll have fun and change the world, thanks.
You may think it's 'pissing in the wind', but you still haven't suggested
anything better...


David.


____________________________________________________________________

David Wood
PhD Research Student ('Intelligence Sites in Rural North Yorkshire')
Centre for Rural Economy
Department of Agricultural Economics and Food Marketing
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU

0191 222 5305

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