How to Create a Neanderthal: Power Structures and the Academic Elite

You like that, Foucault? Never thought that postmodernism could become (insert thundering voice of the divine) "the structure of power."

So as I sit in my left-wingish graduate seminars, I can't help but get the impression that individuals are surprised that I can speak in complete sentences. First, I'm Mormon, second, I'm from the West, and third, I'm conservative? As our good friend from seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com would say, "Ew, ew, ew..."

Every organization, ideological structure, or -ism has its methods of negotiating the existence of dissent (for some excellent writings on this, read Gramsci and Raymond Williams...alas, I haven't the mood right now to indulge in academic abstractions). While it's an old cliche that probably belongs on right-wing, gun-toting, squirrel-eating blogs, I would suggest to you that the academic-liberal agenda (I say academic because it's quite different from mainstream liberalism), for its talk of free-wheeling debate and intellectual exchange, is ultimately interested in the maintenance of its own power base of assumptions ("gender is a construct," "everything is a construct," "your mom is a construct") far more than intellectual exchange as a virtue unto itself. It is not immune to the power structures that eliminate dissent. It uses metaphors, images, and power-plays to stand guard over its ideological territory.

What images do they use? I find it amusing that academics must, by necessity, position themselves in the image of "dissenter," "the burr in the saddle," the rage against the machine. Whether the dissenter wears a tie or wears nothing at all (or even nothing but a tie), the important thing is not that they are "correct" (what is "correct" anyway?), but that they are seeking to dismantle the structures of power. They might couch their subversion in language such as "cultural analysis" or even "academic freedom" (and can someone remind us what "liberty" is, again? Wake me when you're finished citing Enlightenment thinkers...that's SO establishment).

And the conservative caricature? Conservatives tote guns, like to talk about Mexicans as the "Spanish people," hate latte. They think Jesus drives a tank, find "Left Behind" to be inspirational literature, and think Derrida is the spawn of Satan. They oppose abortion because they hate women, support heterosexual marriage because homosexuals must be monsters who ultimately want to marry horses, and support the war because Islam is the Mormonism that they can actually go to war with and get away with it.

But what do they, the liberals/progressives, really want?. Do they want universal health-care? Isolationism? Circumscribed engagement? Do they really just want free access to abortions? Same-sex marriage? "Equal rights"? Will they be happy with these accomplishments?

I suggest that academic-progressives either 1) want to employ the Foucaultian power structures that they spend all day making snide remarks about or 2) want to watch the cultural/ideological world burn. A caricature, I know...but you know how it goes with blogs...we have to shock you into paying attention :)

I'm reminded of an exchange between an RAF officer and a veteran imperial official during a visit to what we now know as Iraq while it was still under British mandate during the 20s. The RAF officer mentioned that those fighting World War I for something greater than mere acquisition. His veteran acquaintance responded: "Oh you mean Brave Little Belgium, a World Safe for Democracy?" "Something like that." "Oh come now sir. That's rather an academic line, don't you think?"

"Academic freedom," not surprisingly, strikes me as a rather "academic line" as well.