Re: Hula Citation

At 11:04 AM 3/30/99 -0500, Daniel M Green wrote:
>Okay, I give, and my sides are starting to hurt.  Btw, in all seriousness,
>I should add that I haven't followed this discussion that closely, but I
>disagree with your position.  I believe strongly in complete academic
>freedom, do not look down my nose at anyone else's work, and do not think
>WSN should be a venue for personal attacks.

Let me respond to you in all seriousness myself. The issue is not academic
freedom. I am hardly in a position to threaten that to begin with. I am
completely outside the academy and have made my living as a schoolteacher,
social worker, truck driver, steelworker and computer programmer over the
years. I believe that the university has the right to pursue research
without interference from the state. Lenin, by the way, made the same point
in "What is to be Done."

On the other hand, you have to be cognizant of an ongoing controversy
around the question of the exact nature of academic radicalism or Marxism.
Various critics from Perry Anderson to Russell Jacoby have tried to explain
the social and institutional basis for the decline of a socially aware
leftist discourse in the academy. I have paid close attention to these
discussions over the years.

What I am suggesting is that world-systems theory is rotten ripe for such
an analysis. I am particularly interested in the trajectory of certain key
thinkers away from classical Marxism. I am also interested in the cash
trail behind the institutions that constitute official world-systems
thought. How does the Gulbenkian Foundation decide to allocate funds? This
question interests me in the same way the question of how the Olin
Foundation decided to fund a conference on the "Science Wars" hosted by
Norman Levitt, Alan Sokal's chief ideological ally. As a 60s radical, the
ties between institutions and money has continued to fascinate me.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)