Quotes from the intro:

Freire also did not hesitate to demonstrate his “just ire” by denouncing the critical posture of many facile liberals and some so-called critical educators who often find refuge in the academy by hiding their addiction to obscene consumerism, while at the same time attacking in their written discourses the market theology of neoliberalism. Too often, these facile liberals and so-called critical educators’ tastes and ways of being in the world and with the world remain, according to Freire, wedded to the very neoliberal market solutions that they denounce at the level of written critical discourse. In their day-to-day practices, these facile liberals and so-called critical educators often betray the action required by praxis by fossilizing their purported political project into an obscure discursive criticality that begs to move beyond the always “postponed arrival” of action – that is, action designed to transform the current perniciousness of the neoliberal Godification of the market into new democratic structures that lead to equity, equality, and authentic democratic practices. In other words, many facile liberals and so-called critical educators boast of their leftist credentials by wearing their proclaimed Marxism on their sleeve (usually only expressed in written discourse or in the safety of the academy) and, sometimes, feel the urge to further boast that, for example, their radicalism beyond Marx’s proposals to the degree that they are authentically more Maoist in their political orientation – a posture they believe to be even more radical. As a consequence, leftist labels in the academy become appropriated, exoticized political and cultural currency where to be a Marxist-in-residence in the ivory tower bestows status but is little more than a chic brand – in reality, the epitome of consumerism sustained by transactions occurring in a merely symbolic register of names and labels that are otherwise vacuous in substance. In essence, the academic branding of “Marxist” by some critical educators turns ethical and political action into a spectacle, and leftist viewpoints into de facto commodities. As commodities, these self-ascribed “radical” positions and labels are emptied out of their progressive content to the extent that they are decoupled from principled action – a decoupling that remains fundamental in the reproduction of the market theology of neoliberalism where collective social engagement based on critical thinking is discouraged and zealous cutthroat competition is rewarded. The insidious process of decoupling critical discourse and action legitimizes not “walking the talk”: it affords the proclaimed Marxist-in-residence the opportunity, for instance, to claim to be antiracist while turning antiracism into a lifeless cliché that does not provide pedagogical spaces to critique white supremacist ideologies. In this process, their progressive stances are often co-opted, mobilized only to the degree that they denounce racism at the level of written critical discourse, all the while reaping privileges from the cemented institutional racism which they, willfully, refuse to acknowledge and engage in action to dismantle.

Quotes from this article:

There are definitely too many phonies running around acting like they’re down for the people but only looking out for their own interests and will be quick to snitch, betray, and sell you out. This is also to combat and to struggle against these behaviors, this is not an attempt to point the finger at anyone. We cannot blame the people for 500 years of colonialism; we have to attack the system, the real problem that we are facing that is killing us at this very moment.

This is something with which I couldn't agree more.


I think there are two things that are becoming more apparent in the Left today: 1) we are seeing clear lines being drawn (meaning we are seeing people’s true colors come out), which is good in the sense that alliances are being made based on principled unity; and 2) we are seeing people who would rather attack and make enemies with other oppressed people or people in the movement than go after the real institutional enemies of the people in terms of the system as a whole.

Depending on where this piece goes, I'm definitely in agreement. (If it hits a tone of 'left unity', I'm going to struggle with it; if it hits a tone of 'there are too many in what we call "the left" fighting others', I'm in agreement.)


... one of the biggest forms of opportunism today is political careerism where people use the grassroots and larger movement to build their own networks for their own future political career in a sense.

This isn't the first time I've heard this. In fact, this sentiment was expressed in the interview with Tariq Mehmood about the Asian youth movements in Bradford with Working Class History (Part 1, Part 2).

There are far too many people seeing that they can 'grab control' and 'build a career' on the backs of people suffering, and they simply don't care. Because:

These folks usually like to play all sides, have their hands in everything, and be known in every circle of activists, organizers, and even radicals because they want to use these networks for their careerist intentions.


Another form of this opportunism we can see inside the Non-Profit Industrial Complex where many political careerists hope to build up their networks and hold leadership positions already.

This is an area that really needs to receive a lot more attention, especially with regards to global organisations. There are a lot of governments that use or manipulate non-profits for their own goals. (I say 'manipulate' because there are countries where getting away from non-profit structures is incredibly difficult was a result of laws.) They continue:

Non-profits, however, have hired many people of color who in other sectors of work would not have a job, but looking at the role that the Non-Profit Industrial Complex plays in guiding the struggle in a direction that is not a threat to the state because their funding in large comes from the state itself.

This is true in countries where they 'compete' for the tax-based donations from the public (e.g., Slovakia has a 2% contribution from taxes that people can donate to their choice of non-profits -- this directly links the state to those organisations, and it also informs them about which non-profits to work with).


Another way some use the movement, is to promote themselves, build themselves up as an activist celebrity, build their own “legacy,” and many times it is because they also want to get paid.

Definitely this, too. It pairs well with the careerism that was previously discussed.


This is part of the social conditioning and colonialism of building up personalities and not empowering individuals to realize their own potentials as revolutionaries and as human beings. This is not to say we shouldn’t celebrate our revolutionaries, our victories, our communities and individuals who have made that “revolutionary sacrifice,” what I’m being critical of something completely different.

Definitely this. There's a glimmer of this when people (particularly non-anarchists) start asking about different anarchist figures, assuming that all of them spoke for every one of us. Their work is/was important, and it's important to recognise them (and their flaws). However, the perspective a lot of us have on the world is that these people do not represent us; they help us build the movement, help us describe things through theory, help us orient praxis, etc. They're not our idols, and they shouldn't be.


There are those however that wish to get paid. That is okay as long as some of that is getting back to the oppressed communities and the revolutionary movement. The real issue is the liberals, who have no other way to build a legacy or are good at anything else so therefore they seek to do that for themselves in the movement.

Fucking this right here. I am fine with people making money (in a society that requires it to survive), but it needs to be in conjunction with helping part of the community in some material form.


So what we have instead of a real movement is these folks taking the struggle in a direction of personality cults in a sense and we lose sight of the people who are the real makers of history always.

Yes. Another element of personality cults is that they try to build their momentum into political campaigns.


Self-Righteous behavior is too common in the activist circles today where they divorce themselves from the oppressed communities because the activists see themselves as better. This is an elitism, that comes from being separate from the oppressed communities, where activists see themselves as above “the people,” because they see that they have the correct language, the correct internal behavior and practice.

Yes. This is too fucking common. (And this is something that we all need to work to rid ourselves of. It's hard, but it needs to be done.) He continues by saying:

All oppressed people have been socialized and colonized under this White-Supremacist-Patriarchal-Heterosexist-Capitalist-Imperialist system, so even the activists are going to carry some baggage from the system even though they say otherwise. We have to understand that we are living in unhealthy conditions and these conditions are brought with us into the movement.

And:

There are some who do not wish to change or are not doing so at this moment, and we have to figure out how to deal with them if they come from our communities as well. So this is where we have to work with our people where they’re at not where we want them to be, otherwise we will be isolated from those we really have to reach right now.


The personal is political in a sense, but we cannot be neutral when the system is waging war on us. These also manifests itself today in people not calling out oppressive behavior when it happens and not challenging opportunists when they come into our communities and try to use us.


What I mean by the White-Left Vanguard Party is the white-left organization who survived the 60’s (after the truly revolutionary organizations were defeated) or is new, and think that they need to lead the struggle and impose themselves on oppressed communities and communities of color.


So they have the white savior complex and feel that they need to speak for the oppressed. This does not just exist in the authoritarian left but also within the anarchist circles. This is something that is prevalent in all of the white left, and we should rely on other white leftists to challenge. Oppressed people however, should never allow them to come into our communities and impose their programs on us where they see only other whites being fit to lead us.

I think more white anarchists (and I'm not excluding myself here) need to read this and let it sink in.


In the Third World today people are organizing more in a horizontalist and autonomous ways in the communities because the state is not providing for them and they build up the mutual-aid relationships out of their need for survival. Many have found out this way of building is the only way to build something fundamentally new.


The illegitimate leadership today can manifest itself in many ways: the people who do no work but want all the credit, sideline haters (who basically criticize from the sidelines of the movement but are not willing to fight with the people or who intend to make poster children out of the youth and let them catch all the heat from the state and will not defend them), opportunists, people who wish to co-opt the movement or organizations that they had nothing to do in building (a form of opportunism), and of course the state and organizations with deep ties to the state. The Non-Profit Industrial Complex now represents a form of illegitimate leadership in our communities and do many of the things mentioned. Many of them have also deep ties to the state but act as the representatives for our communities.

We should not allow this to happen anymore; we shouldn’t give them any power.


A lot of the research that comes from [academia] feeds the war machine, so how can this be a revolutionary institution? It is not. Its role is to act as training for the people who will become the new middle class and upper middle class, fundamentally this is the role of the university.


After many students graduate from universities the only jobs that are available to them for the most part is in the Non-Profit Sector, which also promotes the idea that the ones with a university education are the best qualified to lead. I do think that if our people decide to attend a university they should come back into their communities and democratize their knowledge.

Name mentioned: Rodolf 'Corky' Gonzales (Chicano organiser and revolutionary)


Also Academia and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex have attempted to hijack the revolution, take credit for, change the language, and again be the “legitimate” forms to struggle. Academia takes folks away from their communities if they’re people of color and oppressed. They attempt to define the struggle for the people from the ivory tower and they have a monopoly on book knowledge inaccessible to the majority of society.

And this is a succinct reason for why I think academia can never be the center of a 'revolution' or any form of actual change in society. Co-opting is the best they can do.


Looking at the education model within academia where you have an expert on a subject talk to you for hours and you are expected to regurgitate what they tell you in a test or essay. Do people really learn this way? We need to look at forms of popular education. Just because you are not a professor does not mean you do not have things to teach, based on your experiences. You probably have many things to teach your professors; there is a lot of value in your life experiences and they are valid.

Fucking spot on, and I'd apply this same principle to compulsory schooling.


We have to be relevant to the most oppressed and our communities. We cannot build organizations and events just for us but where non-activists feel that they can relate to and think is interesting.

Yes!

Quotes from this article.

If we take a historical perspective, the impact of academics on radical theory has been marginal.

This is largely true.


Overall, the relationship between struggles on the ground and academia is a complicated one. There are barriers in both directions. We meet academic arrogance as much as vulgar anti-intellectualism. At times, it seems that we are dealing with two parallel worlds with very little interaction and no common political commitment.

One issue I have with this is that how we view and define "vulgar anti-intellectualism." I say this because I've been called "anti-intellectual" for critiquing academics and universities, especially considering how they do little to nothing in the face of the precarity of their institution. They also rarely speak up about the multiple abuses academia participates in. People like myself, who realise that academia is not a necessary institution and believe in full school abolition, often get put in the same box as people who are genuinely anti-intellectual.

Also, even groups that are consistently "anti-intellectual" (see: fascists) still support people they deem as "intellectuals" because they put forward research that supports the fascists. People need a more nuanced view of anti-intellectualism.

But academic arrogance is astoundingly common and does not fuel helpful relationships between themselves and people on the ground. Even academics have realised this, as there are people who have done what they could to bring their work to the community, to organise with their communities, and to support causes that support people.


As a consequence of the student and youth rebellions, radical theory became an academic career path. The decade saw a boom in the publication of academic books and journals edited by Marxists. Even when the overall appeal of Marxism decreased in the 1980s, this trend continued, as a significant number of Marxists had entered the ranks of academia. Today, this is true even for anarchists who were almost entirely absent from academia until the 1990s. Today’s two best-known anarchists, Noam Chomsky and David Graeber, are both academics. Only in the Global South does the personal union of militant and theorist still exist, exemplified by the likes of Subcommandante Marcos or Abdullah Öcalan.

I think, as well as the radical theory becoming an academic career path, the fact that a lot of academics saw themselves as the radical students and assumed that because they moved into positions as academics? They were still creating change in the world rather than further cementing their position in a system that co-opted a lot of work and research, watering down a lot of ideas and actions.

As much as I adore Graeber's work (and it is fantastic), I think there is an irony in how he and Chomsky became the 'voice of anarchism' at different times. Especially Chomsky, who had some questionable takes that didn't really align with basic anarchism. (Side note: I do need to spend some time re-reading Chomsky. Also, I need to go back and review both Subcommandante Marcos and Abdullah Öcalan. Among many others.)

Probably in the vein of "bad for Chomsky," a bunch of dorks look to him as the authority on anarchism, which is a whole fucking irony of not understanding anarchism. In that regard, I feel bad for the man.


It is no coincidence that the conflict ended with neoliberalism finalizing the distinction between struggling and thinking about struggling. Neoliberalism turned universities into market places of self-promotion rather than terrains of intellectual growth.

Because I don't know many people who went to university prior to the 1980s (I was the first person to attend and graduate university in my immediate family, and I was the first to get a Masters degree; the only other people in my family who attended university were two cousins who were 3 and 5 years older than me), I want to know how true this statement is. Were universities ever really "terrains of intellectual growth?"

I say this because the history of schools and universities often indicates that they weren't, and many of the people that I've read seem to show that the people who saw them as such were either left alone to do whatever they wanted (more or less) or had to fight in order to do the work they wanted to do. In the former case, they saw little to no issue with how things were operating (because it worked for them and they were part of the dominant culture); in the latter case, the people recognised that it was their fight that allowed them to have that "intellectual space."


When academia takes control, theoretical work shifts form and content. Today, the term political is almost an antonym to the term scholarly. Academics fear that political engagement discredits them. They write exclusively for a small circle of other academics. The question of “What is to be done?” is no longer raised, let alone attempted to be answered.

This keeps making me ask the same set of questions: Who made a big deal about politics in schools? Who continually kept claiming that schools shouldn't be political? And did they recognise their work as political? Did they recognise an ability to "be apolitical" as being political? Did they not see their work as inherently political?

These always need to be addressed, I think. We really need to point out the root cause for this.


Academic publishing has become a lucrative industry. Paywalls separate an exclusive academic audience from the rest of us. To read academic articles, we must “pay per view.” Alternatively, academic authors must > pay up to USD 3000 to make a piece publicly accessible. This is particularly odd if we consider that the salaries of academics, and the infrastructure they use, are largely paid for by the public. So, while the public is denied access to the work it has financed, private publishing companies cash in on poorly produced and heavily overpriced publications that collect dust on the shelves of university libraries. In order to publish in respected academic journals and presses, academics also have to agree to formal demands that further alienate ordinary folks. It is therefore not surprising that the vast majority of academic articles circulates among a couple of hundred professionals at best, satisfying only the economic interests of parasitic publishing companies and the reproduction of a self-involved intellectual elite.

When I critique academics, this is kind of something I go back and forth on. I recognise that their work is often difficult to make freely available because of the structures they're doing it in.

But I also wonder: How much of a fight is going on about this? I rarely see tenured academics putting up a fight on this front. Instead, the only people I've heard discuss this include people working on their PhD (such as @johntheduncan, who openly said that his institution "doesn't even pay for lecturers" to have their work published in open access journals while recalling discussing the possibility of making his own work freely available).

If academics want to claim they're "part of a movement," they need to be breaking down the walls of their institution while learning that their career simply may not exist by doing so. (But that the world will be better off for it by making learning openly accessible to all.)


One of the reasons we don’t know is that these questions are often sidestepped. People seem afraid of stepping on each others’ toes. There is an esprit de corps in all social circles, academic ones included, and this affects even radical academics. No one dares to cast the first stone, because everyone sits in the same glass house. It is striking that people who passionately come to the defense of open access and commons against the norms and values of neoliberalism turn very pragmatic when their most immediate environment is concerned.

This last part is largely why I have so much disdain for academics (as a group). I also think this element is what made someone like David Graeber so widely appreciated among many anarchists; he showed up, he put his own career on the line for his values, and he paid for it in the US academic circles (where he couldn't find employment).

He wasn't perfect by any means, but that's an example that more academics need to be following.


We have no detailed knowledge of the professional and personal situation of individual academics and cannot judge their choices. We don’t know how much they resist the tendencies discussed above in their daily work. But there seems to be no concerted effort to name, denounce, and alter these tendencies, and, subsequently, very little collective resistance.

This is, again, why I have such a problem with academics as a group, and I genuinely find the same amount of frustration for those who call themselves anarchists and academics. If you are not organising to make learning accessible, what is the point? There are people with fewer resources and more to lose fighting for what you should be, and we're often met with disdain from academics.

Do not think it is lost on me that early years, primary, and secondary teachers often face incredible amounts of disgust and condescension from academics but that they are suddenly making a bit more noise now that Critical Race Theory bills are going out and it impacts them, too. Academics rarely show solidarity with those they see as "beneath" them, and this has to change. And this also applies to anarchist academics.

Note: I'm glad there is more solidarity, but this needs to be consistent and wide. People with tenure need to do a hell of a lot more to support the people in their very institutions who are put into positions of precarity and poverty existence. They need to stand up more for more people who are targeted and break the institution when it shits on someone. Until that's there, I cannot feign happiness over one instance where they're doing something where it also impacts them directly.


Yet, throughout history, workers with much more to lose – and with much less ideological pretense – have found ways to protest. They unionized, they organized campaigns, they engaged in sabotage and direct action. Why is this seemingly no option for radical academics? A common response to anti-academic sentiments is that the struggle needs to be everywhere, also in academia. That is a valid argument – as long as there is indeed any struggle in academia.


Other radical academics have become prominent enough to act as celebrity supporters – or even unofficial spokespeople – of social movements. The above-mentioned Noam Chomsky and David Graeber are examples, and so are Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, or Vandana Shiva. Radical celebrities serve a purpose, and we are glad that the media grants them a platform to voice their opinions. But celebrities are by definition exceptions to the rule. They do not change the pattern. And, at times, they distract from the problem.


A list of suggestions for moving forward:

1/ There is no radical theory without practical experience. Theoretical work cannot be separated from movements against capitalism and imperialism. It must respond to the questions posed by struggles on the ground. We cannot afford non-activist theory.

There is no way that theory can be developed without on-the-ground knowledge and experience.

It's also relevant to say that academics need to stop co-opting the work of marginalised people on-the-ground, particularly as they are so often the people that academia dismisses and excludes. Make it known who you are working with and whose work you're pulling from; stop making it about your own career.

2/ There is no radical practice without theoretical reflection. We must evaluate the effects of our struggles and reflect on our experiences. We cannot afford anti-theoretical activism.

I think there is so frequently a misunderstanding of what people mean when they say that they're "doing praxis" or "doing practical work" instead of theory, and it needs to be recognised that a lot of people who've been intentionally excluded from the spaces that "create theory" without practical knowledge feel that their practice is grounded in the theory they learned on the ground.

Which is true.

Yes, activists need to spend more time reflecting (everyone does) and may need to work together to build theoretical practice (which is fine), but I think we need a better understanding of how activists feel excluded (especially people from marginalised and historically excluded communities).

3/ Radical theory must contribute to radical practice. Its purpose is not to understand things, but to change things. This requires the development of strategy and tactics.

I think it's worth repeating something that Francisco Ferrer once wrote in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: "Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed – even in part – the other immediately suffers. There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world."

He also provided an 'equation', which is: Action + Reflection > word = work = praxis Sacrifice of action = verbalism Sacrifice of reflection = activism

4/ We must raise our view. The outside of academia is much more interesting and relevant than the inside of it. Radical theory must not be limited by academic conventions, disciplines, and norms.

Precisely this. Being outside of academia also allows us to free ourselves from the walls everyone has built (that only continue to get smaller as people seek to carve out careers as much as humanly possible).

5/ We must actively seek out non-academic sources. Many of them are excluded from academia due to geographical, cultural, or language-related reasons only.

Seek out and not co-opt from. There are far too many academics to actively steal work and take credit from it.

And it's not even that many of the people they steal from ask for credit, but it should just be considered proper behaviour to include them and make people aware of the people you're working with instead of claiming their work as your own. Not only should academics seek out non-academic sources (and include them), they need to treat them with respect.

6/ We must defy the formal restrictions put on academic work, since they confine the contents.

Most definitely.

7/ We must change the academic environment itself. It must be freed from the yoke of both the state and capital. Academia must be seen as the institution of power it has become. Today, “academic freedom” mainly refers to relative personal privilege, not a space of free intellectual development.

By change, we really should encourage everyone to actively dismantle the institution. These institutions are now claiming they're "decolonising," but they're built on colonialism. (This is a paraphrased version of this tweet by Judicaelle Irakoze.)

8/ We must be aware of and counteract the impact that hierarchies of class, gender, and race put on the production of radical theory. This effort must be led by those affected by them.

Agreed, and we really need to include other axes of oppressions: ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and casteism.

9/ We must make academic work accessible to everyone. There needs to be free access to libraries and conferences, and free distribution of academic writing.

Yes! 100% yes. And we need to include non-academic work. We also need to stop holding people up as celebrities and figures.

10/ We must establish counter-institutions, that is, places and networks that allow for scholarly work beyond academic restrictions.

Learning centers, study groups, everything. We need spaces of education to be based in community, which is something that academia (and schools) most certainly are not and will never be.