All Dissident Intellectuals to the Polls!

I was re-reading the last chapter of bell hooks book "Teaching Community," one of my favorite books on education.  In the last chapter she discusses the difference between public intellectuals and what Noam Chomsky has defined as "dissident intellectuals," or those who are "defenders of freedom."  Dissident intellectuals are critical of the status quo and they dare to make their voices heard on behalf of justice.  Upon re-reading this, I decided to look up the interview where this came from, you can see the full interview here.  In the interview, when asked what the role of the intellectual was when dealing with imperialism and if he thought intellectuals were doing their job, Chomsky said,

"Unfortunately, intellectuals are doing their historic job. The historic role of intellectuals if you look, unfortunately, as far back as you can go, has been to support power systems and to justify their atrocities. So the article you read in the National Post for the production of vulgar Stalinist connoisseurs, that's what intellectuals usually do as far back as you go. 

If you go back to the Bible, there's a category of people who were called prophets, a translation of an obscure word, they were intellectuals, they were what we would call dissident intellectuals; criticising the evil king, giving geopolitical analysis, calling for the moral treatment of orphans, decent behaviour. They were dissident intellectuals. Were they treated well? They were prisoned and driven into the dessert and so on, they were the fringe. The people who were treated well were the ones who centuries later, like in the gospel, were called false prophets. So it goes through history. The actual role of the intellectual has been supportive of power." 

It is interesting to consider this definition of "intellectual," on election day, November 2nd, 2010. I had never considered that there might be different qualifiers for different types of intellectuals.  It makes sense, but I had never thought about teasing it out in quite that way.  Shamefully, I will confess that I considered anyone who is actually an intellectual would only speak on behalf of justice, challenge the status quo...it never occurred to me that anyone who put any sort of thought and intention and research into understanding the world would actually side with dominant ideologies and oppressive power systems...naive of me....I know.  

However, here we are on election day and I woke up this morning thinking about how we categorize and label who is patriotic and who is not.  As I had just finished voting at ten after six this morning, I drove away from the polls feeling very patriotic and proud of myself for participating in what we happen to call a democracy.  I thought about all the times I have been criticized by conservative friends and family members for not being patriotic, for being too critical, too political, too Left, too opinionated, too idealistic, too young...Why is it that persistent dedication to holding our nation to its true potential for greatness and for "liberty and justice for all" has been seen as "fringe"? This is an easy one to analyze...preservation of power and privilege and white supremacist capitalist ideology...when you have the best tickets to the show you certainly don't want to give them up or share your seat...blah, blah, blah...However, I refuse to believe that that is really what my loving family members are so fervently holding onto when they share with me their definition of patriotism, or poke fun at me idealistic politics.  Furthermore, I don't want to believe that that is what they are doing when they choose to vote for people and policy that drastically effects the quality of life of those who are different and have less privilege and power than they do.  Is it lack of critical pedagogy, of engaged teaching and learning in our schools, is it fear, is it religion, is it "just the way they have always been?"  I don't care what your politics are, but why are we supporting ideology in our educational institutions that says that critical=political?  Or critical=irresponsible?  Or critical=wrong/un-american? What about democracy?  What about "liberty and justice for all"?

I know this is a bit of a rant, but I will conclude with saying that I hope that here in Arizona, the folks voted into office are the folks that will preserve the Raza Studies/Ethnic Studies program of Tucson, AZ, and revoke HB 2281.  I hope that the new crew in the capital building will support the good work of educators who, through critical pedagogy and democratic teaching, are facilitating the process of helping young people grow into their roles as "dissident intellectuals," who will passionately hold our nation to its full potential, to it's own said standards...liberty and justice for all.