“Streams of Consciousness” is a regular series of articles written by David Meagher. In February’s essay, Dave discusses the problem, as discussed by Sarte and Gramsci, of the universal vs. the specific intellectual, the former being an academic who comments outside his or her area of expertise and the later one who does not. Dave asks us to think about what a specific intelectual of the poor would look like–someone with university training in poverty, or someone who is an expert in the lived reality of poverty?

For Our Specific Intellectuals

by David Meagher

When we think of intellectuals, we mean professors, journalists, writers and other artists, who speak out as activists or advocates in the name of some cause or other, who function as a kind of conscience of the times, often the voice of those who aren’t normally given a voice.  Yet while the best tradition of left intellectuals typically represents those most dispossessed or least favoured, it remains at a safe distance from those in the name of whom it speaks since its intellectuals enjoy a level of comfort in their lives that is not enjoyed by those they represent.  In recent times, in the cause of poverty reduction like other attempts to achieve social justice and greater emancipation for oppressed groups, we find a tendency to call on those who experience injustice in their daily lives to speak on their own behalf in the hopes that it will bring greater awareness to the larger society of the plight of the least favoured.  For the most part, this has been orchestrated by well-meaning individuals who might in previous incarnations have spoken on our behalf themselves.  But more and more, the poor and other marginalized groups are taking control, not only of the message, but also of the media through which our voices are being heard.

In this month’s Stream of Consciousness, I would like to begin with a consideration of the original notion that arises, on some accounts, in and around the French Enlightenment, when specialists from particular disciplines came to make pronouncements on matters of social, political, and moral significance – matters which were not, and this is the main point, the subjects of their specialties.  As Sartre says repeatedly in ‘Plaidoyer pour les intellectuels’ (1966), intellectuals are typically said to be concerned with matters that are not properly their concern – ‘l’intellectuel est quelqu’un qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas.’¹  But when their concerns came to focus on the fate of the emergent bourgeoisie (of which the ideologues of the French Revolution were generally taken to be a part, with some possible exceptions), even in transcending the particular knowledges of their disciplines, these thinkers would be speaking of matters that that did concern them directly, and come to be defined as a particular type of intellectual – what Sartre, following Gramsci, refers to as the ‘organic intellectual’ – ‘les « philosophes » apparaissent donc comme des intellectuels organiques au sens que Gramsci prête à ce mot : nés de la classe bourgeoise, ils se chargent d’exprimer l’esprit objectif de cette classe.’²

Another instance of this phenomenon occurs around the Dreyfus affair in France, when, on Sartre’s account, the so-called antidreyfussards were generally lawyers and legal scholars concerned with the facts of the case, while the famous accusations of Zola and other dreyfussards against the anti-Semitism of the case were based on this moral humanism that characterizes those intellectuals who manifest their moral courage and social conscience by meddling in matters that are said not to concern them.  In remaining within their disciplines, the antidreyfussards represent what is called the ‘specific intellectual’, not unlike the nuclear scientists who produce knowledge specific to their field of expertise.  When nuclear scientists step out of their specific area of specialty to give advice on whether a certain bomb or reactor should be used, they are said to be again concerned with matters that do not concern them, and to join the ranks of the intellectual.³

So here is the issue of the intellectual as a type: that whenever one speaks as an ‘intellectual’, or what I will call a ‘bourgeois intellectual’ or a ‘traditional intellectual’, one is speaking of matters that are not one’s area of specialty knowledge.  When one does speak from within one’s specialty, one can be called a ‘specific intellectual’, and when one speaks on behalf of the class from which one emerges, one is thought to be an ‘organic intellectual’.  These categories seem clear enough.  But a couple of additional features must be added before we can come to the question of whether it is possible to create the conditions of the emergence of an organic intellectual from among the poor.  In the first place, the organic intellectual is said to speak for the universal.  Sartre is instrumental in explaining how this comes to be.  And it is essential to this notion that it be seen arising in the bourgeois class, for the bourgeoisie is the only class that claims to speak for the universal.  Sartre’s problem is whether it is possible to develop an organic intellectual from among the working class.  He seems to believe that in acquiring the education necessary to become an intellectual, proletarian individuals will be alienated from their class because of the competitive educational system from which they will have to emerge victorious among their peers, because in learning the notions necessary to acquire that education, they will necessarily betray their class, and because, in the manner they develop through this education, they will no longer fit so easily into their former class any more than the class in which they acquire their education.  So the problem of the possibility of an organic intellectual of the proletarian class is a problem of the alienation of the candidate for such a status as well as the lack of such universal characteristics or hegemonic forces to be found in the proletarian class, as opposed to the bourgeois class.  Even the idea of a classless society, in which such distinctions would seem to become negligible, is a (universalistic) bourgeois notion, however deceitfully the proletarian is encharged with carrying out the revolution that would bring it about.  It is important to note here that the ‘bourgeois intellectual’ may be a socialist or a communist, thus committed to the revolution and the defeat of the bourgeoisie, thus to the end of his or her own bourgeois existence or standards of living.  But the notion of universality on which the classless society would be based may not be consistent with an authentic proletarian identity.  On Sartre’s account, no example of an organic intellectual of the proletarian class can be found.  This is partly due to the problem of alienation, and partly to the problem of universality.  It must be added that though the bourgeois intellectual is concerned with the least favoured of society, the interests of these intellectuals are bound up with the bourgeois institutions which maintain their existence, and their goals remain consistent with the bourgeois notion of universality.  In this way, the particular interests of the working class are schematized by the bourgeois intellectual and proffered as a universalistic ideology, thus betraying the very class they seek to defend.

So the question is perhaps also badly posed whether the conditions of the possibility of an organic intellectual can be created from among the poor, especially to the extent that the organic intellectual is characterized by a commitment to the universal.  Yet this is not to say that there is any lack of intellectual promise from among this class, as this site clearly demonstrates month after month.  The question is perhaps rather whether the requirements of universality which characterize the organic intellectual are specific to the bourgeois class, and whether the poor would not rather develop some other type or character than that of the intellectual.

Yet if there is a species of intellectual arising from among the poor (maintaining the limited categories we have introduced here), and it is clear that many such ‘intellectuals’ are already among us, it arises from the existence of what might be called the ‘specific intellectuals’ of the poor.  This is to be understood as those specialists of poverty whose expertise is acquired by virtue of a ‘lived experience’ of poverty.  And one would be inclined to respect the technical and expert knowledge of such individuals based on long immersion in the domain of poverty.  But like any other intellectual, once such experts venture out of this domain, they must be willing to admit that they are joining the ranks of those who are meddling in matters that do not concern them.  Meanwhile any non-poor person pretending to have expert knowledge of poverty would continue to be regarded as a meddling intellectual; for Sartre, they can be the theoreticians of the poor, but never our organic intellectuals – ‘ils pourront être leurs théoriciens mais jamais leurs intellectuals organiques.’⁴  Yet even the theoreticians of poverty would best be found among the poor themselves, the real specific intellectuals of poverty.  This is not to say that the traditional intellectual ceases to be an ally of the poor, or that the ‘specific intellectual’ of poverty may not also have other domains of specialty beyond that of poverty.  Rather, if the problem of poverty is to be adequately addressed in our day, it will need commitment from both these directions, and convergent strategies on the best ways to achieve the goals of poverty reduction.  Yet to begin with, it is important to be clear on whose expertise is being used in determining not only the message but the ends of any strategy designed to reduce or eliminate poverty.  Will it be those with specific knowledge of the problem, or those who are merely meddling in matters that are not their concern?  The answer to this seemingly rhetorical question might not be as obvious as one would hope, especially to the extent that the Liberal government which sets policy for poverty reduction, and which sets assistance rates, tends to share the universalistic assumptions of the bourgeois intellectual.  The particular accounts of the specific intellectual may be effective in the strategy of raising awareness to the plight of the poor, but may not be ideally suited to the tasks of negotiating policy alternatives, especially as long as our fate depends on bourgeois political parties.  This is why, to the extent that any such work can be expected to yield results, whatever distrust we instinctively feel towards the bourgeois intellectual must be overcome, so that the responsibility of influencing public opinion and government policy can continue to be shared between these intellectuals and our own specific intellectuals.

Last Month’s Edition of Streams of Consciousness

Next Month’s Edition of Streams of Consciousness

David Meagher was born in Montreal in 1966. He studied philosophy at Champlain College; McGill University; and Lonergan College, Concordia University.  Receiving his BA in philosophy from McGill University in 1991, he has been living in poverty for twenty years, pursuing independent studies in political science, philosophy, psychiatry, and criminology.  Dave’s articles have been published in a variety of minor newspapers and magazines.  His current interests include contemporary thought, the sources of the hermeneutics of suspicion, and re-reading Derrida, and he is currently working on a three-volume study entitled Schizophrenia.  Dave is a contributing editor at Neighbours and a regular contributor to PeacockPoverty. He has been living in Toronto since 2006.

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1. Sartre. Situations philosophiques. (Gallimard: 1972) p. 221. [↩]
2. Ibid. p.228. [↩]
3. Foucault. Dits et écrits II. p. 155. [↩]
4. Sartre. op. cit. p. 253. [↩]