I read this book around fifteen years ago and I've thought about this excerpt frequently:
>“You have repeatedly confessed to-night, by direct avowal or ignorant statement, that you do not know the working class. But you are not to be blamed for this. How can you know anything about the working class? You do not live in the same locality with the working class. You herd with the capitalist class in another locality. And why not? It is the capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your backs that you are wearing to-night. And in return you preach to your employers the brands of metaphysics that are especially acceptable to them; and the especially acceptable brands are acceptable because they do not menace the established order of society.”
>Here there was a stir of dissent around the table.
>“Oh, I am not challenging your sincerity,” Ernest continued. “You are sincere. You preach what you believe. There lies your strength and your value—to the capitalist class. But should you change your belief to something that menaces the established order, your preaching would be unacceptable to your employers, and you would be discharged. Every little while some one or another of you is so discharged. Am I not right?”
>During this period there were many ministers cast out of the church for preaching unacceptable doctrine. Especially were they cast out when their preaching became tainted with socialism.
>This time there was no dissent. They sat dumbly acquiescent, with the exception of Dr. Hammerfield, who said:
>“It is when their thinking is wrong that they are asked to resign.”
>“Which is another way of saying when their thinking is unacceptable,” Ernest answered, and then went on. “So I say to you, go ahead and preach and earn your pay, but for goodness’ sake leave the working class alone. You belong in the enemy’s camp. You have nothing in common with the working class. Your hands are soft with the work others have performed for you. Your stomachs are round with the plenitude of eating.” (Here Dr. Ballingford winced, and every eye glanced at his prodigious girth. It was said he had not seen his own feet in years.) “And your minds are filled with doctrines that are buttresses of the established order. You are as much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men of the Swiss Guard. Be true to your salt and your hire; guard, with your preaching, the interests of your employers; but do not come down to the working class and serve as false leaders. You cannot honestly be in the two camps at once. The working class has done without you. Believe me, the working class will continue to do without you. And, furthermore, the working class can do better without you than with you.”
This passage doesn't have any bearing on reality though. Businessmen as a class are almost unique in that they rarely retaliate against those that openly preach hatred against them.
I don't think any academic institution has ever reported the loss of significant amounts of funding by welcoming members of the Weather Underground terror organization to it's faculty. When it comes to social science departments in Universities, it's fairly well established you'd see more Marxists (i.e. people who more or less want to harm businessmen and their families) than Republicans.
On the other hand the idea that a university isn't going to face boycotts for welcoming people who are openly hateful to Jews, Armenians, gays, straights, poor people, the middle class, blacks or any other identifiable class of people is incredibly implausible.
(Of course, academic institutions have become largely discredited in the eyes of working people, but that has very little to do with businessmen as well. Herbert Marcuse was talking about the working class being counter-revolutionary in 1964, well before the present radicalization of academia.)
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 11.9 ms ] threadBoth are looking back on future dystopias from the further future beyond them.
Also, Standard Ebooks has a modern ebooks edition:
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jack-london/the-iron-heel
>“You have repeatedly confessed to-night, by direct avowal or ignorant statement, that you do not know the working class. But you are not to be blamed for this. How can you know anything about the working class? You do not live in the same locality with the working class. You herd with the capitalist class in another locality. And why not? It is the capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your backs that you are wearing to-night. And in return you preach to your employers the brands of metaphysics that are especially acceptable to them; and the especially acceptable brands are acceptable because they do not menace the established order of society.”
>Here there was a stir of dissent around the table.
>“Oh, I am not challenging your sincerity,” Ernest continued. “You are sincere. You preach what you believe. There lies your strength and your value—to the capitalist class. But should you change your belief to something that menaces the established order, your preaching would be unacceptable to your employers, and you would be discharged. Every little while some one or another of you is so discharged. Am I not right?”
>During this period there were many ministers cast out of the church for preaching unacceptable doctrine. Especially were they cast out when their preaching became tainted with socialism.
>This time there was no dissent. They sat dumbly acquiescent, with the exception of Dr. Hammerfield, who said:
>“It is when their thinking is wrong that they are asked to resign.”
>“Which is another way of saying when their thinking is unacceptable,” Ernest answered, and then went on. “So I say to you, go ahead and preach and earn your pay, but for goodness’ sake leave the working class alone. You belong in the enemy’s camp. You have nothing in common with the working class. Your hands are soft with the work others have performed for you. Your stomachs are round with the plenitude of eating.” (Here Dr. Ballingford winced, and every eye glanced at his prodigious girth. It was said he had not seen his own feet in years.) “And your minds are filled with doctrines that are buttresses of the established order. You are as much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men of the Swiss Guard. Be true to your salt and your hire; guard, with your preaching, the interests of your employers; but do not come down to the working class and serve as false leaders. You cannot honestly be in the two camps at once. The working class has done without you. Believe me, the working class will continue to do without you. And, furthermore, the working class can do better without you than with you.”
I don't think any academic institution has ever reported the loss of significant amounts of funding by welcoming members of the Weather Underground terror organization to it's faculty. When it comes to social science departments in Universities, it's fairly well established you'd see more Marxists (i.e. people who more or less want to harm businessmen and their families) than Republicans.
On the other hand the idea that a university isn't going to face boycotts for welcoming people who are openly hateful to Jews, Armenians, gays, straights, poor people, the middle class, blacks or any other identifiable class of people is incredibly implausible.
(Of course, academic institutions have become largely discredited in the eyes of working people, but that has very little to do with businessmen as well. Herbert Marcuse was talking about the working class being counter-revolutionary in 1964, well before the present radicalization of academia.)