Raber - 'Librarians As Organic Intellectuals'

Librarians as Organic Intellectuals: A Gramscian Approach to Blind Spots and Tunnel Vision
Author(s): Douglas Raber

Source: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Jan., 2003), pp. 33-53
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4309619 .
Accessed: 18/08/2013 11:46
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Library Quarterly.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
LIBRARIANS AS ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS: A GRAMSCIAN

APPROACH TO BLIND SPOTS AND TUNNEL VISION'
Douglas Raber2
In the January 1999 issue of LibraryQuarterly,Wayne Wiegand suggests that
libraryand information science (US) has failed to critically examine its role
in relations of power and knowledge that systematically marginalize the
needs of less powerful members of society. What we know, and what we allow
ourselves to know, about libraries and their users is conditioned by history
and politics. The work of Antonio Gramsci can help us to understand this
situation. Librariansand scholars of UIS occupy a space that is contested terrain in a war of position between the hegemony of the capitalist historic bloc
and the subjects who would challenge that bloc to be true to its self-declared
principles of democratic participation. Gramsci's insights regarding the nature of capitalist social formations, and the role of intellectuals organic to
these formations, reveal the ambivalent social position of LIS as a source of
both support and resistance to capitalist hegemony.
Introduction
In Library Qyarterly'sJanuary 1999 issue, Wayne Wiegand expresses a
fear that plans regarding the future of librarianship are affected by
blind spots and tunnel vision, "in large part because the cultures in
to control the
to which we aspire-tend
which we are immersed-or
and
[1, p.
our
profession"
about
ourselves
range of questions we ask
3]. In order to identify some of the questions we should be asking, he
reviews the literature of American library history addressing a period
from 1893 to the present. He concludes that the profession, and the
academic research ostensibly providing it with a legitimating body of
1. This article is a revised version of a presentation at the LibraryResearch Seminar n, "Partners and Connections: Research Applied to Practice," University of Maryland, College
Park,November2-3, 2001.
2. Associate professor, University of Tennessee, School of Information Sciences, 1345 Circle
Park Drive, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0341; Telephone 865-974-9003; Fax 865-974-4967;
E-mail raberd@utk.edu.
[LibraryQuartcrly,vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 33-53]
? 2003 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
0024-2519/2003/7301-0003$10.00
33

34
THE LIBRARYQUARTERLY
knowledge, is "trapped in its own discursive formations, where members speak mostly to each other and where connections between power
and knowledge that affect issues of race, class, age and gender, among
others, are either invisible or ignored" [1, p. 24]. Perhaps even more
troubling is Wiegand's implied suggestion that this practice is systematic and deliberate, if not entirely conscious. He explicitly notes that
the work of certain critical theorists and interdisciplinaryscholars that
might help us to address the issue he identifies is generally absent from
library and information science discourse [1, pp. 10-11, 22-25]. To
support this claim, he refers to an "unscientific survey"he conducted
of a couple of recent volumes of the Journalfor the American Societyof
Information Science, and he reports that he found little evidence of an
awareness of the ambivalent relations between power and knowledge
or any sign of an effort to explore Douglas Zweizig's concern that libraryand information science research privileges institutions over people and tends to view the latter as a means to the ends of the former
[1, pp. 23-24; 2]. Libraryand information science (LIS) practice and
research appears to display a systematic tendency to attend to some
issues while allowing others of at least equal importance to go unarticulated, undefined, and untheorized. This condition, according to Wiegand, is the cause of our "blind spots and tunnel vision."
Evidently, not everyone in library and information science agrees
with Wiegand's observations. Donald Case, in a comment published in
the October 1999 issue of LibraryQuarterly,questions Wiegand's conclusions and asserts that "one scholar's 'tunnel vision' may be another
scholar's microscope" [3, p. 537]. Case also expresses disappointment
"that Wiegand's essay deteriorates into yet another instance of disciplinary navel-gazing" [3, p. 537]. Actually, Case's comment may represent more than even he realizes, but there is one point he raises that
deserves immediate attention.3As noted earlier, Wiegand refers to the
work of certain scholars whose work might help LIS to overcome its
limited vision, and he refers to six persons in particular.4Case fairly
asks, "Why these six writers?"He is certainly correct when he asserts
that Wiegand's list is not inclusive, but his claim that it is inconsistent
3. The pejorative use of the phrase "navel-gazers" is interesting in its own right. This use
suggests the disparagement of inward-looking contemplation as being otherworldly, excessively idealistic or self-absorbed, and certainly not practical. The stereotyping of Eastern
culture and religion, and the privileging of a Western pragmatic point of view regarding
contemplation is also potentially involved. Scholars such as Edward Said might suggest that
the casual use of such language, even with the intention of merely being humorous, says
more about its speakers than they realize, but that is a subject for another study.
4. The six theorists identified by Wiegand are Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci,Jirgen Habermas, Helen Longino, MargaretJacob, and Sandra Harding.

LIBRARIANSAS ORGANICINTELLECTUALS
35
may have missed the mark [3, p. 536]. Conceived broadly, critical theory in the human sciences has a long history, a rich discourse, and is
represented by a great number of writers [4]. It includes Marxism,postMarxism, poststructuralism and postmodernism, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and semiotics, to name but a few of the
lines of thought associated with critical theory. At best, Wiegand's list
serves as a set of index terms to this literature. On the other hand,
the six writershe names share a common characteristic:they study the
connections between power and knowledge, and they would agree with
Wiegand that these connections are "never totally objective and never
disinterested" [1, p. 23].
One of the writers Wiegand mentions is Antonio Gramsci. My goal
is to show how Gramsci'swork can help to explain the blind spots and
tunnel vision of LIS and to provide a means for expanding our vision.
Gramsci is especially relevant to the issues raised by Wiegand because
he explicitly addresses how the culture in which we are immersed controls the range of questions we can ask about ourselves and our historical situation. To be specific, Gramsci'swork suggests that librarianscan
be viewed as "organic intellectuals" and that they play an ideological
and organizational role in maintaining a historic bloc's hegemony over
the relations of economic production and civil society. From this perspective, the apparently neutral discourse of LIS regarding access to
information can be examined as a discourse that privileges particular
rather than universal interests.
Gramsci's Marxism
In order to understand the concept of "organic intellectual," we must
first review Gramsci'sdevelopment of Marxisttheory. The notion that
human being and history are products of human labor provides the
foundation of his thought. The production and reproduction of value,
culture, and even our bodies constitute the material foundation for
human existence. The relations of production that socially organize
this labor constitute the structure on which is built particular superstructures at particular points in human history. The superstructure
includes not only the state and its associatedjuridical and coercive institutions but also the social and cultural institutions and practices typically associated with the idea of civil society. Together, base and superstructure constitute a social formation that Gramsci calls the "historic
bloc." In our time, the historic bloc is one of capitalist democracy,
characterized by private ownership of the means of production and
wage labor, and ideologically organized by a discourse of parliamentary
and electoral politics. While formally organized at the level of the

36
nation-state, this social formation is a global phenomenon, and it exercises hegemony over economic and political relations [5, pp. 416-18].
Gramsci's use of the word "bloc" in this context is important. A
historic bloc is not merely a structuralphenomenon. As a social formation, it depends on political principles and alliances that are subject
to constant negotiation, challenge, and change. It is characterized by
diverse interests whose particular fortunes and influence will vary as
an outcome of political contests both within the bloc and between
the bloc and its historical challengers. It organizes and assesses its hegemony over society largely by controlling the terms of political discourse and setting the agenda of that discourse, but its own internal
divisions combined with events and behaviors beyond its control can
create historical imperatives to which it must respond. In effect, a historical bloc represents a form of social contract; it is relatively stable
but subject to renegotiation.
The concepts of structure and superstructure arise from Marx's assertion that relations of production constitute "the economic structure
of society, the real foundation, on which rises a juridical and political
superstructure" [6, p. 503]. The ideas that dominate and govern a particular moment in history are the ideas of the class that dominates and
governs the means and relations of material production [7]. Given
these kinds of statements, it is not difficult to see how some interpreters
of Marx arriveat the conclusion that Marxismrepresents an economic
determinism, but one must also recall that Marx insists that "men are
the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc.-real, active men, as
they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive
forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these" [7, p. 47]. His
point is simply "that circumstances make men just as much as men
make circumstances" [7, p. 59]. Social reality must be understood as
the material outcome of a dialectical relationship between human beings and their circumstances. The historic bloc, then, is an outcome
of this relationship. In his explanation of human nature, Gramsci
makes clear that the historic bloc, and the superstructure that represents it, is not merely a determined outcome of certain relations of
production:
The measure of freedom enters into the concept of man. That the objective
possibilities exist for people not to die of hunger and that people do die of
hunger, has its importance, or so one would have thought. But the existence
of objective conditions, of possibilities, or of freedom is not yet enough: it is
necessary to "know" them, and to know how to use them. And to want to use
them. Man, in this sense, is concrete will, that is, the effective application of
the abstractwill or vital impulses to the concrete means of which realise such
a will.... Man is to be conceived as an historical bloc of purely individual

LIBRARIANS AS ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS
37
and subjective elements and of mass and objective or material elements with
which the individual is in an active relationship. [5, p. 360]
This passage reveals the intimate relationships Gramsci sees between
history, social existence, and individual human lives. Individual existence and, we shall see, social formations can be characterized by the
nature of the historic bloc that governs each, but to be conditioned by
history is not the same thing as to be determined by it.
Recent Marxist theory, influenced by Michel Foucault and Jacques
Derrida, manifests a controversy over whether the structure, or "base"
as it is sometimes referred to, and superstructure should be regarded
as inherent categories of historical existence or as cultural and intellectual constructions. This issue turns on another controversy regarding
the role of classes as agents of history [8-9]. Both problems are related
to the failure to realize a genuine socialist hegemony and to the postmodem turn of late capitalism. This situation is about much more than
merely the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the mid-1970s many Marxist
scholars and socialist activists, largely because of the influence of
Gramsci's thought, had already come to regard the Soviet Union as a
practically and theoretically bankrupt historical model [10]. Rather, it
is the resiliency of capitalism as a viable productive formation, despite
the persistence of contradictions between the social production of
value and its private appropriation, that led to these controversies
within Marxist theory. Despite these controversies, however, and the
successes of late capitalism, Marxist theory as exemplified by the work
of Gramsci still possesses a power to explain persistent economic, social, and political problems of capitalist democracy, not the least of
which are blind spots and tunnel vision across a wide range of practices
in addition to library and information science. It might still offer guidance to a democratically transformative, if not revolutionary, politics.
The key to Gramsci's thought lies in his rejection of economic and
historical determinism. There are no inexorable laws or inevitable
outcomes in human affairs. Human existence is characterized by an
ethical-political, or as Gramsci frequently referred to it, an "intellectual" reality as much as it is by economic reality [5, pp. 8-9, 161, 258,
333-34, and 366-67]. As can be seen from the long quote above,
Gramsci explicitly recognized the role of human will in human history.
This recognition has important implications for understanding how
capitalism works. The historical relations between base and superstructure are complex, and they are not unidirectional. Gramsci writes: "Between the premise (economic structure) and the consequence (political organization), relations are by no means simple and direct: and
it is not only by economic facts that the history of a people can be
documented. It is a complex and confusing task to unravel causes and

38
in order to do so, a deep and widely diffused study of all spiritual and
practical activities is needed" [11, pp. 280-81].
Relations of production can be organized in a variety of ways, and
more and less progressivechoices are available.Combined and uneven
development both within and between national social formations
means that different peoples will organize themselves in different ways.
In other words, not everyone lives, or lives in exactly the same historical
moment. As a result, superstructureswill vary,and some capitalistsocial
formations will be more progressive than others. Politics at the level
of the superstructure can be used to effect a "catharsis," or "the passage from the purely economic (or egoistic-passional) to the ethicopolitical moment," and in this moment the base can be "transformed
into a means of freedom, an instrument to create a new ethico-political
form and a source of new initiatives" [5, pp. 366-67]. Ideas have
power, and progressive material reform of the relations of production,
short of their revolutionary transformation, is possible.
Historical Subjects and Hegemony
The location of the historical subject, whether individual or social
group, in a social formation is not an absolutelydeterminate phenomenon. There are no historicallydetermined, objective, political interests.
By no means does Gramscideny that the relations of production assert
a powerful material influence on the course of history. This notion is
central to Gramsci'sconcept of hegemony, but he insists that historical
subjects are located-and more important, willfully locate themselves-in the nexus of historically conditioned productive and social
relations that constitute a hegemony. Louis Althusser's structuralism
has been criticized for merely substituting an idealist essentialism for
economic determinism, [8, pp. 97-105], as a result leaving "little room
for a revolutionarysubject" [12, p. 141], but it seems clear that he was
working from Gramsci'sideas when he used the psychoanalyticconcept
of overdetermination to describe the moment in which base and superstructure, economic and intellectual reality come together to create
the actual historical location of a subject in a social formation. This
location depends on objective historical conditions and what the subject thinks about these conditions [13, pp. 87-128]. This reality, then,
is ideologically constructed, and while it ordinarily reflects the ideas
of a "ruling class"-more accurately,a dominant hegemony-it is also
the source of the superstructure'spower over the base and represents
a possible historical position from which a dominant hegemony and
the relations of production that support it can be challenged. Class

39
membership, that is, a subject's location in a social formation with regard to the relations of production between capital and labor, is a fundamental but not determining factor. It plays a large but hardly exclusive role in the construction of a subject's political interest.
In Althusser's language, the relations of production are, in the last
instance, the determining force within social formations, but this is
an instance that may never fully arrive, precisely because of willful,
counterdetermining resistance to their logic. The continued dominance of capitalist relations of production is no more assured than
their radical transformation [14]. The outcome of the contest between
capital and the resistance to it that arises from the exploitation following from the differences that capital creates and maintains will be determined by what Gramscicalls "the war of position." This is a struggle
of ideological and political practice that is protracted and ordinarily
takes place on the terrain of civil society, but in some instances it can
occur within the state itself [5, pp. 108-11, 120, and 229-39]. It is in
the context of this kind of war that both the progressive and conservative nature of libraries can be seen, but to get to this we must first
take a look at Gramsci'sanalysisof how capitalist social formations are
politically organized and reproduced.
The Historic Bloc and Hegemony
Central to Gramsci'sanalysisof both hegemony and the war of position
is the concept of the historical bloc. At any given moment in the life
of a social formation there is only one historic bloc. It organizes and
dominates base and superstructure, and the relations between them,
in order to reproduce the means and relations of production from
which it derives its resources, its political power, and its intellectual/
cultural, or as Gramsci calls it, its "ethico-political hegemony." The
base provides a historic bloc its content, and the superstructure gives
it form [5, p. 377]. The historic bloc represents political alliances, but
it cannot be reduced to a mere political alliance [15, pp. 119-25]. It
is a "complex, contradictory,and discordant ensemble
of the superstructures [that] is the reflection of the ensembleof the social relations of
production" [5, p. 366]. A historic bloc is an ensemble of social groups,
intellectual and ideological forces organized around the historic interests of the "fundamental social group" that organizes and leads the
bloc [5, pp. 115-16].
Hegemony is a concept Gramsci uses to clarify the nature of a historic bloc's power. This power is dominant, but not dominating. It is far
from total, and as mentioned earlier, it is exercised by setting political

40
agendas rather than by dictating political outcomes. Gramsci writes

that "the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as
'domination' and as 'intellectual and moral leadership.' A social group
dominates antagonistic groups, which it tends to 'liquidate,' or to subjugate perhaps even by armed force; it leads kindred and allied groups.
A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise 'leadership' before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the principal
conditions of winning such power); it subsequentlybecomes dominant
when it exercises power, but even as it holds it firmly in its grasp, it
must continue to 'lead' as well" [5, pp. 57-58].
A ruling historic bloc, then, relies as much if not more on ideological
leadership, exercised through agents constituted by civil society rather
than on coercion exercised directly as state power. In fact, the historic
bloc is likely to be more politically successful when it does so. The collapse of Soviet hegemony in Russia, for example, is clearly related to
failures on the part of the historic bloc led by the Communist Partyto
reconcile contradictions between its claims to ideological leadership
and its need to rely on state coercion to retain power. It is precisely
this need to rely on intellectual and moral leadership that opens a dominant hegemony to a challenge of its legitimacy on its own terms and
suggests historical roles for intellectual groups, including professionals.
Gramsci saw this as crucial to a war of position. There will alwaysbe
challenges to a historical bloc. Some will be based on traditional segments of society generally seeking a return to a mythical past. Others
will be based on marginalized and radicalizedsegments seeking a transformation to a utopian future. Some will arise from within the bloc
itself as different interests that constitute it assert different visions of
the bloc's future.
Perhaps at this moment the last instance arrives.In Marxist theory
of capitalistsocial formations the fundamental social group is the bourgeoisie. In late capitalistsocieties direct ownership of the means of production typically is dispersed, so this group instead consists of those
who exercise direct control over the means of production. To render
this phenomenon in a way that captures its complexity, however, accounts for the overdetermined relations between base and superstructure, avoids personalization, and recognizes the problems of "class"
as a theoretical and historical category, I will refer to it simply as "capital." Among other problems, the historic bloc of capital may not be
dominated by the bourgeoisie as a class, and the subjects of its dominance may not be exclusively the working class or proletariat. In the
past, and in nondemocratic capitalist social formations, the historic
bloc is often organized by social groups other than the bourgeoisie on
behalf of capital [16]. The military,for example, typicallytakes a lead-

41
ing role in the organization of fascist social formations. With the advent
of a discourse of democracy [8, pp. 152-59] and the rise of parliamentary institutions, the notion of a "political class" is useful [17]. Beginning with Bismarck's Germany, for example, professional politicians
and a bureaucratic "class" have organized welfare states on behalf of
capital. As discussed earlier, a historic bloc is not free of internal conflict. This condition is especially true of welfare states and capitalist
democracies. Fractions with different immediate interests exist within
historic blocs, and each will seek its own power within the bloc [18,
pp. 77-85]. For example, since the passage of the Telecommunications
Act of 1996, we have witnessed a significant struggle among incumbent
and competitive local exchange carriers,long-distance telephone companies, and cable operators for control of the telecommunications market, within the context of the game defined by that act of legislation.
The focus of this contest, however, is relative competitive advantage,
and the interpretations of the rules of the game, rather than the nature
of the game itself. All of the players accept without question the need
for "liberalization" (that is, deregulation of telecommunication markets).
Political Strategy and Hegemony
Following Goran Therborn [19], we are now in a position to examine
what the historic bloc of capital does when it rules and to understand
the war of position as a matter of revealing and challenging blind spots
and tunnel vision. According to Gramsci, this bloc seeks to protect its
hegemony and to reproduce capitalist relations of production as well
as its own position as a privileged historical subject in the social formation. Coercion and exclusion by using the state as an oppressive apparatus is a dangerous option. An alternative is to seek the legitimacy of
the historic bloc's authority and to maintain its position by grounding
the institutions of the state and civil society on a "rational/legal" basis
[20], and to grant concessions to popular demands for social and political participation, and economic security, if not equality. Outstanding
examples of this strategy include Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and

Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. These initiatives invite a kind of limited membership in the bloc by creating permeable class boundaries
for individuals, recognizing the grievances of historically excluded social groups, and representing themselves symbolicallyas extensions of
a historical discourse of democracy.
This political strategyis itself overdetermined, driven notjust by considerations of practical politics seeking a social equilibrium and the

42
maintenance of capital's power, but also by a widespread acceptance

of the discourse of democracy's legitimacy, even among the members
of the historic bloc. By granting a legitimate place to the discourse of
democracy in its political strategy,and accepting the idea that this implies meaningful participation beyond voting and formal equality of
citizenship, the historic bloc brings an "intellectual" reality into play,
and finds in persuasion an ideological solution to the frailtyof its hegemony.
Ultimately this solution is based on the widespread acceptance of a
Panglossian observation: that while not perfect, capitalist relations of
production when combined with a political superstructure of parliamentary democracy, rational/legal structures of governance and authority, equality before the law, and a guarantee of individual rights,
makes for the best of all possible worlds. There is powerful empirical
evidence for this claim. Certainlysince World War II, the general level
of prosperityin the capitalistWest has increased. The cultures of Western capitalist democracies manifest a real commitment to human
rights, and the nation-states based on these cultures display pluralist
polities that represent diverse political interests and compromise
among these interests despite evident political partisanship. Concurrence with a Panglossian viewpoint, however, can also be taken as evidence of the effectiveness of the capitalist historic bloc's ideological
strategy in a war of position, given the persistence of systematic and
structural inequalities and exclusions, the relative privileging of property rights over human rights, and the tendency to privilege market
relations over human relations by privileging commodities over their
producers.
Late capitalism, however, offers a complex political situation in
which the nexus that conditions the location of historical subjectstends
to work against polarization. There are wealthy suburbaniteswho support environmental causes and rural industrial workers that reject
unions. This condition invites us to return to Gramsci.The war of position that characterizes politics in late capitalism is not a war of violent
civil strife. It is, instead, an ideological war, conducted over a long term,
and its goal is to alter the relations of production that unnecessarily
limit human freedom. To accomplish this goal, the social formation
must be altered at its base in order to realize the collective nature of
the production of human values and to transcend the privateappropriation and commodification of human labor.
According to Gramsci, the political means of accomplishing these
ends lies in challenging capital's hegemony within the superstructure.
He argues that progressive social groups and individuals must "penetrate" civil society of the dominant hegemony, seize positions within

43
it, and "turn" its institutions toward progressive and transformative

ends. The goal is to take state power, but that can only be accomplished
by fighting in the "trenches" of civil society [5, pp. 235, 243]. Gramsci
writes: "The massive structures of modern democracies, both as State
organizations, and as complexes of association in civil society, constitute for the art of politics as it were the 'trenches' and the permanent
fortifications of the front in the war of position: they render merely
'partial' the element of the movement which before used to be 'the
whole' of war" [5, p. 243]. Gramsci's understanding of the art of politics follows from his understanding of the dialectical relations between
base and superstructure. Change is not a matter of reforming the base
so that reform of the superstructure may follow. The art of politics is
a matter of reforming base and superstructure simultaneously through
political action that accompanies a change of political consciousness
[21, p. 1328]. The fact that capital relies on the discourse of democracy
to legitimate its hegemony also creates an opening for a politics that
demands the meaningful extension of democracy at the level of the
base.
Intellectuals, Blind Spots, and Tunnel Vision

If we now combine Gramsci's theoretical understanding of the way social formations are organized, his notion of the role of intellectuals in
politics, and Althusser's understanding of superstructural institutions
as overdetermined sites and stakes of ideological conflict in late capitalist social formations [22, pp. 127-86], we can begin to outline an explanation of the blind spots and tunnel vision of librarianship. This move
will also allow us to raise some serious research questions about the
reproductive role of libraries and librarianship in the context of political contradictions generated within capitalist social formations.
To be clear about Gramsci's terms, it is important to note that he
believed that intellectual capability is not limited to a particular group
identifiable as intellectuals. The "intellectual" is an aspect of ethical/
political reality in which all people live and participate [5, pp. 33334]. Gramsci writes: "All men are intellectuals, one could therefore
say: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals. When
one distinguishes between intellectuals and non-intellectuals, one is
referring in reality only to the immediate social function of the professional category of intellectuals....
This means that, although one can
speak of intellectuals, one cannot speak of non-intellectuals....
There
is no human activity from which every form of intellectual participation
can be excluded: homofaber cannot be separated from homo sapiens"

44
[5, p. 9]. The capitalist possesses and uses intellectual qualities as an

organizer of relations of production. The worker likewisepossesses and
uses intellectual qualities but often without a clear theoretical consciousness of his or her activity.This last point is especially important,
because it implies the existence of a space from which intellectual resistance to the historic bloc can arise.
"Intellectual," then, is a broad theoretical term describing anyone
who exercises "an organizational function in a wide sense-whether
in the field of production, or that of culture, or that of political organization" [5, p. 97]. Of those who can be formallyidentified as intellectuals, some, including academics, physicians,and the clergy, for example,
appear to exist outside of a context established by capitalist relations
of production. These "traditionalintellectuals" [5, pp. 6-8], and their
social functions, existed prior to the rise of the capitalist historic bloc.
They belong to an earlier time and appear to represent a historic continuity, as well as a political neutrality with respect to the capitalist historic bloc. Their origins, however, trace back to an organic link to the
preindustrial historic bloc. The clergy's role as the source and organizer of morality in preindustrial social formations is perhaps the best
example of this link. These practices were crucial to the feudal hegemony grounded on the divine right of kings to exercise governing
authority, but they were ideologically co-opted and adapted by the
nineteenth-century bourgeoisie to provide the foundation for Victorian morality [23]. Traditional intellectuals, then, are assimilated into
the capitalisthistoric bloc and indeed are often crucial allies and members of this bloc, providing important organizing and organic services,
not the least of which is an ideological legitimation of the capitalist
historic bloc's hegemony as a natural extension of prior historical developments [15, p. 142].
In contrast, "organic intellectuals" [5, pp. 5-6] emerge as a historic
bloc ascends to power and begins to assert its hegemony over a social
formation. For capital, these intellectuals include technicians, engineers, managers, economists, lawyers,librarians,and now, information
professionals. They are the organizers of capitalist hegemony and its
culture, and they play central strategic and ideological roles in the superstructure that reproduces capitalist relations of production. These
intellectuals "are the dominant group's 'deputies' exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political government" [5, p.
12]. They are organized and related by the historic bloc through its
industrial and state bureaucracies, serving the bloc by fulfilling certain
functions that require their expertise and by providing the bloc with
a "homogeneity and an awarenessof its own function, not only in the
economic, but also in the social and political fields" [5, p. 5]. The

45
function at issue here is no less than the organizing and ruling function
of the capitalist historic bloc. Organic intellectuals, then, provide the
link between the base and superstructure that in turn provides capital
with its identity as the fundamental group and leader of the historic
bloc. These intellectuals are essential for the practical and ideological
exercise of capitalist hegemony.
We are now in a position to offer a Gramscian explanation of Wiegand's observation that librarians, among other intellectuals, are
trapped in their own discursive formations. Librarians, as intellectuals,
and librarianship, as a practice, are immersed in a culture determined
by the hegemony of the capitalist historic bloc. Indeed, they serve a
positive function in the production and reproduction of this bloc and
its hegemony. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely that librarians
will raise questions that critically interrogate the relations of power and
knowledge that sustain capitalist hegemony. To do so would not only
challenge the authority of the historic bloc, it might also lead to sanction against those posing the questions.
Wiegand's notion of immersion is important here, because it helps
us to understand the nature of the politics at work. For many in LIS,
this immersion means that critical questions regarding their own role
in the historic bloc simply will not occur to them, as they accept its
legitimacy and see no reason to question its means or its ends. For
those who might question this legitimacy, the threat of sanction is real.
In this instance, however, immersion has different implications. Recall
that late capitalist social formations generally do not rely on overt coercion to enforce discipline. Immersion creates a situation in which
coercion is not necessary. Instead, discipline is enforced through various ideological mechanisms that send messages as much as they provide incentives or deny benefits. Transgressors, for example, are denied funding for library operations, find themselves unable to obtain
research grants, are not chosen to give presentations at professional
conferences, and are marginalized in the research literature. This
discipline can be effective precisely because the transgressors are
themselves immersed in the dominant culture and depend on that culture for their social position. In addition, this discipline does not appear as oppressive to those exercising it as, in their eyes, the transgressors are not formally denied free speech. Indeed, they are allowed to
speak and then dismissed as either incorrect or as "navel-gazers"whose
concerns are not relevant to more important matters.
Wiegand's brief reexamination of the history of American librarianship might be regarded as an instance of such navel-gazing, but it reveals a profession that rather consistently overlooks its own contribution to the imbalances of power and knowledge that in turn contribute

46
to the systematicexclusion of certain groups of people from full participation in capitalist social formations. Wiegand asserts that throughout
the twentieth century, a dominant professional imperative systematically privileged some librarypurposes and audiences to the exclusion
of others. He argues that this trend is also visible in the practice of
information science: "The 'information science' that has developed in
the last years of the twentieth century constitutes an arena of study in
which the technology to which it is harnessed defines the field ... and
to the extent that people's 'information economy' does not require the
use of these technologies within the culture in which they live, current
'information science' discourse renders them and their culture(s) invisible largely by ignoring both" [1, p. 24]. Questions that information
science might ask about the information needs, uses, and behaviors of
marginalized people in a capitalist social formation are not regarded
as important enough to deserve concern. As Wiegand might say at this
point, blind spots and tunnel vision stand revealed.
In an earlierwork, Michael Harrisused Gramsciantheory to examine
blind spots and tunnel vision in the practice of public librarianship.
His particular concern was with practice that reinforced print culture
as an aspect of capitalist hegemony [24]. He locates librarianshipas a
historical subject in an ensemble of institutions, both public and private, constituting the means of sanctioning and distributing public
knowledge in a capitalistsocial formation. In effect, he describes librarians as intellectuals organic to the dominant culture of capitalist hegemony. According to Harris, the central role of libraries as a state
apparatus and agent of capitalist ideological hegemony is "the preservation, transmission, and thus the reproduction of the Book, and the
audience for the Book" [24, p. 241].
While simple enough in itself, the implications of this statement have
been contextualized by what Harris provides before it. The word
"Book," for example, is deliberately capitalized. Harrisdoes so to indicate its role as a symbolic representation of high culture-the canon
of Western civilization that grounds and provides the legitimacy for
capital's worldviewas universal and universalizing, as well as its claim
that its particularvision of the ends of cultural reproduction are in fact
also universal. The library,along with the bookstore, is one of the least
powerful institutions at the end of a chain of both state and civil institutions that function to produce and reproduce the cultural hegemony
of capital in the form of the book. Producers and publishers are at the
top of this chain, while reviewers and other "tastemakers,"including
educators, are located somewhere near the middle. This condition also
tends to privilege some books, some uses of those books, and some
users of them, while it marginalizes and excludes others.

47
Librarians, as professionals, participate in this function as organic

intellectuals. They appear to have some autonomy with regard to selection of materials and provision of services in the libraries they direct.
This autonomy is ostensibly based on a professional ideology of neutrality with regard to book selection, and a commitment to intellectual
freedom. It is reinforced by the status and trust accorded to librarians
as professionals who can demonstrate that their practice is nondiscriminatory, based on a rational/legal authority derived from knowledge
that is an outcome of a value-free research discourse, and supported
by positive law that guarantees public accountability. Harris argues,
however, that this autonomy is only apparent, and is actually quite limited. The library is what Althusser calls an "ideological state apparatus"
[22, pp. 141-48]. Selection decisions by librarians are framed by already determined criteria over which librarians have little control. The
library is a consumer of culture already determined as appropriate for
distribution, and library and information science's research paradigm
does not allow these conditions to be problematized. This situation
resembles one of "don't ask, don't tell." Harris concludes: "Libraries
are marginal institutions embedded in a hierarchically arranged set of
institutions designed to produce and reproduce the dominant effective
culture in print form. Power is asymmetrically distributed among these
institutions....
The library's structural and functional characteristics
are determined by its definition as an institution contrived to consume,
preserve, transmit, and reproduce high culture in printed form" [20,
p. 242].
Harris, like Wiegand, might be accused of expressing well-intended
but impractical concerns. His theoretical speculations, however, lead
him to assert twenty-six related propositions, all of which have serious
implications for the everyday practice of librarianship [24, pp. 24244]. Harris offers these propositions as hypotheses in need of investigation, not as truths whose certainty is already established. In other words,
he poses critical questions that challenge received wisdom and conventional knowledge. Like Wiegand and Zweizig, he is concerned about
the library in the life of the user. Many of his propositions point to
specific, unexplored blind spots regarding relations of power, knowledge, and access to information alluded to by Wiegand. If one is to be
selected as the most telling, it might be this one: "Librarians blame
non-users for non-use of libraries" [24, p. 244].
Possibilities of Resistance
A persistent pessimism characterizes the tone of Harris' essay, and it
is not entirely absent from Wiegand's. Perhaps a sense of futility, as

48
well as misgivings regarding possible sanction, holds in their grip some

librariansand LIS scholars who might otherwise explore through practice and research the issues raised here. But even Harris notes that
"one must not push the metaphor of 'reproduction' too far, lest we
obscure the real evidence of resistance, or counter-hegemonic forces
in American librarianship" [24, p. 242]. Despite their tone, it seems
clear that both Harris and Wiegand also imply the possibility of a kind
of political action that might at least counter the excesses of capitalist
hegemony. Neither wants to give up on an institution thatJesse Shera
[25] and Sidney Ditzion [26] identify as central to the discourse of
democracy in America.
The historical reality of this discourse, when combined with an overall view of Gramsci's thought, reveals a political space within which
progressive resistance to the historic bloc's hegemony can be and has
been mounted. Recall first of all that the categories of Gramsciandiscourse, including structures such as base and superstructure, and
classes of people such as intellectuals, represent theoretical constructs
whose concrete, historical reality is fluid and malleable. Both objective
structures, and subjectivepositions within structures,are open to overdetermination. Neither human nature nor the nature of human institutions are inexorably fixed by forces of historyor hegemony. It is entirely
possible that the actions of a given structurewithin a social formation,
or a given intellectual working within that structure, might at a given
historical moment be characterized by a conflict between hegemonic
and counterhegemonic ideas. Such a condition is indicative of the war
of position. According to Gramsci,ideas do make a difference because
human beings are free to act on them. Change at the superstructural
level can cause change in the base.
Turning to the nature of intellectuals specifically, Gramsciobserved
that both traditional and organic intellectuals possess a relative autonomy from the historic bloc because of their expertise [5, p. 6]. They
perform specialist functions on which the bloc depends, and this dependency of the bloc on their skills provides them with a measure of
power [18, pp. 255-62]. As Harris argues, they may not possess a great
deal of power, and the threat of sanction is real. Nevertheless, intellectuals, including librarians,are not entirely constrained in either their
thoughts or actions, and the range of freedom available has grown in
the context of a discourse of democracy that has become integral to
at least some capitalist social formations. Indeed, this expansion has
occurred precisely because of political struggles conducted by an alliance of people that reflects the potential of a new historical bloc [5,
pp. 9-10]. This alliance includes members of the current historical

49
bloc, who exercise their relative autonomy to pursue change within the
bloc, as well as people excluded from the bloc [8, pp. 152-71].
Given Harris' analysis, for example, the public library may be regarded as an ideological state apparatus.It is a state-maintained,superstructuralinstitution designed not to coerce but to persuade the public
of the historical bloc's legitimacy by reinforcing the dominant culture.
From a Gramscian perspective, it is an ideological weapon in the war
of position, but it is a double-edged weapon. Librarians, as organic
intellectuals, are in a position to exercise at least some real choice regarding the ends they pursue. Some libraries may never venture beyond satisfyingthe conditioned demands of audiences seeking nothing
but assurance that this is the best of all possible worlds. The actions of
these librarieswill confirm Harris' theory. Some libraries,however, will
seek out the underserved and the unserved and commit significant
quantities of their limited resources to engaging these audiences. Most
libraries will fall between these extremes, and some of their users will
find their own paths through mazes of information and classification
systems presented to them to achieve ends that librarians can neither
imagine or anticipate [27]. Even within a single libraryit is likely that
one will discover some professional practices that represent capitalist
hegemony at work and others that challenge that hegemony.
Intellectual freedom regarding book selection, for example, may be
practiced uncritically and imperfectly realized [28], yet its position in
the professional canon of librarianship is not without meaning, and
it has led librarians to active resistance against censorship [29]. The
ambivalent location of the library in the social formation, especially
within the context of the discourse of democracy, means that the libraryas an agent of hegemony is politically vulnerable. It is a potential
site of ideological conflict manifest in contests over decisions regarding
the nature of its collections, services, and audiences. It is also a stake
in that conflict in that it can and perhaps usuallydoes serve the purpose
Harris describes, yet it has the potential to be penetrated and turned
counterhegemonic. Certainly this condition does not imply a revolutionary transformation.The library'sdependence on the state for funding, to say nothing of the political conditions and practices of capitalist
democracies, precludes this outcome. This condition, however, does
raise interesting questions that are not free of political implications.
In what waysand to what extent does the library'sposition in the superstructure and librarianship's location as a historical subject result in
practices that are progressiveor conservative?Does Kathleen McCook's
[30] recent work on the library'spotential role in community building
represent a progressive counterhegemonic challenge to the Public Li-

50
braryAssociation's (PLA's) emphasis on administrativerationality [3132]? Does the latter represent a kind of tunnel vision that limits the
library'scontribution to genuinely progressive social outcomes by defining professional success in terms of the ability of the libraryto serve
the predictable demands of a normativelyidentified market?And what
does it say about the American LibraryAssociation, that it is willing to
publish both McCook's and the PLA's texts? It may be that this bears
witness to pluralism in action, a manifestation of ideological conflict
within ALA,or both. Gramscirepeatedly assertsthat neither theoretical
abstractionsnor facile assumptions regarding the "laws" of historywill
contribute to understanding how civil society actuallyworks at a given
moment. Coming to an understanding of the real conditions of existence in order to exercise a genuine freedom is a difficult task requiring critical empirical study. The empirical questions arising from the
ambivalent position of libraries in the social formation, however, also
imply that librariansmust confront political and moral choices in their
everydaypractice.
In his discussion of the problems faced by workers in their effort
to develop a theoretical consciousness of their actions, Gramsci neatly
describes a situation that can be applied to librarians [5, pp. 333-34].
His work suggests that librariansmight manifest a contradictory theoretical consciousness. On the one hand, their activityimplies a progressive transformationof the world. This is particularlymanifest in librarianship's long-standing commitment to empowering individuals to
pursue self-culture and lifelong learning [21, pp. 53-77; 33]. On the
other hand, they uncritically absorb a theoretical consciousness from
the past [1; 34]. This consciousness holds them together as a social
group, influences their ethico-political conduct and will, but produces
a situation that does not permit action, instead reinforcing a moral
and political passivity [35]. They offer a potentially progressive and
transforming service, but they do so in a context that preserves their
self-interest and liberal identity within the capitalist hegemony, thus
A series
allowing them to dismiss the need for critical selfW-examination.
of questions follow, not unlike the propositions advanced by Harris. In
each instance, research questions imply political and value questions.
Questions for Practice and Research
1. Do libraries work within a context of contradiction, sustaining a
capitalist hegemony and providing a means for users to think beyond that hegemony, as well as its limits to human freedom? Can
libraries do more to enhance freedom and overcome the struc-

51
tural barriers that deny to some full participation in the social

formation? Should libraries do this? Does librarianship conduct
a discourse within and about itself that assumes that the important
value questions regarding the ends of public librarypractices and
services have already been satisfactorilyanswered?
2. If the condition indicated by the first question above is true, is
this then a manifestation of a reality in which the public library
is a site and stake of an ideological conflict whose outcome contributes to the production and reproduction of the social formation? Can we find evidence of this conflict? Can we find librarians
and scholars who do address the issues raised by Wiegand and
Harris and act in ways that reveal blind spots and expand our
vision? Are we hesitant to engage these questions because we
might cast ourselves in a less than ideal light? Might we find ourselves on the wrong side?
3. Why do questions like those posed here go unasked? Why do
propositions like those offered by Harris go unexamined? Does
the lack of action reveal blind spots and tunnel vision? Are they
not pursued because they are not salient or important, or because
librarians,fulfilling their responsibility as organic intellectuals in
support of capital, deny the saliency and importance of these
questions and propositions? Is the source of the blind spots and
tunnel vision identified by Wiegand?
4. If librarianschose to pursue a counterhegemonic strategy,would
this even be possible? To what kinds of discipline would it be subject? How are progressive choices constrained or encouraged by
a capitalist hegemony that is nevertheless characterized by a discourse of democracy? If limits are in place, in what ways and to
what extent can and should librarianschallenge them? What strategies can and should be pursued if librarians choose to engage
in the war of position?
Conclusion
Wiegand's essay implies that librarianship'sdiscourse, in both its theoretical and practical aspects, is essentially centered on its own status
and power within the historical bloc that organizes and governs the
American capitalist social formation. He argues that information science as an academic discipline willingly, if unconsciously, contributes
to this bloc's maintenance and exercise of power by its focus on questions that perhaps manifest truly universal human needs, but only on
terms favorable to the interests of the capitalist historic bloc. He does

52
not assign personal blame but, rather, points to historical and structural conditions that result in the kind of human choices that cause
this outcome. He asks us all to consider if this is what we truly want.
He is conscious of the counterhegemonic nature of his statements, of
the challenge he poses to the historic bloc, and the difficulties of the
tasks he sets before us. One can almost hear him wondering who will
take him up on his offer.
It might well be that Gramsci is both right and wrong; that modern
Western social formations are dominated by a capitalist historic bloc
whose reach is global in scope, but that the discourse of democracy
adopted by this bloc ensures reasonable, if not entirely fair, life outcomes for all of the formation's members. On the other hand, if capitalist democracy continues to suffer from persistent problems of systematic and structural exclusion and marginalization of some its people,
and because of this condition it diminishes their humanity, where
should we look for solutions to this problem? The history that brings
us to any given point in time lays its weight on the choices available to
us. Gramsci, however, would insist that the future of humanity is not
absolutely determined by what came before. Wiegand's essay suggests
libraries might be a place to look for choices, for a political space in
which undetermined choices can be made, because sometimes both
librarians and the people who use libraries have by their actions challenged and shattered the normative expectations under which they ordinarily labor. They have used the resources at hand to determine in
small ways new criteria of human freedom.
REFERENCES
1. Wiegand, Wayne A. "Tunnel Vision and Blind Spots: What the Past Tells Us about the
Present; Reflections on the Twentieth-Century History of American Librarianship." LibratyQuarterly69 (January 1999): 1-32.
2. Zweizig, Douglas. "Predicting the Amount of LibraryUse: An Empirical Study of the Role
of the Public Library in the Life of the Adult Public." Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University,
1973.
3. Case, Donald 0. "Comment." LibrayyQuarterly69 (October 1999): 536-37.
4. Suber, Jere Paul. Cultureand Critique:An Introductionto the CriticalDiscoursesof Cultural
Studies.Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998.
5. Gramsci, Antonio. Sekections
from thePrisonNotebooks.Edited and trans. by Quintin Hoare
and Geoffrey N. Smith. New York: International Publishers, 1971.
6. Marx, Karl. "Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy." In his
SekctedWorks.Vol. 1, p. 503. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973.
7. Marx, Karl. The Geman Ideology:Part One. New York: International Publishers, 1970.
8. Laclau, Ernesto, and Mouffe, Chantal. Hegemonyand SocialistStrategy:Towardsa Radical
DemocraticPolitics. London: Verso, 1985.

53
9. Derrida, Jacques. Spectersof Marx: The State of the Debt, the Workof Mourning, and the New
International.New York: Routledge, 1994.
10. Claudin, Fernando. The CommunistMovement:FromComintemn
to Cominform,Part Two.New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1975.
11. Gramsci, Antonio. Studi Gramsciani.Rome: Instituto Gramsci, 1958.
12. Fields, A. Belden. "In Defense of Political Economy and Systemic Analysis: A Critique of
Prevailing Theoretical Approaches to the New Social Movements." In Marxismand the
Intepretationof Culture,edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, pp. 141-56. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
13. Althusser, Louis. "Contradiction and Overdetermination." In his For Marx, translated by
Ben Brewster, pp. 87-128. New York:Vintage Books, 1970.
14. Schumpeter,Joseph A. Capitalism,Socialism,and Democracy.
3d ed. New York:Harper, 1950.
15. Sassoon, Anne Showstack. Gramsci'sPolitics.New York: St. Martin's, 1980.
16. Marx, Karl. "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte." In Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels:SelectedWorks,pp. 97-180. New York: International Publishers, 1968.
17. Mosca, Gaetano. The Ruling Class. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939.
18. Poulantzas, Nicos. PoliticalPowerand Social Classes.London: Verso, 1978.
19. Therborn, Goran. WhatDoes the Ruling ClassDo WhenIt Rules?London: Verso, 1978.
20. Weber, Max. FromMax Weber:Essays in Sociology.Edited and trans. by H. H. Gerth and
C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946.
21. Gramsci, Antonio. Quadernidel Carcere.4 vols. Turin: Einaudi, 1975.
22. Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." In his Lenin and Philosophy and OtherEssays,translated by Ben Brewster, pp. 127-86. New York: Monthly Review
Press, 1971.
23. Searle, Geoffrey R. Moralityand theMarketin VictorianBritain.New York:Oxford University
Press, 1998.
24. Harris, Michael. "State, Class and Cultural Reproduction: Toward a Theory of Library
Service in the United States." In Advances in Librarianship,vol. 14, edited by Wesley
Wimonton, pp. 211-52. New York:Academic Press, 1986.
25. Shera, Jesse. Foundationsof thePublic Library.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949.
26. Ditzion, Sydney. Arsenalsof a DemocraticCulture.Chicago: American Library Association,
1947.
27. Radford, Gary P. "Positivism, Foucault, and the Fantasia of the Library:Conceptions of
Knowledge and the Modern LibraryExperience." LibraryQuarterly
62 (April 1992): 408-24.
28. Serebnick, Judith. "Book Reviews and the Selection of Controversial Books in Public
Libraries." LibraryQuarterly51 (October 1981): 390-409.
29. Robbins, Louise S. GCnsorship
and theAmericanLibrary.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1996.
30. McCook, Kathleen de la Pefia. A Place at the Table:Participatingin CommunityBuilding.
Chicago: American Library Association, 2000.
31. Nelson, Sandra; Altman, Ellen; and Mayo, Diane. Managing for Results:EffectiveResource
Allocationfor Public Libraries.Chicago: American Library Association, 1999.
32. Nelson, Sandra. The New Planning for Results:A StreamlinedApproach.Chicago: American
Library Association, 2001.
33. Van Fleet, Connie. "Lifelong Learning Theory and the Provision of Adult Services." In
Adult Sevices:An EnduringFocusfor PublicLibraries,edited by Kathleen M. Heim and Danny
P. Wallace, pp. 166-211. Chicago: American Library Association, 1990.
34. Wiegand, Wayne A. The Politicsof an EmergingProfession:The Anerican LibraryAssociation,
1876-1917. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986.
35. Raber, Douglas. Librarianshipand Legitimacy:TheIdeologyof thePublicLibraryInquiry.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997.


Raber - 'Librarians As Organic Intellectuals'

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Raber - 'Librarians As Organic Intellectuals'

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Librarians as Organic Intellectuals: A Gramscian Approach to Blind Spots and Tunnel Vision

Author(s): Douglas Raber

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

LIBRARIANS AS ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS: A GRAMSCIAN

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

LIBRARIANS AS ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

agendas rather than by dictating political outcomes. Gramsci writes

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

examples of this strategy include Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

maintenance of capital's power, but also by a widespread acceptance

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

LIBRARIANS AS ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS

it, and "turn" its institutions toward progressive and transformative

Intellectuals, Blind Spots, and Tunnel Vision

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

[5, p. 9]. The capitalist possesses and uses intellectual qualities as an

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

LIBRARIANS AS ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

LIBRARIANS AS ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS

Librarians, as professionals, participate in this function as organic

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

well as misgivings regarding possible sanction, holds in their grip some

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

tural barriers that deny to some full participation in the social

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

This content downloaded from 161.45.205.103 on Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:46:03 AM

S-ar putea să vă placă și