Intellectuals, Universities, and the State in Western Modern Societies

Intellectuals, Universities, AND l,HE State IN Western Modern Societies

Intellectuals, Universities, AND THE State IN Western Modern Societies EDITED BY

Ron ~yerman, Lennart G. Svensson, .AND Tl1omas Soderqvist ·.,..~

......;·

UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley I Los Angeles I I.ondon

UNNERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley and

l.o~

Angeles, t""aliforr.ia

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, LTD. Lor.don, Er.gland

COPYRIGHT @

1987

BY TH£ REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSrrY OF CALIFORNLA

Ubrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Intellectuals, universities, and the state in Western

modern societies. Greatly rev. versions of papers originally presented at a conference held at Fiskebikkskil, near Gothenburg, Sweden, in January 1984.

Includes bibliographies. 1. Intellectuals-Congresses. 2. Elite (Social sciences)-Congresses. 3. Capitalism-Congresses. 4. Communism and intellectuals--Congresses. I. Eyerman, Ron. II. Svennson, lennart G.

III. Soderqvist, Thomas. HM213.I548 1987 305.5'52 ISBN 0-520-05701-5 (alk. paper)

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

86-7035

Contents

vii

Preface

Introduction

1

Ron Eyerman, Lennart G. Svensson, and Thomas Soderqvist

~

Beyond Cultural Capital: Toward a Theory of Symbolic Domination

16

Bill Martin and Ivan Szelcnyi

3 Intellectuals in Advanced Capitalism: Capital, Closure, and the "New-Class" Thesis

50

Cornelis Disco

4 The Future of the Intelligentsia Under Capitalism

78

Bengt Furaker

5 Intellectuals, Professionalization, and Class Relations Edmund Dahlstrom

95

vi

Contents

6 The Modern Intellectual: In Povver or Disarmed?

110

Katri'n Fridjonsd6ttir

7 Mental Work, Education, and the Division of Labor

127

Adam Westoby

8 Socialism and the Educated Middle Classes in Western Europe, 1870-1914

154

Carl Levy

Socialism and Intellectuals in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Max Adler on the Relationship Between Socialism and Intellectuals

192

Lennart Olausson

10 The Life Contents and Social Types of Finnish Intellectuals: On the Basis of a Longitudinal Study of Students of the 1960s

211

Yrjo-Paavo Hayrynen Epilogue: Anders Bjornsson

235

Contributors

251

Indexes

253

Preface

Studies on intellectuals and their relationship to the state and the universities are of vital interest for all industrialized societies. Several theoretical approaches for such studies are confronted, evaluated/ and elaborated in the articles of this book. These article.." are the greatly revised versions of papers originLilly presented at a conference, "Intellectuals, Universities, and the State,'' held at Fiskeb~ickskil, near Gothenburg, Sweden, in January 1984. Perhaps the cold weather helped heat up the debate and spark the collective interest in revising and reproducing these essays in book form. In any case, we are most grateful for the dedicated work of the contributors. We would also like to extend our thanks to the Swedish National Board of Universities and Colleges for the financial support they provided in rnak.lng this conference possible. Special thanks go to Eskil Bjorklund, the director of the program Research on Higher Education. R. E., L. G. S., T. S. Lund, Gothenburg, and Roskilde November 1985

vii

1 Introduction Ron Eyerman, Lennart G. Svensson, Thomas Sotterqvist

I

The usual starting point for a discussion of the political in1pact of intellectuals in modern society is the Dreyfus affair. In his influential essay on the new class,'' Daniel Bell follows a familiar pattern when he cites the petition placed by leading French men of letters in a newspaper as the origin of the politically loaded concept of the "intelligentsia."1 However, one need only look a little further back into French history to discover that on the eve of the 1848 Revolution, French Prime Minister Guizot spoke out in the legislature against a proposed amendn1ent to the voting-rights bill that would have given to intellectuals the right to participate in political life. For Guizot, such a formal recognition of the social worth of intellectuals would undermine the entire system of political right" based on property ownership which had been i11 place since the Revolution. Opening the door to intellectuals solely' ori the -basis of their craft would be to reopen floodgat~s that had only recently been carefully dosed. This is certainly not meant to imply that contemporary French men of letters were politically radical enemies of the people, as Edward Shils has defined intellectuals in another influential essay.2 On the contrary, the leading intellectuals of the period-men such as Stendahl and Baudelaire, as Cesar Grana so skillfully II

1

Introduction

2

shows-were aristocratic in their views and entirely unconcerned with political rights and wrongs. 3 Besides revealing the eroding ground of property rights as the measure of political competence, what this does imply is that already in Orleanist France, with its restored ''middle-class'' monarchy, intellectuals could be readily identified by law as well as by common consciousness. ... At a later period, in the 1920s, books such as Henri Barbusse's L~ Couteau ~ntre les Dents, }~lien Benda's La Trahison des. Clercs, and P1erre Naville's La Revolutzon et /es Intellectuels summanzed an enire epoch of critical discourse on intellectuals in France. 4 In Germany at the same time, intellectuals were becoming anilnportant theme in academic debate. While the French considered intellec~~~~-!2-wbe~-E~2P!!.£Oli.!:__i_cal t~p~£ r_the Gerrn~n~.- w:~t:_e _more con--cerned with sociological aspects. Typical though relatively ufilposition oJ dorninanc~~-· ih modern soci~ty. Here also, a basic division seems to run be·tween actim.l and structural approaches. Alain Touraine's impressive work on postindustrial, or programmed, society is one example of an action approach to the study of intellectuals and power. 16 Emphasizing the cultural domain, as expressed in the concept of "historicity," Touraine gives the struggle over cultural orientations-and hence the role of intellectuals as the creators and manipulators of symbols-a central place in the "self- · production of society ." 17 As a consequence, his latest work has focused on the activities of social movements composed largely of ''intellectuals. '' 111 While Touraine's work lends itself to an action approach~ others, such as Pierre Bourdieu and Alvin Gouldner, take a struc.:. turalist stance. Bourdieu's theory of cultural fields introduces a cleavage between dominant intellectual positions and dominated positions .19 Although this theory could easily be adopted to include a general theory of societal domination by intellectuals, Bourdieu has shown no inclination in this direction. Instead, Gouldner' s The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class stands out

6

Introduction

as the central work in this regard. 20 Gouldner defines his new class broadly enough to include Coser' s more restrictive notion that intellectuals are those 'vho "live for rather than off ideas" 21 and the technici_(lnS and engineers whom others have placed in a "new working class." 22 Gouldner's new class is made up of both humanist intellectuals and technical intelligentsia, whose common identity has been forged from a shared cultural background provided by the experience of higher education and a common relation to the means of production. The two groups have in common the possession of the technical languages of science and rational argumentative discourse and a common relation to upe labor market: they live off their intellectual labor. TogetJ;~