Derelict Space

“The State-sponsored Intellectual History of the West makes clear the function of knowledge as a tool that integrates conception, sociality (civil society and the citizen), and spirituality to coincide precisely with the needs and aspirations of the bourgeoisie. The intellectual, then by definition, is the man or woman who best elaborates the dominant (hegemonic) social order, as those beyond such an order are, by definition, non-intellectual. The task today is to produce an intellect among men and women beyond the order. The new intellect, however, must have its own, organic, language and conceptual base. If the State’s hegemony is built using bourgeois technologies, then the limits of that hegemony must be found in the counter to the bourgeois. Such a counter is best summarized in one word: violence.” Antonio Gramsci, “The Intellectuals,” from The Prison Notebooks; Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide; Georges Sorel, “Letter to Daniel Halévy,” from Reflections on Violence.