Showing papers by "Carlos M. Vilas published in 1993"

Between Skepticism and Protocol: The Defection of the "Critical Intellectuals"

Abstract: In a recent essay, James Petras (1988) explores the increasing move to the right of Latin American intellectuals, especially those affiliated with research centers financed by extraregional organizations. He contrasts the organic intellectuals of the 1960s, linked to social and political struggles and supporters of revolutionary proposals or profound transformations, with the institutionalized intellectuals of the 1980s, whose theoretical and empirical studies "have been lodged in an ideological context that provides an inadequate intellectual terrain to develop a basis for engaging in emerging class struggles" (Petras, 1990: 111). The transition from the one to the other was characterized by the establishment in the second half of the 1960s and the 1970s of military dictatorships that intervened in the universities and repressed critical thought. The research centers that were subsequently created or enlarged absorbed a good many of the intellectuals excluded from the universities. For lack of a state budget, they were forced to seek funding from foreign government and nongovernmental agencies. Petras maintains that the domestication of intellectuals resulted from this dependence on outside funding. In order to survive and grow, these centers and the intellectuals associated with them had to accept the guidelines, priorities, and foci promoted by the donors. This led to the shelving of other themes and foci, especially, according to Petras, research on imperialist domination in Latin America, the articulation between local dominant classes and state structures and North American interests in the region, and the social and economic