|
I consider it important,
indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both
to protect their own economic status and also, generally speaking, to
secure their influence in the political field.
On the first-mentioned, the economic side, the working class may serve
us as a model: they have succeeded, at least to some extent, in protecting
their economic interests. We can learn from them too how this problem
can be solved by the method of organization. And also, we can learn from
them what is our gravest danger, which we ourselves must seek to avoid:
the weakening through inner dissensions, which, when things reach that
point, make cooperation difficult and result in quarrels between the constituent
groups.
But again, we can also learn from the workers that limitation to immediate
economic aims, to the exclusion of all political goals and effective action,
will not suffice either. In this respect, the working classes in this
country have only begun their development. It is inevitable, considering
the progressive centralization of production, that the economic and the
political struggle should become more and more closely interwoven, the
political factor continually growing in significance in the process. In
the meantime, the intellectual worker, due to his lack of organization,
is less well protected against arbitrariness and exploitation than a member
of any other calling.
But intellectual workers should unite, not only in their own interest
but also and no less importantly in the interest of society as a whole.
For division among intellectuals has been partly to blame for the fact
that the special parts and the experience which are the birthright of
these groups have so seldom been made available for political aims. In
their room, political ambition and desire for profit almost exclusively
determine events, instead of professional knowledge and judgment based
on objective thinking.
An organization of intellectual workers can have the greatest significance
for society as a whole by influencing public opinion through publicity
and education. Indeed it is its proper task to defend academic freedom,
without which a healthy development of democracy is impossible.
|