EU Extra: Prof. Michael Pelias

Summary

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Economic Update Extra: Prof. Michael Pelias (September 25, 2018)

Podcast: Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff
Host: Richard D. Wolff (referred to as "Sam" in transcript)
Guest: Professor Michael Pelias, with contributions from Stanley Aronowitz
Theme: The rationale and ambitions behind founding a new "Left University" in New York City, the necessity for critical thinking in education, and the historical urgency of creating new educational and intellectual spaces.

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Episode Overview

This episode continues a conversation with Professor Michael Pelias, joined by Stanley Aronowitz, about their efforts to establish a new Left University in New York City. The dialogue examines the meaning and importance of critical thinking in higher education, critiques of existing academic institutions, the aim to foster "organic intellectuals," and the historical necessity of alternative educational projects in response to the current crises in both universities and the labor movement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Critical Thinking as the Core of Education

• Definition & Importance

  • Pelias roots "critique" in its Greek etymology (krainon: "to separate out"), not as negativity but a process of genuine engagement and analysis.

    "Critique is really a very... positive word in the ancient philosophy. It's an effort to understand." (Pelias/Aronowitz, 01:29–01:36)

  • There's a shared worry that genuine critical thinking has been diluted or sidelined in current universities, becoming mere rhetoric without substance.

• Process of Critique

  • Pelias lays out a "threefold moment" of philosophy:
    1. Descriptive: Understanding the problem in historical context
    2. Critical: Separating and analyzing the issue
    3. Analytical: Opening space for solutions

    "There would be a threefold moment, the description of the problems... a critical moment... and analytical, that loosens it up." (Pelias, 02:28–02:57)

  • Notable Application: Questions the normalization of student debt, advocating for alternatives like a "jubilee" (debt cancellation) to benefit both individuals and society at large. (Pelias, 01:57–02:21)

Education Beyond Vocational Training

• Sam (Host) contrasts education for the job market with education oriented towards innovation and critical self-reflection:

  "An education that teaches you how to plug into a job can never begin to be as exciting as an education that teaches you to see beyond what is... to put into your head how it could be better." (Sam, 03:13–04:17)

• Concern: Modern society praises innovators but fails to cultivate creative, critical thinkers en masse due to educational limitations. (Sam, 03:45)

Creating "Organic Intellectuals" & Bottom-Up Learning

• Vision:
  • Pelias/Aronowitz aim to develop "organic intellectuals" — critical thinkers rooted in their social realities, not academic elites.

    "An organic intellectual is someone who is very critical, actually enters in the nucleus of the moment... digs where they are... able to transcend that." (Pelias/Aronowitz, 04:33–04:51)

• Method:
  • Emphasize community, peer-learning, and moving away from hierarchical, top-down academic models:

    "Those that teach themselves are the ones being educated as well... we've forgotten that with so much top-down hierarchy." (Pelias/Aronowitz, 04:53–05:16)

Academia’s Contradictions & Lost Potential

• Double Standard:
  • Sam (Host): Sciences encourage novelty, but in social sciences/humanities, new ways of seeing or organizing society face resistance.

    "In the sciences... there's a push to come up with new ways... But when it comes to social science and humanities... there's a fear almost." (Sam, 05:34–06:12)

• Aronowitz: Universities have been "depoliticized," stripped of their critical, innovative edge in societal analysis. (Aronowitz, 06:12–06:31)

Inclusion and Building Community

• Admissions:
  • Pelias: Open to all, with current courses attended by a diverse age range from undergraduates to octogenarians.

    "...Population has ranged in age from 19... all the way up to 85 year old ex... Communist Party members. We have a very far range." (Pelias/Aronowitz, 06:48–07:02)

• Community:
  • Education as a "forum" and meeting place, fostering dialogue, solidarity, and a collective search for solutions.

    "It gives people a space to talk about ideas... a place where people can go and really exchange what they're reading and have some kind of commonality." (Pelias, 07:02–07:22; Aronowitz, 07:22–07:26)

Embracing Technology and Physical Presence

• Distance Learning:
  • Lectures are already recorded and made available online via YouTube for accessibility (07:45–08:01).
  • Future plans for full online courses, but initial focus remains on in-person community creation.

    "Part of the idea is to build the center, to build a community." (Pelias, 08:16)

Political & Historical Urgency

• Historical Moment:
  • Sam/Aronowitz/Pelias note increasing economic decline, inequality, and social conflict, seeing the university project as a necessary response.
  • Sam:

    "This is a time when people are asking questions about the way society works, looking for solutions to problems that have become pretty urgent. So it really might be the right moment for a new university..." (Sam, 08:30–09:35)

• Aronowitz:

  "I don't think we have a choice but to do this... unless we form something that is alternative and different... we don't really have a chance of keeping what's very, very precious alive and consistent in a leftist tradition..." (Aronowitz, 09:35–09:47)

Building on Existing Initiatives

• The Left University draws on the ongoing success of Brooklyn Commons courses, Judson Memorial Church classes, and the Marxist Educational Project, aiming to unify and expand these programs into a broader movement (09:47–10:24).

Connecting with Labor

• Sam/Aronowitz: Parallels between crises in universities and the labor movement; both require renewal or risk extinction.

  "The university as a place of open-ended, honest and exciting new thinking becomes reduced to a vocational training institute means there is no choice. Or else the old concept... is gone." (Sam, 11:07–12:06) "The labor question is first and foremost in most of our minds going forward... labor unions are facing the same dilemma. No choice. No choice at this point." (Aronowitz, 12:09–12:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Critical Thinking:

  "A critique is really a very positive word in the ancient philosophy. It's an effort to understand."
  — Stanley Aronowitz, 01:31

• On Education’s Purpose:

  "An education that teaches you how to plug into a job can never begin to be as exciting as an education that teaches you to see beyond what is..."
  — Sam (Richard D. Wolff), 03:13

• On Organic Intellectuals:

  "An organic intellectual is someone who is very critical, actually enters in the nucleus of the moment... and at the same time disseminate in an active questioning and answering... a new group of intellectuals... not from the upper class."
  — Michael Pelias, 04:33–04:53

• On Inclusion:

  "I think everybody is welcome... population has ranged in age from 19 year olds... all the way up to 85 year old ex... Communist Party members."
  — Michael Pelias, 06:40–07:02

• On the Historical Necessity:

  "I don't think we have a choice but to do this... unless we form something that is alternative and different... we don't really have a chance of keeping what's very, very precious alive and consistent in a leftist tradition."
  — Stanley Aronowitz, 09:35–09:47

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–01:14: Setting the stage: critical thinking and the university's mission
• 01:14–02:57: Defining critique and outlining the philosophical approach
• 03:13–04:28: Education for jobs vs. education for societal innovation
• 04:28–05:16: Organic intellectuals and bottom-up intellectual formation
• 05:34–06:12: Contradictions in the encouragement of innovation across disciplines
• 06:40–07:26: Target audience and the community-building aspect
• 07:45–08:16: Plans for online and in-person education
• 08:30–09:35: Historical urgency in founding the Left University
• 09:35–10:28: Necessity for institutional alternatives
• 11:07–12:06: Parallels with the labor movement and dangers of institutional decline
• 12:09–12:30: Labor’s and education's shared existential crisis

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Tone & Takeaways

The discussion is urgent, intellectually engaged, and critical yet hopeful. Pelias and Aronowitz argue passionately for reclaiming universities as spaces of deep inquiry and social transformation, rooted in community and open to all. They view the new Left University as both a practical response to crisis and a bold intellectual experiment, aiming to rejuvenate the radical, emancipatory potential of higher education.

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Transcript

[Host]

Welcome, friends, to Economic Update Extra, a continuation of the conversation we had on the regular Economic Update program with my guest Professor Michael Peelias, part of a group that's starting a new Left University in New York City. And we were discussing the rationale, the audience, they're trying to reach the goals of this project. And I'd like to continue that conversation.

[Sam]

Michael, I've heard you talk and I would like to share that with our audience about what it means that a university is committed to critical thought. On the one hand, there are people who wonder, gee, is it one sided to be critical? Shouldn't you also be appreciative in some sense of the society? And then there are others who say no. It has always been the goal of education to, to teach people how to think critically, to be able to go and improve the society you inherit as a new person, rather than simply live in the existing status quo. How do you see your project of a new university in relationship to the whole concept of critical thinking?

[Michael Pelias]

I think that the aspect of critique.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Is very, very important. Critique comes from a Greek word, krainon, which means to separate out, separate out things from its wholeness into its parts.

[Michael Pelias]

So a critique is really a very.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Positive word in the ancient philosophy. It's an effort to understand, effort to understand.

[Michael Pelias]

So I see, you know, critical thinking as integral to where we are.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

You know, it's something that has been.

[Michael Pelias]

Left behind in the universities, or it's.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Been so diluted it's not really engaged critical thinking.

[Michael Pelias]

And this is an activity people don't. It's not just trashing or saying this.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Is negative or we're being negative here.

[Michael Pelias]

It's really about real engagement with what Gramsci would call common sense. How did the norm come to be defined? How did the common come to be such a thing? Why are we so accepting of something like student debt? Can't we argue that if you have a jubilee on student debt, that the consumer would be helped here, consumer society, that the students would spend $300 on goods and services and not on paying the banks. So anyway, the notion of critical thinking really would come out of philosophy where one learns how to question, one learns how to problematize. And so there would be a threefold moment, the description of the problems, the descriptive moment in terms of where we are historically, a critical moment that could separate that out and analytical, that loosens it up so that, as Marx once said, mankind poses problems so that they can be solved. Right? So how do we really build the.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Right kind of problematic?

[Michael Pelias]

So to my mind, philosophy in this institute is really about we learn how.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

To question properly again, we learn how to really think and question.

[Sam]

You know, for me, as a teacher like you, it's always struck me in my own life and in watching my students that an education that teaches you how to plug into a job can never begin to be as exciting as an education that teaches you to see beyond what is to begin to be able to put into your head how it could be better. It's sort of strange. A society we live in that celebrates the innovator, the changer, on one level doesn't create the education that would make it possible for millions of people to be creative. Imagine the solution to the problems of the United States if we really created not an occasional thinker, but a mass of people able to have the critical capability and the confidence to raise big questions and to see how you could change. For me, it's very exciting to have a university that is explicitly committed to that rather than one that never does it except in the brochure where there's a passing line about critical thinking and nothing else ever happens that makes it that way.

[Michael Pelias]

And our goal is to build organic.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Intellectuals to try to do as much.

[Michael Pelias]

An organic intellectual is someone who is very critical, actually enters in the nucleus of the moment, if you will, or situates themselves or digs where they are.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

And a very strong sense, and then.

[Michael Pelias]

Is able to, you know, transcend that, to be able to move well beyond.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

It, overcome it, and at the same.

[Michael Pelias]

Time disseminate in an active questioning and answering, you know, a new group of intellectuals, you know, who come from, not from the upper class. It's not a top down movement, it's really a bottom up where those that teach themselves are the ones being educated.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

As well, you know.

[Michael Pelias]

And this is a very important movement in history.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

We have forgotten that we have so much top down hierarchy ization in the universities and everywhere. And this kind of, I think a very false respect, you know, that doesn't really take into account what's there below and how you can work with that back up, you know, in a way. So yeah.

[Sam]

Do you find it interesting as I do? I just wondered your reaction that in the sciences, the natural sciences, there is a bit of a push to come up with new ways of doing things, new technologies, new. But when it comes to social science and humanities, new ways of seeing nature, new ways of organizing society, there's a fear almost you don't go in that direction. The very things you promote in one area are squelched in the other. And I think a university that understood that and broke from that is desperately needed across the country.

[Michael Pelias]

I agree.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

The academic, the institutions have been so depoliticized at this point that they really don't understand, you know, how they're being reformed unconsciously in a certain way to play out this game of which technoscience, as you say, wants. And yes.

[Sam]

Are there any particular kind of people that you are looking for to become students in this thing or is everybody welcome?

[Michael Pelias]

I think everybody is welcome. I mean, the courses that we've given to date out of this have ranged in age.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

The population has ranged in age from.

[Michael Pelias]

19 year olds that are undergraduates with.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

An interest all the way up to 85 year old ex, you know, Communist Party members. So we have a very far range.

[Michael Pelias]

And I think what it gives people, it gives people a space really to talk about ideas. I mean, we're really, really in some ways, at the same time, education becomes a forum, a place where people can go and really exchange what they're reading and have some kind of commonality. So in a way it is building community as well.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

And I think that's a very important aspect of this project.

[Sam]

Will you be making the courses available in electronic forms? Will you be teaching distance courses? These kinds of new developments in education? Are these things you are thinking about or is that coming later?

[Michael Pelias]

Well, we do, we are going to record both audio and visual everything and.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

They do go up on YouTube the.

[Michael Pelias]

Lecture, so people can watch or you know, actually bone up after the classes if they want to hear an interesting.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Part of the lecture.

[Michael Pelias]

So we are doing that the online is, I think ultimately going to be something that we probably do in the near future, but not immediately because we want to first see how we can.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Get people together to gather.

[Michael Pelias]

Because part of the idea is to build the center, to build a community.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

That is here in New York City and elsewhere in certain major cities and venues.

[Sam]

I noticed that you and Stanley Aronowitz have been teaching courses for a while. Another part of this effort that you're involved with are folks who have been teaching courses in the Brooklyn Commons for a while. I've been doing some work at the Judson Memorial Church. So in a way I think it's fair to say that there's already a track record that these are courses that people want to take, that they have signed up for, that they are excited about continuing so that it's reasonable. And I want your response here to think of this as an important moment in American history when the political changes and the economic decline that is around us the inequality, the sharpening of political and other conflicts. This is a time when people are asking questions about the way society works, looking for solutions to problems that have become pretty urgent. So it really might be the right moment for a new university that confronts and engages with this stuff.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Yeah, from my personal perspective, I don't think we have a choice but to do this at this.

[Host]

Tell me what you mean.

[Michael Pelias]

I think we're so lost in terms of the traditional institutions and what they're.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Engaging as practices that unless we form something that is alternative and different to what we have now, we don't really have a chance of keeping what's very, very precious alive and consistent in a leftist tradition, you know, going forward. And I think you're right. We have a track record. You know, you've always done great with your Judson Memorial and your classes in political economy and other things. And, you know, we've had this going on and we have the Marxist educational project. So we're trying again to build on.

[Michael Pelias]

These, you know, kind of small successes.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Into something much larger.

[Michael Pelias]

But again, I emphasize that I think.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

The historical conjunction of where we are today demands such a left university in that this is the hope for thinking. Not that we're the only ones thinking.

[Michael Pelias]

I'm not saying that, but it is at least a space and a curriculum that will at least facilitate this kind.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Of thinking that is desperately needed in the United States so we don't devolve.

[Michael Pelias]

Again into one single issue, becomes, you.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Know, dominant for the next 10 years on the left. We're able to really bring things together in this synthetic and, you know, totalizing fashion this time.

[Sam]

You know, I'm struck, as a final comment, I'm struck that your notion that there's really no choice, that we were at a point where the traditional hope of what a university could be is almost extinguished. That you remind me, as you say, that of a person I had here not long ago interviewing who said the same thing about the labor movement, that the labor movement in America has been on decline for 50 years and is facing a situation where if it doesn't come up with a new direction, new institutional forms, new energies, it faces extinction, it faces vanishing. That the university as a place of open ended, honest and exciting new thinking becomes reduced to a vocational training institute means there is no choice. Or else the old concept of a university that raises the universal questions is gone.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Absolutely.

[Michael Pelias]

And I welcome the labor unions to.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Help support us because we do have, you know, the labor question is first and foremost in most of our minds going forward as well. And one of the reasons I'm writing a piece on disaster unionism, I agree with your previous guests that labor and labor unions are facing the same dilemma. No choice. No choice at this point.

[Host]

Well, I want to remind all of you I hope you found this continuation talking to our Patreon community as something we provide for you in recognition and acknowledgement of the enormously important support you provide for us. If you're interested in this university either as a student or as a teacher or simply to learn more, please follow the information you can see on your screen about how to reach Michael Pelias who will respond to your emails how to learn more about the left university and what it is intending to do. And it's my pleasure to say that I will be speaking with you again next week and thank you, Michael.

[Sam]

Thank you for all you've contributed.

[Stanley Aronowitz]

Thank you very much. Thank you. My pleasure.

[Sam]

Sam.