Audiences reduce subaltern organic intellectuals to token representatives

Evidence

Quite often what happens also is that the remarkable organic intellectuals—this is a point I am making in one of the pieces included in this Reader—who become spokespersons for subalternity are taken as token subalterns. This reception is a feature of our desire to fixate on individuals. The effort involved in those singular figures becoming organic intellectuals is completely undone in their positioning as “the” subaltern. And so you have a “belittling befriending” of the remarkable testimonials of a Rigoberta Menchu, of a Poppi Nongena. The effort required for the subaltern to enter into organic intellectuality is ignored by our desire to have our cake and eat it too: that we can continue to be as we are, and yet be in touch with the speaking subaltern. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2308

Categorization

• XREF: Speaks directly to whether strategic identity can be performed collectively or only individually: this passage shows the collective desire fixating on single figures — highly relevant to the reader’s question about collective vs individual availability of strategic essentialism. — connects to: Intellectual struggle targets representative exponents, not every individual opinion holder; Even networked subalterns remain objects of critique rather than speaking subjects — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 1519; Oppositional subcultures get absorbed into a weak sense of plural others. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1904 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Even networked subalterns remain objects of critique rather than speaking subjects #expands (0.82) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1519
• Intellectual struggle targets representative exponents, not every individual opinion holder #expands (0.80)
• Oppositional subcultures get absorbed into a weak sense of plural others. #expands (0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1904