Part of the Series
The Public Intellectual
Stanley Aronowitz, a great public intellectual and a dear friend and inspiration to me for 40 years, died on Monday.
I first met Stanley when he gave a lecture at Brown University in 1975. I was a high school teacher, attending lectures at Brown University. Most of the people I saw were dull and uninspiring. When I heard Stanley lecture, I was floored. He was a working-class intellectual filled with passion; he was brilliant, affable, funny and capable of making connections I never imagined. We talked after his lecture and our friendship began that day. Soon afterwards, I read his path-breaking book False Promises. His insightful and often lyrical writing matched his skills as a speaker, merging a passionate sense of commitment with theoretical rigor and accessibility.
Stanley and I drank together, shared stories, challenged each other and co-authored a few books over the years. I never had a conversation with him in which I didn’t learn something. I loved his warmth and ability to both listen and to intervene in a discussion fearlessly. He took shit from no one. He loved to dance and listen to good music.
I read and helped to edit much of Stanley’s work. He was always generous with his time in order to read my work and he always made it better. His Crisis of Historical Materialism greatly expanded and enriched my view of critical Marxism. Every chance I got, I invited him to whatever university in which I was teaching. He was one of the best public speakers I have ever encountered. He was always on fire. He never used a note.
On a number of occasions, a manuscript would show up at my door from Stanley, written on a subject I didn’t realize he knew about. He never failed to surprise me with the scope of his knowledge and the wisdom he brought to a project. He was both a street fighter and a hard-boiled romantic for whom the radical imagination was at the heart of a politics that mattered, and he was one of few great intellectuals I knew who took education seriously as a political endeavor.
Stanley Aronowitz was a scholar and engaged public intellectual from another generation, and we will not see the likes of him again. I will miss you Stanley. Rest in peace, my brother.
Fighting the monsters continues until the last breath. I will do my best, as you always suggested.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy