If you’re an academic you’re asking yourself what can the wikileaks documents on Afghanistan do for me? This reaction is a natural effect of the petite bourgeoisie positionality of academics. This is your position. According to Althusser your predominant social reflexes are opportunism and selfishness. You may be aware that the information from the wikileaks is of civic value and may save Afghan lives. You feel alienated from these addititions to the public good. Another possible symptom of your position is that you want to criticize those who embrace the wikileaks docs for being guilty of “empiricism” or “positivism.” The ultra petite bourgeoisie reaction is to quote Poulantzas’ caution on the “illusion of the evident.” The proper solution is to hastily identify wikileaks as an “archive” and ask why must we go to the archive to find the “real” war or How is archival knowledge privileged over other knowledges?
