Page 48 - Cultural Studies and Political Economy

Genealogy of Political Economy 37

ing yet another way whereby one can take his or her biases into account. Else-
where he noted also the propensity of economists to overestimate the capac-
ity of markets to resolve all sorts of problems, particularly in cases where “the
social scientist is paid for obtaining such an appreciation.” 160
In addition to reflexivity and the pushing of concepts to their limits, Innis
attempted to become aware of and to account for bias also by following the
example of the classical Greeks in advocating balance between extremes. In
particular, Innis emphasized both the desirability and difficulty of attaining,
and maintaining, tension or balance between space and time as societal or-
ganizing principles (and, by implication, between the classes or groups sup-
porting these divergent principles). He assuredly did not favor ultimate vic-
tory of one over the other (which would terminate the dialectic). Rather, he
regarded in apocalyptic terms the current imbalance whereby space is over-
whelming time. Innis’ “balance,” then, was not one of harmony or stability;
rather, it was dynamic, ever shifting, wrought by struggle and tension,
achieved through countervailing power or opposition. According to Robin
Neill, Innisian balance means competition; “its opposite is monopoly.” 161
Innis followed the Greeks also in insisting that knowledge and power are
normally in opposition. However, he approached this contradiction dialecti-
cally, so to speak. 162 On the one hand, he recognized that knowledge workers
require the protection of the police, the state, and the military in order to do
their work. 163 Moreover, he accepted Francis Bacon’s dictum that knowledge
is power, which is to say that applied knowledge empowers people. In both
these senses, there is no opposition between knowledge and power. But as
well, and seemingly in contradiction to the foregoing, Innis wrote: “Power
and its assistant, force [are] the natural enemies of intelligence.” 164 And again:
“Force is no longer concerned with [the scholar’s] protection and is actively
engaged in schemes for his destruction.” 165 In other words, Innis proposed a
fundamental contradiction between knowledge and power. How, then, can
these two views be reconciled?
For Innis, the flowering of intellectual and artistic creativity and freedom
is possible only when political and economic power loosen their grip. He pro-
posed that a creative high point in the life cycle of civilizations occurs when
each is entering its death throes, for then knowledge workers and artists are
freer to pursue truth, be creative, and engage in critical work. Another oppor-
tunity is when a new medium of communication, normally introduced from
the margin by groups aspiring to power, challenges, eventually perhaps to
supplant, an older medium. In Empire and Communications he surveyed civ-
ilizations, both ancient and modern, to show linkages among changing media,
transformations in knowledge, and shifts in power. For Innis, only at rare in-
tervals were space- and time-biased media truly in balance or in tension,