From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 18 12:00:00 1994 From: Dennis Breslin (BRES@UConnVM.UConn.Edu) Subject: Pomo Discussion This 100k or 2000-line file was drawn primarily from the discussions on Pen-L in the spring of 1994. I have linked together 52 messages. This file is also obtainable via email by sending the three word message get pen-l pomo.discussion To: listserv@csf.colorado.edu Enjoy, Dennis Breslin (BRES@UConnVM.UConn.Edu) May 1994 From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 18 12:00:00 1994 From: Dennis Breslin (BRES@UConnVM.UConn.Edu) Subject: List of Contributors ================ List of Contributors ================= 1 From: "Anthony D'Costa" 1 From: "Michael Lebowitz" 1 From: "Peter.Dorman" <23215MGR@msu.edu> 1 From: Blair Sandler 1 From: CESAR AYALA CASAS 1 From: David Fasenfest 1 From: ENID@UTARLG.UTA.EDU 1 From: HANLY@BrandonU.CA 1 From: James Lawler 1 From: Louis N Proyect 1 From: Michael Lichter 1 From: Trond Andresen 1 From: clee@cse.bridgeport.edu (Clayton Lee ) 1 From: egglesto@inst.augie.edu (Brian Eggleston) 1 From: medley@usm.maine.edu (Joseph Medley) 1 From: sffein@mail.wm.edu (susan feiner) 1 From: wpc@clyder.gn.apc.org (Paul Cockshott) 2 From: A_CALLARI@ACAD.FANDM.EDU 2 From: FAC_BROSSER@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU 2 From: GSKILLMAN@wesleyan.edu 2 From: Nathan Newman 2 From: Pete Bratsis 3 From: SONDHEIM@newschool.edu 4 From: "Alan G. Isaac" 4 From: "R. Anders Schneiderman" 4 From: scullen@ucrac1.ucr.edu (Steve Cullenberg) 5 From: Jim Devine 6 From: Doug Henwood From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 3 00:08:03 1994 Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 00:08:03 -0600 Sender: psn@csf.Colorado.EDU From: CESAR AYALA CASAS Subject: Derrida I recently read a review of a new book by Jacques Derrida entitled THE SPECTER OF MARX. The review appeared in a Basque journal entitled HICSA, dated 1994. Derida's book is apparently still in French only. (In Spanish EL ESPECTRO DE MARX, I assume in French it is called LE SPECTRE DE MARX). The paper in which I read the review had the date in Basque, so I was unable to tell precisely in what month it came out. I read the Spanish version printed on opposite pages to the Basque. The review is by Antonio Guerreiro and it is a reprint from the original in Portuguese, which appeared in the journal MANIFESTO. The review is entitled "Marx Regresa, est s Perdonado." (Marx, return, you are forgiven".) What struck me from the review is that according to the reviewer, Derrida takes in this last book positions which are evidently opposed to some of our current notions about post-modernism. Which brings me to my point: From the little I have read, it seems post-modernism is internally very heterogeneous. Who among the Marxists in the list would say that the following quote from Derrida (from French to Portuguese to Spanish, and now translated into English by myself) is in its essence "anti-Marxist?". Which is surprising, both to ourselves and to the "post-modernists". QUOTE FROM DERRIDA (via several translations). "Today, when some dare to neo-evangelize in the name of the ideal of liberal democracy in which the ideal of human history has been realized, it is necessary to shout: never have violence, inequality, exclusion, hunger and therefore economic exclusion affected so many human beings, in the history of the Earth and of Humanity." "Instead of singing to ourselves the arrival of the ideal of liberal democracy and of the capitalist market in the euphoria of the end of history, instead of celebrating the end of ideology and the end of the great emancipatory discourses, let us never forget this macroscopic evidence, made up of countless individual sufferings: no progress allows us to ignore the fact that so many men, women and children were conquered, condemned to hunger, or exterminated on the Earth." It appears that the book is an evaluation of the importance of Marx's legacy for understanding the new world disorder. Back to the great meta-narrative, uh? I am including the Spanish version from which I translated in case I made some mistake of translation. "Hoy en dia, cuando algunos osan neo-evangelizar en nombre del ideal de una democracia liberal en la que se habria alcanzado el ideal de la historia humana, es preciso gritar: nunca la violencia, la desigualdad, la exclusion, el hambre y, por consiguiente, la exlusion economica han afectado a tantos seres humanos, en la historia de la Tierra, y de la Humanidad." "En vez de cantarnos el adviento del ideal de la democracia liberal y del mercado capitalista en la euforia del fin de la historia, en vez de celebrar el fin de las ideologias y el fin de los grandes discursos de emancipaci"n, no olvidemos nunca esta evidencia macroscopica, hecha de innumerables sufrimientos individuales: ningun progreso permite ignorar el hecho de que tantos hombres, mujeres y ni$os fueron sojuzgados, relegados al hambre, o exterminados en la Tierra." Cesar Ayala, Lehman College-City University of New York From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 3 11:20:11 1994 Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 11:20:11 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: A_CALLARI@ACAD.FANDM.EDU Subject: Re: Derrida (fwd) I just have some abstract reactions to the most recent postings that re-raised the issue of Derrida/Marx (forwarded by Doug Henwood) and postmodernism (a quote from Jim Devine, forwarded by Gil Skilman). There is, in fact, much liberatory potential in post-modernism (potential to use the methods of postmodernism in association with a number of politics of liberation, including of course liberation from class oppression/exploitation) and there has always been; that's why Derrida's remarks do not come at all as a surprise (although they are remarkable for their explicit acknowledgement of Marx as a vehicle for liberatory struggles). Derrida's method of deconstruction can be used for a number of purposes; but, structurally, it seems to me that it is not all that different, in method and possible outcome, from Marx's own method of "ruthless criticism of everything existing" as a way of historicizing (rendering contingent, exposing the class-biases embedded in) given concepts of society, of social agents, of economic categories, etc.. as a prelude for the creation of a different historical imagination, as a prelude for a critique of "what is" as we materially (not ideallly) create the alternative(s) to capitalism (escape the economic logic of capital and of a self-enclosed, self-defined market structure). Could Derrida's work, then, be seen as a "prelude to the critique of modernist (bourgeois) certainties" [in analogy to Sraffa's work as a prelude to a critique of economics]? Isn't it better for the left to grip and use progressively the liberatory potential of postmodernism, rather than to equate it en toto with some kind of reactionary (reaganite Thatecherite) age of cynicism? Well! that's all for now. Antonio Callari. From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 3 12:41:40 1994 Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 12:41:40 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: scullen@ucrac1.ucr.edu (Steve Cullenberg) Subject: Derrida and Marx Doug Henwood's comments about Derrida and Marx are basically correct. A year ago Derrida gave two pleanary addresses at a conference at UC-Riverside, which Bernd Magnus (a philosophy professor here) and I co-organized. The conference was entitled "Whither Marxism? Global Crises in International Dimension." Its purpose was to bring into dialog people from those countries where communism had collapsed with Marxists from the West. We wanted to find people who were not either totally rejecting Marxism or simply holding fast to the old line, but instead were rethinking Marxism. The conference was interdisciplinary. Derrida's book is a revised version of his plenaries at the conference. The title of the book in English is "Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International." It is translated by Peggy Kamuf and edited with an introduction by Bernd Magnus and myself. It will be published by Routledge this Fall simultaneously with its companion volume entitled "Whither Marxism?", edited by Bernd Magnus and myself. The citations which Doug Henwood refers to are translations from the French volume published late last fall by Edition Galilee (I haven't cross-checked your translations with Peggy's, Doug). As there was a discussion on this network not too long ago about postmodernism, Derrida, etc., I don't want to open up it up again too much. (but please, Derrida and postmodernism are not the same thing; there are subtle differences and often get treated crudely as if they do not matter, but they do. Strangley, I've noticed the general respect that the debate over the subtle differences about GE theory enjoys on this net, and contrast that with the general dismissive air that the 'critics' of Derrida and postmodernism often employ, and wonder why the difference in reaction to these two esoteric debates). Let me however make a few remarks about Derrida's text. Derrida's lecture and book are dedicated to Chris Hani, which tells you something about Derrida's politics. In the dedication he writes in part, "...I recall that it is a "communist" as such, a "communist as communist," whom a Polish emigrant and accomplices, all the assassins of Chris Hani, put to death a few days ago, April 10th. The assassins themselves proclaimed that they were out to get a communist. They were trying to interrupt negotiations and sabotage an ongoing democratization. This popular hero of the resistance against Apartheid became dangerous and suddenly intolerable, it seems, at the moment in which, having decided to devote himself once again to a minority Communist Party riddled with contradictions, he gave up important responsibilities in the ANC and perhaps any official political or even governmental role he might one day have held in a country freed of Apartheid. Allow me to salute the memory of Chris Hani and to dedicate this lecture to him." I can not attempt to summarize Derrida's text here - it is a complex, difficult and rich text, as one might expect. Derrida in part reads Marx and Marxism through Shakespeare's Hamlet (hence the specters), who Marx, as is well known, loved and referred to constantly, both openly and metaphorically (remember only the famous opening line of the Communist Manifesto). Derrida and many of the others at the conference, however, made the following points: (1) the proper names "Marx" and/or "Marxism" have always already been plural nouns, despite their grammatical form, and despite the fact that they have been understood as if they were rigid designators; (2) "communism" (in its own pluralities) is not the same as "Marxism"; (3) both Marxism and communism are historically sited, situated, inflected, mediated by particular traditions and histories; (4) the proper name "Marx" is -- in a certain sense -- entirely uncircumventable. There is much, much more, of course, but I don't have the time to summarize it all. Regarding the issue of the different strands of postmodernism. That is of course true. It is also true that Derrida is not deconstruction, there are many positions of deconstruction. I have to confess that I have never understood the rather knee-jerk dismissal of postmodernism tout court that sometimes appears on this network. Postmodernism may or may not be used politically. I can only offer some prima facie circumstantial evidence now. The journal "Rethinking Marxism", of which I am an editor, could be fairly described, I think, as generally supporting a postmodern Marxism (I don't know what my co-editors think). Unless we are either self-delusional or entirely non-political, there must on the face of it then be something Marxists can learn from postmodernism. No? Another forthcoming source; an edited book by Antonio Callari, Carole Biewener and myself called "Marxism in the Postmodern Age: Confronting the New World Order," forthcoming by Guilford Press in the summer is a collection of 55 essays (no all of which can be described as postmodern), addressing the issue of postmodernism, feminism, Marxism, etc. I know these are not "arguments," but I offer them as evidence nonetheless, that there is something for Marxists in postmodernism, even if it is not transparently so. Steve Cullenberg From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 3 14:18:49 1994 Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 14:18:49 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Pete Bratsis Subject: RE: Derrida (fwd) It is not at all suprising that Derrida is not an anti-Marxist. It is more suprising that he has been viewed as an anti-Marxist by members of the left. Keep in mind that Derrida was a student and good friend of Althusser: so, while Derrida is not a Marxist he does know his Marx. Furthermore, the problematic of Derrida can be seen as a departure from the problematic of Marxist structuralism: there is a continuity in the critique of essentialism, the critique of realism, a continuation of the shift from a centered totality to a decentered social whole to current notions of the 'excess of meaning', 'play', and the shift away from totalizing discourses. One can even note a kernal of deconstruction in Marx (i.e. the famous ch. 1 of the first volume of Capital). It seems to me that the major problem with deconstructuralism is that it refuses to reconstruct some catagories qua objects of analysis that are usefull to the understanding of contemporary society and political practice; the State, class etc. Obviously, there have been attempts to integrate elements of 'post-modernism' into a more overtly socialist/radical democratic project (ie. Laclau and Mouffe, Stanley Aronowitz and even Bob Jessop to some degree). Thus, what I am suggesting, is that 'post-modernism' or 'post-structuralism' is not inherently anti-Marxist although in may be in most contexts non-Marxist or post-Marxist and that Derrida in particular is not an anti-Marxist and that he can and has been appropiated by currents on the left. Peter Bratsis, Grad. Center, CUNY From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 3 14:48:05 1994 Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 14:48:05 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu Precedence: bulk From: Jim Devine Subject: Re: Derrida (fwd) I'm sorry if I fell into a bad habit of using "post-modern" as an epithet. There are lots of different kinds of post-modernisms just as there are several different types of Marxisms and communisms. The kind of post-modernism that I was knocking was a kind of intellectual nihilism that says that there is no way we can say that one factor is more important than any other in explaining a historical event; this kind of post-modernism also rejects any kind of objectivity or any kind of notion of progress. It tends to treat the whole world as a object for literary criticism (all the world is a text). Rejecting any notion of getting a handle on the reality outside of our perception of that reality, this kind of post-modernism overdoes epistemology and rejects ontology and any kind of methodological realism. It tends to veer toward classical idealism. But if there are postmodernisms that don't fit into that description (which I guess there are, given the quotes from Derrida), then my criticism was way off base as far as they are concerned. I think that new ways of looking at old questions can be very productive. IMHO, general equilibrium theory didn't live up to its advertisements. Game theory, on the other hand, seems to have made major contributions. Whether post-modern "deconstruction" has contributed or will contribute to our knowledge of the world and even to the success of our political practice is beyond me, since I don't know that much about post-modernism or deconstruction. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine BITNET: jndf@lmuacad INTERNET: jdevine@lmumail.lmu.edu From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 3 18:54:59 1994 Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 18:54:59 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: James Lawler Subject: Re: Derrida In the description for my graduate course on Marx for next semester, I somewhat opportunistically cited Derrida from his new book, though my only acquaintance so far is in review. This was to attract the postmodernist students in English and Comparative Literature, and to let them know that their concerns will be welcome in the class. (Philosophy, where I teach, is a bastian of anti-postmodernism, based on analytic philosophy.) I agree that Marx was in some sense a deconstructionist -- this is the negative side of Marx's critique of capitalism and ideology. But in an epistemological context, I would disagree in equating "modern" and "bourgeois" and so describe Marx as a "postmodernist". As I understand it postmodernism means a radical criticism of "enlightenment rationalism". But Marx maintained the essence of an "enlightenment" approach (see Chris Pines' recent book with SUNY Press on Marx' theory of ideology) believing that it is possible to reveal the reality beneath the ideological "false consciousness". This rationalism is highly critical and self-conscious, but also involves a definite, if very flexible dialectical methodology. The reality that is uncovered is not only the bourgeois world that should be physically deconstructed, but the new realities and forces that are emerging within that world and that provide the basis for a better one. It is the to-be-deconstructed bourgeois world itself that is responsible for bringing these new possibilities into existence. Moreover, the new post- capitalist world will still require important aspects of the old world (the state, money, markets) for some significant period of time. At the recent Socialist Scholars Conference in which I debated with Bertell Ollman on whether Marx was a market socialist, Ollman, who argued that Marx was *not* a market socialist, nevertheless said, based on Marx's texts, that a market society would continue to exist for 30 to 50 years after the communist revolution -- though this, he said, would not yet be socialist -- to say nothing of communist. So the "dialectical socialism" of Marx is different from what I call the "nihilistic socialism" of some other socialists. Bakunin, for example, said that he didn't see anything in the contemporary world worth "building on". The main job of critics, he thought, was to destroy. Ultra-radical criticisms of capitalism of the nihilistic sort may be harmful to the general socialist project. The language of the Communist Manifesto may have been heavily influenced by an attempt to sound as negative about capitalism as the nihilists, while trying to say something quite different. As a result social- ist misreadings of Marx in the future, emphasizing this negativity, could appeal to the Manifesto. So there are, as Derrida apparently says, historically situated communisms, including Marx's, and not some rigid idea that stands outside of history. But this fact is not so overwhelming that we can't extract some general truths. Jim Devine notes the "intellectual nihilism" of "some" postmodernists. But then he sees in the citations from Derrida a different variety. Perhaps Derrida is not an intellectual nihilist, but this, I think, cannot be determined from the citations about hunger that were cited earlier. It is one thing to be an intellectual nihilist, and it is another to be politically active. Intellectual nihilism can be taken in a politically radical, left direction, but it remains quite different from Marxist dialectical socialism which discerns the baby through the bathwater. So the fact that postmodernists become politically involved and join in the struggle with other socialists does not mean that they have adopted some kind of "methodological realism". I admit that the Derrida citations about hunger do suggest this, but then I read that Derrida turns toward the implications of the fact that "Marx" is a proper noun and I feel discouraged. And I suspect that the idea of a multiplicity of contextual communisms gets us into labyrinths, rather than helps us get clarity about what is essential and what is for us inessential in Marx's text. It is important to be positive as well as negative. Peter Bratsis' criticism that deconstructionism "refuses to reconstruct some catagories qua objects of analysis that are usefull to the understanding of contemporary society and political practice; the State, class etc." acknowledges this intellectual nihilism. But there is perhaps something basic to this intellectual current that goes against the grain in "reconstructing" categories, if there is nothing but a "decentered social whole". Without "totalizing discourses", aren't we left with a choice between the "piecemeal reformism" that Karl Popper advocated, directing his fire also against the "totalitarian" thinking of Hegel and Marx -- this line is taken up by some postmodernists who see "capitalism" as already some fundamentally new and undefinable society -- and some kind of nihilistic socialism that cannot find anything positive in the existing world that is positively worth developing? (The "great refusal" of Marcuse.) So I find myself sympathetic to Habermas' general project of defending "modernism" and rationality -- which is polemically directed against postmodernism (beginning with Nietzsche). On the other hand, I think that Marx was a postmodernist in the sociological, if not in the epistemological sense, in that he understood that a radically new kind of society is coming into existence, one that will eliminate the hierarchical forms of division of labor characteristic of capitalist production. The development of advanced scientific technology is undermining the rationale for capitalist ownership, even as capitalists try to adapt to the requirements of postmodern "flexible production". The new forms of production relations imply another kind of practical rationality than the hierarchical rationality of capitalist control and the instrumental rationality of capitalist profit. Epistemologically, postmodernism generally *identifies* rationality with that hierarchical and instrumental form. Hence, there is the emphasis on particularity, circularity, against linear universality, as though these are the only choices. I go back to Hegel on this, where he argues that the critique "abstract understanding" with its "either/or" logic leads to some kind of irrationalist intuitionism or mysticism, unless a dialectical rationality can replace it. All this said, I very much welcome Derrida's contribution to giving legitimacy to very fundamental ideas of Marxism -- i.e. that capitalism has not brought us the end of history. Perhaps Derrida would agree with all the above fairly prosaic ideas, and has gone significantly beyond them. At a recent conference I attended, there was a heated argument between a postmodernist who was sympathetic to Marxism but impatient with what he regarded as the simple- minded epistemology of Marxists who like to talk about "bosses", and some Marxists who had no patience with people who could not see that Marx had explained everything about ideology in a few pages in the German Ideology. My interjection was to point out that to say "boss" these days in the academy can be a highly sophisticated intellectual endeavor, witness the fact that Derrida, that paragon of intellectual sophistication, has mentioned such elementary realities as hunger and drawn the connections between this fact and capitalism, something that until now would have been regarded as very out of date, especially by a Marxist. In certain circumstances, it takes enormous powers of deconstructionist talent to say such things. --Jim Lawler phijiml@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu phijiml@ubvms.bitnet From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed May 4 07:27:44 1994 Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 07:27:44 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: Re: Derrida (fwd) It may be that pomo does have this radical potential, by questioning hierarchies and certainties, foregrounding the constructed nature of "reality," etc. But in practice - and here I speak from my former incarnation as a student of literature and budding lit crit - it tends towards clever punning, insular and politically pointless rhetorical freeplay, the questioning of class as a political category (can't allow those transcendental narratives, those myths of universalism, to stand!), an aesthete's appreciation of fragmentation, a confirmation of individualism and subjectivity (all under the properly ironic "erasure" of course), a refusal of the imagined utopias that make political action possible - well I could go on, but you get the idea. Doug Henwood [dhenwood@panix.com] From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed May 4 07:59:21 1994 Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 07:59:21 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: Re: Derrida and Marx Just a point of detail - I didn't write the D/M posting, and I didn't do the translations. I just hit my forward key and added the "Wow, comrades" remark. Doug Henwood [dhenwood@panix.com] From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed May 4 06:58:02 1994 Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 06:58:02 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "Alan G. Isaac" Subject: Re: Derrida (fwd) Doesn't it make more sense to look for "liberatory" potential in Enlightenment humanism with its notions of the "equal respect" due to all? With its anti-foundationalist leanings, PM lays claim to ideas of "equal" respect only by undermining the notion of respect. As Harvey effectively argues in his recent book, the use of PM in leftist critiques is an historical accident, and we can expect equally effective reactionary exploitation of the PM perspectives. Let's not forget that there is nothing particularly pomo about uncovering what is hidden behind experience: this is the essence of the modern project. --Alan G. Isaac From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed May 4 08:24:38 1994 Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 08:24:38 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: RE: Derrida (fwd) On Tue, May 3 1994, Pete Bratsis wrote: > One can even note a kernal of deconstruction in Marx (i.e. the famous ch. 1 > of the first volume of Capital). To oversimplify a bit (hell, the medium demands it), Marx was trying to find a unity, a structure, an essence behind the fragmented appearance of the market - to find compulsion behind an illusory freedom. The decons/pomos are always trying to pick apart illusory unities, dethrone transcendental narratives, attack the notion of essence. The decon notion of freeplay is not unlike conventional ideas of the market, is it? Doug Henwood From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed May 4 09:43:49 1994 Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 09:43:49 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: egglesto@inst.augie.edu (Brian Eggleston) Subject: PoMo In his introduction to the SUNY series in Constructive Postmodern Thought, editor David Ray Griffin, suggests that there are (at least) two postmodernisms. One, which he argues is closely related to the "literary-artistic postmodernism" is what he terms "deconstructive or eliminative postmodernism." This is the PoMo of Derrida and other French thinkers. The other postmodernism is "constructive or revisionary postmodernism" which he argues "provides support for the ecology, peace, feminist and other emancipatory movements of our time, while stressing that the inclusive emancipation must be from modernity itself." Perhaps this distinction is a useful one. Brian Eggleston From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed May 4 13:32:40 1994 Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 13:32:40 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "R. Anders Schneiderman" Subject: Postmodernism and Politics (was Derrida) Steve Cullenberg wrote: Postmodernism may or may not be used politically. I can only offer some prima facie circumstantial evidence now. The journal "Rethinking Marxism", of which I am an editor, could be fairly described, I think, as generally supporting a postmodern Marxism (I don't know what my co-editors think). Unless we are either self-delusional or entirely non-political, there must on the face of it then be something Marxists can learn from postmodernism. [ he then cited a book that's about to come out about the New World Order] This, it seems to me, is the crux of the issue of postmodernism: how do you define whether it is "politically useful"? Steve seems to be defining it in terms of whether it has created more sophisticated theorizing (if I'm way off base, please say so). In that sense, I'd say that postmodernism as a whole has quite been useful in certain areas, such as epistemology. However, when it comes to its impact on politics, I'd say the record is pretty clear in the U.S. In the 1980s, postmodernism swept many campuses, and most young leftwingers at many colleges got a good dose of it. Many young Lefties, such as myself, learned postmodernism first and marxism later. What was the political result? At a time when the U.S. finance system was becoming wildly postmodern, costing taxpayers billions of dollars via the S&L bailout, etc., most of my postmodern friends had not a clue as to what was happening. Why? Because most strands of postmodernism taught on campuses made students very literate on epistemological issues and almost completely illiterate when it came to economic issues such as the system of finance. We could endlessly deconstruct literary texts or reconstruct hidden "resistences", but when we talked about the world of economics, we had been given, at best, vulgar Marxist tools that were pretty much useless. Frankly, we'd have been better off reading Business Week than Derrida, Foucault, the French Femminists, etc. So, when someone can come up with some concrete examples of how "postmodernism" has produced theorizing/ways of seeing the world that were more useful in actual political struggles than the theorizing which came before postmodernism, I'll go back to taking it seriously. So far, the only practical consequence I've seen of postmodern theory was that it gave English majors with whom I went to college the right frame of mind to be good investment brokers (which more than a few of them did). Until Postmodern Lefty types can do better than that, they should stop whining about not being taken seriously. Anders Schneiderman Center for Community Economic Research / U.C Berkeley Sociology Recovering Postmodernist From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed May 4 15:06:03 1994 Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 15:06:03 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: scullen@ucrac1.ucr.edu (Steve Cullenberg) Subject: Politics and Postmodernism With all due respect to Anders Schneiderman, students on campuses did not understand the complexities and crises of the financial system long before postmodernism and Derrida found their way onto the scene. It is true that postmodernism has probably not informed directly many political struggles outside the academy, but neither has Marxist theory, post-Keynesian theory, and so on. The problem is, I think, that too many see theory as something that is to be applied rather than done. Politics takes place at many sites and has various effectivities. The academy, the street, and the Congress are all worthy, different, and important places to struggle. The influence of the Left in so-called popular or electoral struggles in this country is not noted for its great success, and I think it would be folly to lay the blame of this lack of success at the feet of Derrida. In the academy, however, something as seemingly esoteric as Derrida's attack on logocentrism years ago has provided theoretical space (and subsequently, institutional space) for many of the multicultural and feminist theories of recent years (and it is not only French feminists - before you sneer too much you might want to look at the collection in Linda Nicholson's book _Feminism/Postmodernism_ and many of the essays in Ferber and Nelson's _Beyond Economic Man_, especially by Diana Strassmann and Rhonda Williams). George Will knows the political import of these developments. I guess he must figure it out from reading Business Week. Steve Cullenberg From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed May 4 18:57:30 1994 Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 18:57:30 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Nathan Newman Subject: Re: Politics and Postmodernism On Wed, May 4 1994, Steve Cullenberg wrote: > With all due respect to Anders Schneiderman, students on campuses did not > understand the complexities and crises of the financial system long before > postmodernism and Derrida found their way onto the scene. The point is that one would hope that the emergence of a stronger left in the academy would have led to less ignorance on that point. Instead, most postmodernist students became less interested in such questions, seeing them as secondary to the "more important" epistemological questions. > Politics takes place at many sites and has various effectivities. The > academy, the street, and the Congress are all worthy, different, and > important places to struggle. Yes, this is the point of disagreement. The academy unto itself is not a co-equal point of struggle. To argue that it is is to create an equivalence between the struggles of farmworkers with brutal contractor and the relatively comfortable tenure struggles in the academy. It is an excuse for the privileged in the academic grove to ignore those harder struggles in the streets in the name of fighting "their own struggle" at the University. In the words of Liberation Theology, I do believe in a "preferential option for the poor" and those in more privileged positions have an option not to just struggle among the elite, but must leverage those elite resources for those desperate for the prestige and resources the academy or any other elite position can contribute to their struggle. The influence of the Left in so-called > popular or electoral struggles in this country is not noted for its great > success, and I think it would be folly to lay the blame of this lack of > success at the feet of Derrida. That is a contestable issue. The rise of the CIO had strong left influence just as the Great Society had strong progressive activity behind it. To use the lesser success of the US left to justify even less activity by academics in popular movements seems like pure rationalization to me. > In the academy, however, something as seemingly esoteric as Derrida's > attack on logocentrism years ago has provided theoretical space (and > subsequently, institutional space) for many of the multicultural and > feminist theories of recent years (and it is not only French feminists - > before you sneer too much you might want to look at the collection in Linda > Nicholson's book _Feminism/Postmodernism_ and many of the essays in Ferber > and Nelson's _Beyond Economic Man_, especially by Diana Strassmann and > Rhonda Williams). George Will knows the political import of these > developments. I guess he must figure it out from reading Business Week. And I generally think that only the hard-right and the postmodern left recognize the import of these developments. Most left activists "in the streets" generally find the whole postmodern obsesssion to be an elitist and usually irrelevant factor in their lives and work. Civil rights has not been fought for based on deconstruction but on mass struggle, just as feminist and gay rights were won in the streets and in mass mobilization. Yes, theory and academics contributed to those struggles, but only to the extent that they leveraged the prestige of the academy to intervenee in public discourse. It is the narcisism and almost belligerent unintelligibility of postmodern theory that I object to. --Nathan Newman From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 05:47:29 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 05:47:29 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: Re: PoMo What does it mean that emancipation must be from modernity itself? This is the disturbing subtext in much leftish pomoismo. Does modernity mean the inheritance of Enlightenment rationalism, which is to be attacked in itself rather than in its distorted instrumentalist form (a la the Frankfurters)? Does it mean industrial civilization itself rather than its distorted class forms? Does it mean the idea of progress, in the name of antiteleological particularist freeplay? If this be the good postmodernism, gimme the Grundrisse. Doug Henwood [dhenwood@panix.com] From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 06:43:01 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 06:43:01 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: Re: Postmodernism and Politics (was Derrida) On Wed, May 4 1994, R. Anders Schneiderman wrote: > system was becoming wildly postmodern, costing taxpayers billions of > dollars via the S&L bailout, etc., most of my postmodern friends had not a > clue as to what was happening. Why? Because most strands of > postmodernism taught on campuses made students very literate on > epistemological issues and almost completely illiterate when it came to > economic issues such as the system of finance. We could endlessly > deconstruct literary texts or reconstruct hidden "resistences", but when > we talked about the world of economics, we had been given, at best, vulgar > Marxist tools that were pretty much useless. Frankly, we'd have been > better off reading Business Week than Derrida, Foucault, the French > Femminists, etc. Ah but you'd be even better off reading LBO! Doug Henwood [dhenwood@panix.com] From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 08:03:33 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 08:03:33 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Trond Andresen Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies My experience is that you acquire your values, outlook, political affiliation, ideology during the first half of the twenties. Then your mind is volatile. After that the mind stiffens, and you just go on keeping what you acquired during the twenties. The radical wave of the 70'ies took off around 1970 (not 68, as in France) in Scandinavia. I was 23 in 1970, therefore I am a 47 year-old brain-washed with revolutionary marxism for life. This has a bearing on PoMo. In parallell with the 80'ies Reagan/Thatcher wave in politics and economics, which was also manifest in Norway, we had a wave of PoMo ideology and philosophy in academia: Nothing and everything is true, enlightenment and rationalism is unfeasible, the concept of progress is naive, humans are inherently irrational, etc. I am no specialist in philosophy, but I found a lot of the 80-ies PoMo proponents reactionary and/or comical, sitting around in Cafes , dropping names and words (Derrida, Lyotard, deconstruction, etc. ) for everyone to hear. I suspect many of them didn't even understand what they themselves were saying/writing, but then again, that should be in the best PoMo tradition, or what?? They had only contempt for such trivia as working people, poverty, solidarity, political action. To me, as yours truly brain-washed dogmatic marxist, this was just another case of the emperor's new clothes again, not qualitatively different from earlier narcissistic intellectual exercises in history. IMO PoMo was extremely useful for the rulers as a fashionable academic pastime in those times. Today I call those poseurs for 86-ers, in analogy with the revolutionaries of the 70'ies which in Norway (misleadingly after the Paris riots) are called 68'ers. The 86'ers are more or less, but irrevocably, stamped with Thatherism in economics and PoMO'ism ideologically. They will have an increasing influence in some ways, even if the Thatcherism/PoMo wave has passed, since they are rising to gradually more important posts in media and academia. Sigh. still 68 after all those years, ;-) Trond Andresen (Trond.Andresen@itk.unit.no) From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 09:40:55 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 09:40:55 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Pete Bratsis Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies For all the bashing and assertions of nihlism, 'postmodern social theory' has not resulted in one gulag, in one vanguardist party, etc. So, those who hold a 'post-modernist'/boutgeois false consciousness may indeed be less of a threat to workers than the 'real' revolutionaries. PETER BRATSIS, GRAD. CENTER, CUNY From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 11:14:01 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 11:14:01 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Jim Devine Subject: Re: Postmodernism and Politics (was Derrida) On Wed, May 4 1994, R. Anders Schneiderman wrote: > > Frankly, we'd have been > better off reading Business Week than Derrida, Foucault, the French > Femminists, etc. I don't know about the French variety, but reading feminist literature has really helped my understanding of the world and my politics. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine BITNET: jndf@lmuacad INTERNET: jdevine@lmumail.lmu.edu From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 11:40:03 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 11:40:03 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Jim Devine Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies On Thu, May 5 1994 09:55:02 -0700 Pete Bratsis said: >For all the bashing and assertions of nihlism, 'postmodern social theory' >has not resulted in one gulag, in one vanguardist party, etc. So, >those who hold a 'post-modernist'/boutgeois false consciousness >may indeed be less of a threat to workers than the 'real' revolutionaries. > Astrology hasn't produced any gulags, either! But is that an argument in favor of astrology? Marxism (or at least Marx's version) is part of the Enlightenment rationalist/empiricist tradition. The gulag-builders broke with that tradition. The PoMo folks (or at least the ones with which I am familiar) also broke with that tradition, but at least they haven't built any gulags. But what about going back to the non- gulag-building Enlightenment perspective of Marx (updated, of course, in light of the history of the last 130 years)? BTW, it's Marx's birthday today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARL! (we May forgot day. Sorry.) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine BITNET: jndf@lmuacad INTERNET: jdevine@lmumail.lmu.edu From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 12:03:30 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 12:03:30 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Nathan Newman Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies On Thu, May 5 1994, Pete Bratsis wrote: > For all the bashing and assertions of nihlism, 'postmodern social theory' > has not resulted in one gulag, in one vanguardist party, etc. So, > those who hold a 'post-modernist'/boutgeois false consciousness > may indeed be less of a threat to workers than the 'real' revolutionaries. It also hasn't led to one union, one community-organization fighting for basic social services or any mobilization to stop a war. It is exactly the sanctimonious "my hands are clean" reactionary passivity that makes postmodern theory so reprehensible. --Nathan Newman From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 12:51:02 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 12:51:02 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "R. Anders Schneiderman" Subject: Re: Postmodernism and Politics (was Derrida) On Thu, May 5 1994, Jim Devine wrote: > On Wed, 4 May 1994, R. Anders Schneiderman wrote: > > Frankly, we'd have been > > better off reading Business Week than Derrida, Foucault, the French > > Femminists, etc. > > I don't know about the French variety, but reading feminist literature > has really helped my understanding of the world and my politics. No question! There are plenty of Marxists in the U.S.--academics and activists--who use what some union folks call the "male, pale, and stale" approach. When I attacked postmodernism, I certainly wasn't attacking femininism or multiculturalism. One of the good things about academia in the 80s was that it did help to produce a generation of college-educated activists who try to take race, class and gender seriously (or at least give lip service to it :) ). If only pomo as a whole had given us similar tools. In Virtual Solidarity, Anders Schneiderman Center for Community Economic Research U.C. Berkeley From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 13:55:09 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 13:55:09 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: A_CALLARI@ACAD.FANDM.EDU Subject: RE: PoMo in the 90'ies There have been many messages about Derrida/Marx, postmodernism, deconstruction, politics, etc. I have not yet responded to many of the messages critical of and dubious about the intellectual and political usefulness of postmodernism for the left and fior Marxism because I have not had the time to sit down and compose responses to arguments I have taken seriously; there have been important philosophical (nihilism, the enlightenment, rationalism ..) and theoretical and political arguments that DESERVE the best reasoned response I can offer--and, having risen to the defense and promotion of Derrida originally, I will indeed soon take the time to respond. But, I do feel compelled to make the following point now; although some of the critics of pomo-deconst-etc. have tried to engage in a discussion, others have felt free to resort to invective, which is unjustifiable given that the discussion has already progressed to the point of understanding that there are different uses of po-mo/deconstr., some politically and theoretically debilitating, and some quite the contrary. So, it does not advance anything to keep on insisting on the network (the equivalent of making one's point by shouting in a group discussion??) that it is so clear that postmodernism is a [necessarily] reactionary movement. Is the intended consequence of this posture to close off discussion? On what grounds, that we already know everything we need to know to be good leftists? that would seem preposterous to me, given the state of the left. These are times that requires to be open, innovative, even self-critical (while, all along remaining committed and optimistic), not closed in formulas and agendas which, for a variety of reasons, have not produced the result. If the left was not able to stop the Thatechers and the Reagans and their world counterparts, isn't it at least plausible to think that the theoretical tools at its disposal need to be reexamined [which is what Marx did after 1848, anyway]? As to whether postmodernism can contribute to the work of the left, I will respond, as I already indicate, more at length later [I hope I can keep my promise]; but here is an exampleof how even in literary studies (which have been a focus of criticism by those who have equated postmodernism with a reactionary dilettantism among literature students]: I think there has been a lot of work by people informed by postmodernism on native/indigenous literary traditions throught the third world, work which can give a sense of history to peoples whose identities were historically [BY FORCE] obliterated by the march of PROGRESS [POLITICAL COMMERCE]; one of the latest issues of the Journal BOUNDARY TWO, put out by Duke University Press, and edited by a progressive group of people in English and literature {Paul Bove, Joe Buttigieg, etc..} was devoted to postmodernism in latin america and its contributions to struggles of liberation there. So, prerhaps in the cafes of Berkeley and of Oslo pomo may have been one thing; but in the streets of La Paz (or in my own political work of forging an alliance of race and gender with class issues) it is an altogether different thing. The total rejection of it by some seems unreasonable to me; it reminds me of the attitude of rejecting mathematics (or read any X) because some people have used it in reactionary ways. It is up to the us to see the liberatory potential in pomo (and anywhere else) and promote it, not throw away. LET A THOUSAND FLOWERS BLOOM?? Antonio Callari From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 16:02:45 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 16:02:45 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: GSKILLMAN@wesleyan.edu Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies > > For all the bashing and assertions of nihlism, 'postmodern social theory' > > has not resulted in one gulag, in one vanguardist party, etc. So, > > those who hold a 'post-modernist'/boutgeois false consciousness > > may indeed be less of a threat to workers than the 'real' revolutionaries. > > It also hasn't led to one union, one community-organization fighting for > basic social services or any mobilization to stop a war. > > It is exactly the sanctimonious "my hands are clean" reactionary > passivity that makes postmodern theory so reprehensible. > > --Nathan Newman A partial, but less emphatic, corroboration of Nathan's point based on my own experience. I've found that those immersed in the post- modern framework are great at deconstruction but fairly useless at [re]construction. They offer what are often remarkably insightful criticisms of whatever mode of analysis might be offered--in the context of my experience, mainstream, neo-institutionalist, or Marxian--but when they are then asked, "Okay, what do *you* think we should do?", they have absolutely nothing coherent to say. I say this confessing my ignorance about the two "branches" of postmodernism identified in an earlier PEN post. Does the "progressive" branch avoid such stasis? Gil [gskillman@eagle.wesleyan.edu] From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 18:55:49 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 18:55:49 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: HANLY@BrandonU.CA Subject: Postmodernism and Epistemology Those philosophers in the analytic tradition would claim that post-modernist authors are almost completely ignorant of the field of epistemology and there are plenty of anthologies of what is regarded as important recent work in epistemology which contain no representation from key post-modern authors. I used a text by Keith Lehrer, THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE, Westview 1990 in a recent course in epistemology. In the index of names there is no entry under Derrida, Foucault, Habermas, or any post-modernist writer. If you read the post-modernists you find little if any reference to significant recent writers in epistemology: Fred Dretske, Alvin Goldman, R. Chisholm, E. Gettier, N. Rescher, W.V.O. Quine, D. Kaplan, S. Kripke, R. Nozick--who if mentioned at all will be thought of as a social philosopher, John Pollock,William Alston, D. Armstrong, Norman Malcolm, and oodles of others. Nor will these writers usually make any reference to post-modernist writers. Far from stressing epistemology, post-modernists are quite ignorant of it as far as the analytic tradition is concerned. In spite of post-modernist's concern with language, with a few exceptions such as Derrida's work on Austin and Habermas' use (or misuse) of John Searle, there is an abysmal lack of knowledge of what has gone on in the philosophy of language within the analytic tradition as well. Cheers, Ken Hanly From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 17:53:35 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 17:53:35 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: scullen@ucrac1.ucr.edu (Steve Cullenberg) Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies I find Gil's concern that deconstruction and postmodernism are simply forms of critique, puzzling. First, I think he is basically right as a characterization, but since when is critique not also an affirmative (and political) move as well (I am thinking of critique here not simply as a statement like "I don't like it", but as an unpacking, a fundamental challenge, a juxtaposition). After all, Gil, the many comments you have made on general equilibrium theory are nothing if not critique in this sense. Certainly, you are not describing the world, or offering an alternative set of policies, but imploring us to think in a certain way and not in another. Again, if this is not critique (and valuable critique), then I don't know what is. Deconstruction is a way of reading texts (written and otherwise) which in part seeks to find binary oppositions and show how they are structured hierarchically, and then to explode this hierarchy (a method of reading, as Antonio Callari pointed out, not far from Marx's injunction to criticize everything). Or take Derrida's concept of "differance." Derrida uses this concept to deconstruct Western philosphy with its logocentrism in which methaphysical notions of center, origin, and essence are determined in relation to an ontological center, which represses absence and difference for the sake metaphysical stability (and dominance). Perhaps there is not a proactive, detailed agenda here, but in the battle of "how to think", and what is accepted as "good arguemnt", I think the political import of this "critique" should be clear, no? Steve Cullenberg >A partial, but less emphatic, corroboration of Nathan's point based >on my own experience. I've found that those immersed in the post- >modern framework are great at deconstruction but fairly useless at >[re]construction. They offer what are often remarkably insightful >criticisms of whatever mode of analysis might be offered--in the >context of my experience, mainstream, neo-institutionalist, or >Marxian--but when they are then asked, "Okay, what do *you* >think we should do?", they have absolutely nothing coherent to say. Steve Cullenberg Department of Economics University of California Riverside, CA 92521 From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 18:29:01 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 18:29:01 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Anthony D'Costa" Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies (Long!) This discussion has been quite enlightening. I have been a part of a year-long colloquium at the University of Washington that is titled "Reassessing the Project of Modernity." Speakers from a variety of schools, mainly political scientists, and lately anthropologists, attempted to provide a basis for this discourse. I am torn between different strands of the pomo position, just like many card carrying members of pen-l. If we take pomo as a tool for deconstruction (which most marxists employ for analyzing the bourgeois economy or entrpreneurial as per Paul) then certainly it is a useful tool. As someone recently mentioned (pardon my hastiness in using the "d" button) that pomo is extremely important for the so-called Third World, feminist movements, etc. The voluminous literature on subaltern studies (especially from India) is an indication that the "oppressed" need a voice that can mount an attack on the structures of status quo. While pomo at the academic level is often abstract, jargon-laden, and difficult, at a more tangible level, praxis if you will, it has its place. Pomo essentially is against any totalizing ideology. But this is where (my) problems begin. Pomo is against modernity because the latter conveyed a totalizing ideology (industrialization, the state, violence against fellow beings, nature)--in short it was a "secular theory of salvation" to use one Indian scholar's perspective on "modernity." Modernization, like Marx's view on British India, promised redemption from hunger, malnutrition, and oppression... We all know how that turned out to be. Yet, according to Bruce Cumings this totalizing ideology of modernity has been replaced by another totalizing ideology, namely, that of the market. So as some have been referring to bankers, etc. must be referring to it. There are two issues here: one we can begin to describe new institutions, processes, etc. on the basis of pomo (which are different from mod), the other we can say pomo (however described) is better (for whatever reason) than mod. The problem, IMHO, is that many on pen-l have correctly identified the lack of any "reconstructive" politics in pomo. But these comrades assume, for lack of a better term, that modernity is preferable, which incidentally includes all the elements enshrined in "the secular theory of salvation." What that means is that political praxis should encourage "deconstruction" but only to the extent that reconstruction is possible. But the idea of reconstruction as used by some is embedded in the idea of egalitarianism, relativism if you will. And increasingly pomo begins to look like mod (and vice versa) because of this singular vision of society, although in a more nuanced way. Since pomo takes on, not always, a form of crass relativism, many on the left are critical of it. But what about oppressed groups who deconstruct a world that is not theirs? Pomo in a praxis sense certainly helps. On the other hand, without a hierarchy of goals, practicing pomo could very well be destructive. The point is that the left also roots its liberating ideas on the principles of egalitarianism (a flattening of hierarchies that binds a society together) and hence shares the basic foundation of pomo. This I believe is an erroneous social organizing principle. Without hierarchies, without priorities, without "imagined communities" societies simply become dysfunctional. Anthony D'Costa From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 19:58:16 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 19:58:16 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "R. Anders Schneiderman" Subject: RE: PoMo in the 90'ies On Thu, May 5 1994 A_CALLARI@ACAD.FANDM.EDU wrote: > which, for a variety of reasons, have not produced the result. If the left > was not able to stop the Thatechers and the Reagans and their world > counterparts, isn't it at least plausible to think that the theoretical > tools at its disposal need to be reexamined [which is what Marx did after > 1848, anyway]? Yes, and since pomo was one of the major tools at the disposal of young college-educated U.S. activists in the 80s, I don't think it's unfair to ask how useful it was in their analysis and political action. > As to whether postmodernism can contribute to the work of the left, I will > respond, as I already indicate, more at length later [I hope I can keep my > promise]; but here is an exampleof how even in literary studies (which have > been a focus of criticism by those who have equated postmodernism with a > reactionary dilettantism among literature students]: I think there has been > a lot of work by people informed by postmodernism on native/indigenous > literary traditions throught the third world, work which can give a sense > of history to peoples whose identities were historically [BY FORCE] > obliterated by the march of PROGRESS [POLITICAL COMMERCE]; one of the > latest issues of the Journal BOUNDARY TWO, put out by Duke University > Press, and edited by a progressive group of people in English and > literature {Paul Bove, Joe Buttigieg, etc..} was devoted to postmodernism > in latin america and its contributions to struggles of liberation there. > [...] > thing; but in the streets of La Paz (or in my own political work of forging > an alliance of race and gender with class issues) it is an altogether > different thing. I look forward to your longer response. What I would particularly appreciate is a brief discussion of exactly how pomo analyses have led to insights that a) were superior to what Marxism, non-pomo feminism, and other non-pomo theories could easily provide and b) how these insights helped guide political strategy. I would also greatly appreciate it if you could do so without the extensive use of jargon--pomo, Marxist, or otherwise. The reason I make this request is that often when pomos cite pomo work which is politically useful, the work isn't that different (at least as far as I can tell) from non-pomo analyses; it just uses slightly different language. I was also unclear from your post whether pomo analyses are being used in the Third World by political movements (e.g., whether it's being used as a way of thinking about political strategy by members of these movements). My main problem with pomo isn't that I think it's inherently reactionary but rather the particular way it shaped the political thinking of the college-educated part of my generation in the 1980s. My experience was that it did much more harm than good. Anders Schneiderman Center for Community Economic Research UC Berkeley From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 5 20:52:53 1994 Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 20:52:53 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "R. Anders Schneiderman" Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies On Thu, May 5 1994, Steve Cullenberg wrote: > Deconstruction is a way of reading texts (written and otherwise) which in > part seeks to find binary oppositions and show how they are structured > hierarchically, and then to explode this hierarchy (a method of reading, as > Antonio Callari pointed out, not far from Marx's injunction to criticize > everything). Or take Derrida's concept of "differance." Derrida uses this > concept to deconstruct Western philosphy with its logocentrism in which > methaphysical notions of center, origin, and essence are determined in > relation to an ontological center, which represses absence and difference > for the sake metaphysical stability (and dominance). Perhaps there is not > a proactive, detailed agenda here, but in the battle of "how to think", and > what is accepted as "good arguemnt", I think the political import of this > "critique" should be clear, no? If it's clear to you, could you please explain it to me? Perhaps I'm missing a more subtle point here, but it seems to me that deconstruction boils down to this: all systems of thought which offer suggestions for guiding our action are based on a structured hierarchy of oppositions which is internally contradictory. I'm fully willing to accept that. So, what's the political implication? That you can't always be right? That nobody has a perfect plan? That there are always internal inconsistencies, contradictions, etc.? Aside from teaching a little humility (not that it has to most pomos!), what "political import" does it offer? I ask this not as someone who has never taken pomo seriously but as someone who took it very seriously in college, and then got tired of the fact that this seemed to be mostly what pomo had to offer. As someone whose first political memory was Watergate, as part of a generation that assumes that most politicians, community leaders, and activists are hypocrites and that things are probably just going to get worse, the idea that Western civilization--indeed, all great philosophies of the world--fell apart if you looked at it hard enough was just a confirmation of the cynicism and pessimism around me (although it was also a great way to piss off many adults). In college, the most influential radical teachers were pomo, and they taught us to look down upon those poor, dumb Marxists who actually thought they understood reality (a theme hammered home in most of the pomo books we read). When I got to grad school and carefully read Marx and Marxists for the first time, one passage struck a chord: "the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." That's when I decided it was time to chuck pomo, even though I shared all of its epistemological assumptions. So far, no one's given me any reason to think I was wrong to do so. Anders Schneiderman Center for Community Economic Research UC Berkeley From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 01:09:55 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 01:09:55 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Michael Lichter Subject: Re: PoMo Doug Henwood [dhenwood@panix.com] What does it mean that emancipation must be from modernity itself? This is the disturbing subtext in much leftish pomoismo. Does modernity mean the inheritance of Enlightenment rationalism, which is to be attacked in itself rather than in its distorted instrumentalist form (a la the Frankfurters)? Does it mean industrial civilization itself rather than its distorted class forms? Does it mean the idea of progress, in the name of antiteleological particularist freeplay? If this be the good postmodernism, gimme the Grundrisse. No offense, but I have a feeling that not everybody on this list is at the same level with regard to this discussion. What is the "distorted instrumentalist form" of Enlightenment rationality, vs. (I guess) the undistorted non-instrumentalist form? Are you talking about determinism (e.g. "... proceding with iron necessity ...") or something else? Michael From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 06:10:15 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 06:10:15 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies On Thu, May 5 1994, Pete Bratsis wrote: > For all the bashing and assertions of nihlism, 'postmodern social theory' > has not resulted in one gulag, in one vanguardist party, etc. So, > those who hold a 'post-modernist'/boutgeois false consciousness > may indeed be less of a threat to workers than the 'real' revolutionaries. Are those the choices? The status quo, postmodernism, or the gulag? Will the freeplay of fragmented discourses feed the hungry? Doug Henwood [dhenwood@panix.com] Left Business Observer From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 06:57:00 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 06:57:00 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: medley@usm.maine.edu (Joseph Medley) Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies Anders Schneiderman writes: > When I got to grad school and carefully read Marx >and Marxists for the first time, one passage struck a chord: "the >philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, >however, is to change it." That's when I decided it was time to chuck >pomo, even though I shared all of its epistemological assumptions. So >far, no one's given me any reason to think I was wrong to do so. Have you (not just Anders) really chucked all of pomo and its effects? Perhaps you've thoroughly deconstructed it? Or have you transcended/absorbed its (ir)rational kernal? Or stood it on its head? Or feet? :-) Please excuse the further twisting of already worn phrases. People, like Marx, use them to acknowledge an effect (whether it's a true intellectual debt or merely a borrowing or an informed opposition). Marx acknowledged his debts to the "philosophers" many times, in many places. Yet he insistently stressed he was about something "more". I agree with Anders, something more has to be added (and in opposition) to what the "high" pomos do-- but I do not see that that precludes acknowledging various positive _aspects_ of their work. Vehement dismissals of pomo, by former pomos especially, remind me of those who have "quit" (the CP, Maoist factions, smoking...): the effects are so close and strong they must (can't) be denied, vigorously, in order to create space for the new. Is there something of that (among many of us, on various "sides") in this discussion? Joseph E. Medley Economics University of Southern Maine From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 08:34:50 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 08:34:50 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Blair Sandler Subject: re: Darwin and Marx Tom Womeldorff writes, "In fact, Marx wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin but Darwin wouldn't let him." This is false. Read Dominique Lecourt's article in RETHINKING MARXISM 5:4 (Winter 1992), "Marx in the Sieve of Darwin," where he cites the work of Thomas Caroll and Ralph Colph, Jr. Darwin's letter was a response to Edward Aveling, who intended to publish a series of Darwin's articles in a volume and asked him for a preface. Aveling, recall, was the guardian of Marx's writings, which is how the letter from Darwin to Aveling ended up in Marx's correspondence. Lecourt writes, "What is important here is that this anecdote recording Marx's offer and Darwin's refusal, totally fictive though it is, has been set forth as the truth for a hundred years, against the retrospectively flagrant evidence of the literal inconsistencies on which it rested. We must say that even after 1975, after the truth was reestablished, the story has continued to thrive: there is no shortage of authors who continue to repeat it, as if nothing had changed" (1992, 8). Regards. Blair Sandler From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 09:25:41 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 09:25:41 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "Peter.Dorman" <23215MGR@msu.edu> Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies I have been patiently following this debate on pomo, but now I must join it or begin grading right away... I have two major gripes with pomo. (1) I think that, in practice, it tends to cede far too much ground to "ruling" discourses, such as neoclassical economics. There is a tendency to avoid contesting their claims on their own terms, instead retreating to a position like, "You believe this only because of your linguistic framework." Well, yes, but doesn't it also matter that the arguments of orthodox economists are vulnerable on logical and empirical grounds? After all, our linguistic frameworks (as pomos cheerfully point out) are equally open to attack. Let me put it differently: to seriously challenge mainstream economics on such grounds as adherence to the evidence and appropriateness of assumptions requires a great deal of work and exposes us to the risk of error and embarrassment. My sense is that pomo is attractive precisely because it offers an apparently fool-proof formula for dismissing the mainstream without doing the work or taking the risks. In doing so, however, it yields the terrain of conventional economic debate to conservatives--a price I am unwilling to pay. (2) Pomo tends to be absolutist in its own "narrative". In particular, it fails to recognize the possibility of an intermediate position between hard-and-fast meta-narratives (like Marxism qua "scientific socialism") and the radically relativist, decentered worldview said to remain after all else has been deconstructed. The best intellectual work, in my opinion, however, has alway been in the middle ground: *tentative* (and context-specific) hypotheses regarding what is central, taxonomies with zones of ambiguity, etc. As a critique of the most arrogant modernist pretentions, pomo is right on; as a sweeping indictment of every attempt at structure and meaning, not good. Having said this, I find much pomo-ish writing to be poetic and the pomo mood salutory when not overburdened with academic finery. Peter Dorman From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 10:41:41 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 10:41:41 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Jim Devine Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies (Long!) some thoughts inspired by Anthony D'Costa's missive, but neither arguing nor agreeing with it: PoMo is opposed to totalizing ideology. But why does one need PoMo to oppose totalizing ideology? Non-PoMo thinkers such as Bowles & Gintis (DEMOCRACY & CAPITALISM) and Albert & Hahnel (UNORTHODOX MARXISM and a host of other books) oppose totalizing ideology, including totalizing Marxism, and do so in a very readable way (unlike the PoMo theorists I've tried to read, except for Resnick & Wolff, who write pretty well). More to my taste is Mike Lebowitz's BEYOND CAPITAL. In my inter- pretation, he criticizes those Marxists who make the mistake of seeing Marx's CAPITAL as the whole story of Marxism's vision of capitalism. But that book simply represents the "political economy of capital" without including Marx's "political economy of wage labor" and is thus an incomplete version of Marx's theory. Those who see CAPITAL as the whole story pick up the fact that Marx saw *capitalism* as totalizing, as relentlessly trying to absorb the world (both natural and human) into its "modernist" project, among other things reducing everything to the status of mere commodities. Some Marxists -- the gulag builders -- thought that what the left should do is imitate this totalizing project but in a "socialist" way, specifically in order to "develop" or "modernize" poor countries such as Russia. But Marx's own vision was not totalizing or totalitarian. Because the "political economy of wage-labor" is inherently *human* and thus pluralist (or as some say, de-centered). People refuse, or try to refuse, to be put into the little commodity boxes that capitalism tries to stuff us. For this reason and others, there is a possibility that a new kind of progress can be attained, not the "totalizing" or "modernizing" progress of capitalism or stalinism, but a humanizing, democratic, and pluralist progress of the struggle for socialism. (Again, the above is my interpretation of Mike's views rather than being his views.) BTW, it is common among the PoMo school and before them the New Left to trash the Old Left as reducing all issues to the class dimension, ignoring race, ethnic, gender, environment, etc. While there is a lot of truth to this critique, it is not the whole truth. For example, I recently saw the film "Salt of the Earth" (strangely, for the first time). I was expecting it to be very "Old Left" in the way described above. But it was very concious of the ethnic and feminist -- and human -- dimensions of the struggle. It entirely missed the environmental dimension of zinc-mining, but compared to the muddle the Left is in these days, it was pretty good. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine BITNET: jndf@lmuacad INTERNET: jdevine@lmumail.lmu.edu Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 12:08:38 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 12:08:38 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Louis N Proyect Subject: Postmodernism and idealism On Fri, May 6 1994, Jim Devine wrote that "Some Marxists -- the gulag builders -- thought that what the left should do is imitate this totalizing project but in a "socialist" way, specifically in order to "develop" or "modernize" poor countries such as Russia." *************** It's a mistake to blame the gulags on Marx. Ideas, whether they're 'totalizing' or not don't cause war, colonialism or police terror. Social and economic crisis does. By the same token, just because both Nietzsche and Hitler extolled 'splendid blond beasts' and Wagnerian operas, there's no point in trying to extrapolate Nazism from the Genealogy of Morals. Decades ago when I was an undergraduate, Daniel Bell, Hannah Arendt and Karl Popper were all the rage. They all had the same methodology: blame the horrors of the 20th century on post- Hegelian philosophy. The postmodernists, especially Lyotard, are in many ways simply recycling those ideas. There's an enormous temptation to try to understand the world in idealistic terms. This method goes all the way back to Plato and held sway until Marx who put ideology in its proper place. The problem with many of those who follow in Marx's tradition is their inability to think creatively and to update their thinking in line with changes in the real world. The fact that self-described Marxists missed the boat on environmentalism, feminism, etc. is not an indictment of Marx's method but simply reflects the tendency of some to view his writings as dogma, in the way that the Jesuits or Talmudists interpret scripture. From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 12:33:13 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 12:33:13 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "Alan G. Isaac" Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies On Thu, May 5 1994 18:08:00 -0700 Steve Cullenberg said: >Deconstruction is a way of reading texts (written and otherwise) which in >part seeks to find binary oppositions and show how they are structured >hierarchically, and then to explode this hierarchy (a method of reading, as >Antonio Callari pointed out, not far from Marx's injunction to criticize >everything). Or take Derrida's concept of "differance." Derrida uses this >concept to deconstruct Western philosphy with its logocentrism in which >methaphysical notions of center, origin, and essence are determined in >relation to an ontological center, which represses absence and difference >for the sake metaphysical stability (and dominance). Perhaps there is not >a proactive, detailed agenda here, but in the battle of "how to think", and >what is accepted as "good arguemnt", I think the political import of this >"critique" should be clear, no? Asolutely. Now we can dispense with such unfounded, euro-centric, hierarchical notions as justice and (substantive) equality... --Alan G. Isaac From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 12:57:13 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 12:57:13 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: FAC_BROSSER@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU Subject: postmodernism & idealism 6 points, 36 lines: I really shouldn't get into this one, but, hey everybody else has. 1) Anybody who reads "Nietsche Contra Wagner" will know the proper relation between the former, Wagnerian opera and Hitler. 2) Jesuits did not and do not interpret or give a d--- about scripture. They obey the Pope and follow his party line. It is fundamentalist Protestants, among Christians, who worry about scripture. 3) I have not read Derrida's latest, but it is pretty obvious to me that the method of, as Steve Cullenberg put it, analyzing contradictions in hierarchical structures and then blowing them apart certainly has Hegelian, if not Marxist, roots. I have always been struck by the continuity in French political philosophy/sociology/anthropology/psychology from (at least) Marcel Mauss forward through Levi-Strauss to the post-structuralist/ pomos. And yes, it is all very very idealistic. This may all go back to Descartes (before 'de horse':-)) ,in fact. 4) Although Marx rejected idealism (I would contest that he was the first to "put ideology in its place," try Aristotle), there certainly have been idealist Marxist movements, especially in the late nineteenth century. One can "rule them out," as insufficiently Marxist, but then that is indeed the "totalitarianism" that so many object to. 5) In general I like the position put forward by Peter Dorman on all this (Peter, do you forgive me for giving you such a hard time over AS-AD?). Pomo carried to extremes becomes nihilism, but pomo has served a useful purpose in teaching us how to deconstruct. 6) I further note that pomo nihilism begins to look a lot like neo-existentialism ("Everything is meaningless, I shall die alone. Should I kill May myself? be I'll create my own meaning!") that is now fashionable with "generation bof" in France (their "Generation X") signaled by the publication of Camus' new (old) novel. Derrida would deride Sartre, but they are blood brothers (or ideal brothers, despite Sartre's "existence before essence" reversed before the US Congress by Vaclav Havel). Whew! Barkley Rosser James Madison University From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 13:48:09 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 13:48:09 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: FAC_BROSSER@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU Subject: postmodernism & idealism (a correction) I should have said that Jesuits are _supposed_ to obey the Pope. Some do not, notably liberation theologists in some Latin American countries today with regard to the current Pope. My apologies to anyone who was offended by my careless remarks. Barkley Rosser JMU From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 15:25:42 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 15:25:42 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: Jim Devine Subject: Re: Postmodernism and idealism In criticism of something I said, On Fri, May 6 1994 12:24:04 -0700 Louis N Proyect said: >It's a mistake to blame the gulags on Marx. Ideas, whether they're >'totalizing' or not don't cause war, colonialism or police terror. >Social and economic crisis does. I didn't blame gulags on Marx. Au contraire. On the rest, I agree totally: social and economic crisis helped turn some people who started out as good followers of Marx into gulag-builders, while encouraging others (who weren't good followers of Marx) to rise to the top. I should have put quotation marks around the word "Marxists." I agree with the rest of the message, except that I'd put a slightly different spin on the following: >The >problem with many of those who follow in Marx's tradition is >their inability to think creatively and to update their thinking in >line with changes in the real world. The fact that self-described >Marxists missed the boat on environmentalism, feminism, etc. is >not an indictment of Marx's method but simply reflects the tendency of >some to view his writings as dogma, in the way that the Jesuits or >Talmudists interpret scripture. I've noticed that dogmatism and totalitarian mind-sets can afflict all different political perspectives, including the followers of Bell, Arendt, and Popper, given conditions of social and economic crisis. My impression is that Louis Proyect probably agree with this interpretation and that we don't have an argument. For those who missed it, Happy Birthday Marx! (born 5/5) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine BITNET: jndf@lmuacad INTERNET: jdevine@lmumail.lmu.edu Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 16:44:19 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 16:44:19 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: scullen@ucrac1.ucr.edu (Steve Cullenberg) Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies >Asolutely. Now we can dispense with such unfounded, euro-centric, >hierarchical notions as justice and (substantive) equality... > --Alan G. Isaac Well, Alan, I think we can question these notions of equality and justice, and in ways informed by postmodernism, Derrida, and Foucault, among others. Indeed, that is what lies at the base of critical legal theory (do we need to get into this now?), much feminist and race-based critiques of "justice" and "equality" (on a contemporary political level think only of Lani Guinier), or the critique of accounting practices as represented in left accounting journals like _Critical Accounting_ and _Organization, Accounting and Society_ (accountants, by the way, discovered, among others, Foucault, a long time ago). And, Marx, of course, knew there was never simply something called justice and equality, but that there was always already a class dimension to these concepts. Do you really think that "justice" and "equality" are really so transparent and straightforward virtues?? I find that shocking, if true, and therefore I must have missed your point. Steve Cullenberg Department of Economics University of California Riverside, CA 92521 From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 6 19:00:18 1994 Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 19:00:18 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: GSKILLMAN@wesleyan.edu Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies > I find Gil's concern that deconstruction and postmodernism are simply forms > of critique, puzzling. First, I think he is basically right as a > characterization, but since when is critique not also an affirmative (and > political) move as well (I am thinking of critique here not simply as a > statement like "I don't like it", but as an unpacking, a fundamental > challenge, a juxtaposition). After all, Gil, the many comments you have > made on general equilibrium theory are nothing if not critique in this > sense. Certainly, you are not describing the world, or offering an > alternative set of policies, but imploring us to think in a certain way and > not in another. Again, if this is not critique (and valuable critique), > then I don't know what is. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I have a problem with criticism! And certainly in offering comparative assessments of methodologies I don't _only_ have the idea of offering "an alternative set of policies", though they are there, and winnowing out methodological differences I see as tactical clearing ground for developing the theory that might promote those policies, or shall I say reconstructions (of property rights). However, as far as the program lying behind the facade of postmodernist criticism, I just don't know. In particular when Steve concludes... >....I think the political import of this "critique" should be >clear, no? I respond, in shame, alas, ....no. What exactly is its political import? Gil From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Sat May 7 10:02:34 1994 Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 10:02:34 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "Alan G. Isaac" Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies Dear Steve, Certainly the notion of justice is not simple. I think Enlightenment notions of equality as equal respect are _relatively_ straightforward, although--as, for example, illustrated by Rawls's work--there are many challenges in sorting even this out. But the point is not whether something is simple or not, the point is whether honest inquiry can actually discover a core to these concepts that is more than linguistic convention. Post-modernism is antagonistic to this possibility. And while it does present problems for the philosophical Marx--who I take it was talking about extant institutions of "justice" rather than the possibility of true justice in his critiques, but who similarly didn't shed much light on this possibility--it certainly didn't stop the pragmatic Marx from making scathing moral judgments. How can pomo's ever hope to have a _morally_ attractive concept of justice (rather than concepts that just appeal to individual aesthetic judgments)? --Alan G. Isaac From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Mon May 9 07:37:46 1994 Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 07:37:46 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: sffein@mail.wm.edu (susan feiner) Subject: derrida if an economist whose work was in the tradition of derrida actually managed to receive tenure and become a full professor would this be a po mo promo? new address: sffein@mail.wm.edu susan feiner From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Mon May 9 11:19:52 1994 Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 11:19:52 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: "Michael Lebowitz" Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies In Message Fri, 6 1994 May 10:44:51 -0700, Jim Devine writes: >More to my taste is Mike Lebowitz's BEYOND CAPITAL. In my inter- >pretation, he criticizes those Marxists who make the mistake >of seeing Marx's CAPITAL as the whole story of Marxism's vision >of capitalism. But that book simply represents the "political >economy of capital" without including Marx's "political economy >of wage labor" and is thus an incomplete version of Marx's >theory. Those who see CAPITAL as the whole story pick up the >fact that Marx saw *capitalism* as totalizing, as relentlessly >trying to absorb the world (both natural and human) into its >"modernist" project, among other things reducing everything >to the status of mere commodities. >But Marx's own vision was not totalizing or totalitarian. >Because the "political economy of wage-labor" is inherently >*human* and thus pluralist (or as some say, de-centered). >People refuse, or try to refuse, to be put into the little >commodity boxes that capitalism tries to stuff us. For this >reason and others, >there is a possibility that a new kind of progress can >be attained, not the "totalizing" or "modernizing" progress >of capitalism >or stalinism, but a humanizing, democratic, and pluralist >progress of the struggle for socialism. > >(Again, the above is my interpretation of Mike's views >rather than being his views.) > Once again, I owe Jim a beer. I also endorse his interpretation. I try to stay away from discussions of pomo. As Comrade Zippy the Pinhead correctly stated, "if you can't say something nice, say something surreal." cheers, mike Mike Lebowitz, Economics Dept.,Simon Fraser University From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 10 06:36:42 1994 Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 06:36:42 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: ENID@UTARLG.UTA.EDU Subject: Susan Feiner's query Susan Feiner raises an interesting question: "If an economist whose work was in the tradition of Derrida actually managed to receive tenure and become a full professor, would this be a pomo promo?" And I think she is *partially* correct, though not entirely, since our economist would then have received a "DECO-pomo promo"! Rob Garnett From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 10 14:14:40 1994 Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 14:14:40 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: SONDHEIM@newschool.edu Subject: Re: Politics and Postmodernism I came to this debate late, but there are a number of texts combining postmodernism and traditional geographis studies that are highly useful such as David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity, Mike Davis' City of Quartz, Ed Roha (sp? don't have it on me at the moment) Postmodern Geography. I would also include Ronell's The Telphone Book and Mark Poster's The Mode of Information, which takes off from the mode of production and combines it with postructuralist thought in a highly Useful way. Another concrete example is Ann Kaplan's book on MTV, Rocking Around the CLock (? - still at the computing center) which offers concrete analyses of MTV Culture using all sorts of postmodern toolkits. I find this work and similar useful for a number of reasons - first, it embraces the epistemology and psychology (psychoanalytics?) of telecommunications and their effect; second, it offers analyses of "nomadic" geographies in the midst of permanent nodes (i.e. think about Juarez above/beneath bridge traffic); third it correlates effects of popular culture and its imaginary with concrete social analysis; fourth, it is useful for considering phenomena such as GIS (Geographic Imaging Systems), the Internet itself, satellite location, and the effects of all of this on development/underdevelop- ment and modern warfare. Certainly there's a vulgar postmodernism, usually based on a distorted textuality plus art and architecture styles - all higly problematic; there's also a vulgar marxism, psycho- analysis, etc. But to "recover" from any one of these areas is to imply a sort of belief in the first place, nothing more... Alan Sondheim From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 10 14:39:30 1994 Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 14:39:30 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: SONDHEIM@newschool.edu Subject: Re: POMO One thing strikes me following this thread - although I have taught courses concerned with postmodernism, I'm not sure what pomo IS; it's not as if there is any canon of texts or the specificity of a thinker (Marx, Engels, etc.) one can reference. It's highly problematic to say that "pomo is" such-and-such; I've seen it used to justify just about anything, pro or con. What IS relevant is to discuss specific books, authors, theoretical positions; I tried to indicate something of that in a previous post ("postmodern geography"). Beyond this sort of admittedly constructed specificity, the term is vacuous. And if you really want to see jargon-oriented misuse of words/arguments/positions, etc. check out almost any artworld journal, although things are currently going the other way again. Theory is often seen as an "alternative" mode of description or align- ment, providing a subtext or substructrure to otherwise emptied art- works. But THAT discussion doesn't belong here. Alan Sondheim From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 10 18:00:52 1994 Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 18:00:52 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: clee@cse.bridgeport.edu (Clayton Lee ) Subject: Re: POMO > One thing strikes me following this > thread - although I have taught > courses concerned with postmodernism, I'm not sure what pomo IS; it's > not as if there is any canon of texts or the specificity of a thinker > (Marx, Engels, etc.) one can reference. It's highly problematic to > say that "pomo is" such-and-such; I've seen it used to justify just > about anything, pro or con. What IS relevant is to discuss specific > books, authors, theoretical positions; I tried to indicate something > of that in a previous post ("postmodern geography"). Beyond this sort > of admittedly constructed specificity, the term is vacuous. > > And if you really want to see jargon-oriented misuse of > words/arguments/positions, etc. check out almost any artworld > journal, although things are currently going the other way again. > Theory is often seen as an "alternative" mode of description or align- > ment, providing a subtext or substructrure to otherwise emptied art- > works. But THAT discussion doesn't belong here. > Alan Sondheim Re: jargon A bit ironic coming from someone who edited a book on "post-individual" art (but this isn't a flame so much as it is a concern for a bit more focus on the common object/subject of inquiry) From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 12 00:12:23 1994 Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 00:12:23 -0700 Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu From: SONDHEIM@newschool.edu Subject: Re: POMO Re: jargon A bit ironic coming from someone who edited a book on "post-individual" art (but this isn't a flame so much as it is a concern for a bit more focus on the common object/subject of inquiry) --Well, if we want to focus a bit more, the book was called Individuals: Post-Movement Art in America; the title was ironic and intended to indicate the problematic nature of movements, Pomo included. I have no idea what "post-individual" art is. From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 12 14:22:45 1994 Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 14:22:45 -0600 Sender: psn@csf.Colorado.EDU From: wpc@clyder.gn.apc.org (Paul Cockshott) Subject: Cullenberg on Post Modernism So Marxism has not influenced many political struggles outside the academy. Where have you been this last century and a half? Marxism has dominated the political struggles of the world for most of the 20th century. In a country as politically conservative as the USA this may not be evident, but look at the world as a whole. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Cockshott , WPS, PO Box 1125, Glasgow, G44 5UF Phone: 041 637 2927 wpc@clyder.gn.apc.org wpc@cs.strath.ac.uk From psn@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 13 05:57:10 1994 Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 05:57:10 -0600 Sender: psn@csf.Colorado.EDU From: David Fasenfest Subject: Re: Cullenberg on Post Modernism Paul Cockshott's two post are very interesting...two short comments: 1) regarding the role of Marxism on world events--though many are eager to posit that the end of the "eastern bloc" countried is an end to the relevance of Marxism on world affairs and the rejection of Marxist ideas by the masses...one needs to keep in mind (to support Paul's comment) that there are very strong worker's movements throught the world, that in Poland and now Hungary the political heirs of communism are being elected back into state power, and that as long as capitalism obtains as a system Marxism is the most comprehensive critique (even if one deems it a "failure" for what happened in central and eastern europe). Socialism having evolved from its less democratic forms (and least we forget early capitalism for several decades if not centuries was far from democratic) may well re-emerge as more democratic socialism in opposition to non-humanist (and globally less democratic as a rule) capitalism; 2) on the notion of progress and time direction of change...it is worth separating levels of development of productive forces (in which convergence and system domination makes sense) from levels of political forms in which social arrangements are predicated on potentials and the conditions, potential and emergence of class forces (classes in the transhistorical sense of social divisions based on material, legal, etc control). In that there is ample questions of any proper directionality--it may be more fruitful to think in terms of local conditions which probablistically lead to more likely socio- political outcomes. Otherwise it all gets too teleological and functionalist. David Fasenfest, Purdue University Bitnet: XVIB@PURCCVM Internet: XVIB@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU