Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 11:00:20 -0600
From: Cliff Staples <Clifford_staples-AT-und.nodak.edu>
Subject: Re: AUT: Ambivalence towards poststructuralism....



--Boundary_(ID_KgyGWA4fWZBEUA4Y2du1Ww)

At 07:06 AM 11/1/02 -0800, Michael Handelman wrote:
>Often I find myself having an EXTREMELY ambivalent
>attitude towards Poststructuralismit seems to me, it
>can be used for almost *any* purposes: From
>anti-capitalist purposes (eg as in Dyer-Witheford's
>"Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High
>Technology Capitalism") or as an apologist for the
>status quo, (eg much of Baudrillard's work).

Michael:  It would seem that ANYTHING can be used for ANY purpose, 
no?  Rorty notes somewhere (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, I think) 
that anything can be made to appear good or bad by being re-described from 
another vantage point.   This seems sound from my experience and 
reading.  Your statement seems to assume that things have an essence that 
somehow can not be violated, e.g. "this belief system can only be used for 
good, while that one over there can only be used for evil... 
Poststructuralism appears ambivalent so, what, off to 
Purgatory?  Poststructuralism has no mechanical or chemical hold on those 
who might use it.  Poststructuralism is nothing outside of a particular 
rhetorical occasion.  Indeed, to give it agency in this way is either 
idolatry or reification, depending on your point of view.



>It would be interesting to compare the attitudes
>towards poststructuralism of radical intellectuals
>outside of academia vs radical intellectuals inside academia.

How so?  Why the tired presumption that those "outside" of academia are 
morally superior than those inside it?  Indeed, what of this "inside" 
"outside" fantasy to begin with?

Cliff Staples


--Boundary_(ID_KgyGWA4fWZBEUA4Y2du1Ww)

HTML VERSION: