Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 14:42:05 +0100
From: Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Neglect of Bhaskar (Marx?)


Hi Tobin,

I don't think my argument re aesthetics rests on any concept of them
getting it right. Not least because I don't find Armani suits that
aesthetically pleasing. The point is that they do seem to appeal to
aesthetics, and in fact, insofar as they are content to let inquiry rest at
the level of the appearances that's all they can appeal. The point is that
they play the market game and attempt to sell themslelves via various forms
of marketing, whereas CR wants to critique the market, rather than utilise
it. In this respect CR may have the moral and intellectual high ground, the
problem is who listening?

Anyway, like I said earlier enough are and hence I'm not that worried.
Dissapointed, yes; that so many people who I thought were in the game in
order to know more about the world in order to make it a better place, are
simply in the game for the sake of the game is a very depressing thought.
Still it does seem to give them the resources to buy that Armarni suit;
now, where's my copy of Foucualt's discipline and punish?

Cheers,

At 09:08 12/04/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi Tim & Colin--
>
>Odd, here I was toying with the idea of replying to Tim that it's too bad
>postmodernists don't write nearly as well as Shelley.  Not a poet among 'em.
>Rhetoricians, yes.  (As Colin suggests.)
>
>> The point is this, the likes of Butler and other pomo types have one very
>> big advantage. They aren't really after the truth of positions but in
>> winning converts, which they consider to be winning the arguments;
>> intellectual hegemony is quantifiable. To this end, since truth is not at
>> stake, they can pursue the aesthetics and ruthlessly deploy extravagant
>> rhetorical flourishes with a blither disregard to the staus of content and
>> consistency. They are more interested in style over content. I can best
>sum
>> it up by describing the pomos as "sophists in Armarni suits". And the
>> Armarni suits are the key.
>
>I agree that PoMo's, despite their earnestness (though maybe I should say
>self-righteousness), nevertheless disdain the very concept of truth, and
>insistently reduce knowledge (or rather, "knowledge") to power.  And that
>they deploy extravagant rhetorical flourishes.  But I don't think they have
>much real interest in aesthetics, and I have found most of them to have
>little understanding or regard for how artists work.  They may like the idea
>of the artist, but for the most part their aesthetic sensibilities are
>rather wooden, and they seldom make a point of engaging art.
>
>As probably everyone remembers, a few years ago Alan Sokol got a lot of
>people upset when he wrote the worst piece of postmodern tripe he could
>manage, and successfully had it published in Social Text, whose editors were
>completely taken in.  He gave a talk when I was in Helsinki, in which he
>argued that what most of the PoMo's are doing is philosophy, and *bad*
>philosophy at that -- a point that I think stands up well.  (I also found
>his position quite close to CR, but I had only that talk to go on.)  His
>action really was dramatic, and laced with irony.  But who would vote for
>the guy?  If the response not long after at the Rethinking Marxism
>conference is any guide, the PoMo's got in a huff, called Sokol various bad
>names, and then the whole thing blew over.  (An opportunity missed, I
>suspect.)
>
>And as I recall, a disappointing number of them attended the performance by
>an important black actor, doing a one-woman show which must have been damn
>hard to sustain in that hall.
>
>Of course, most scholars are dismissive of the arts, and CR is hardly immune
>from this (though I can only speak to the first CR conference).  So I'd
>recommend caution with the notion that PoMo's pursue aesthetics, not only
>for the statement's dubious accuracy, but also for its attitude toward the
>arts.
>
>Despite this -- no, excuse me, *because* of this -- I think Colin is right
>about the importance of rhetoric in intellectual disputes.  But the
>rhetoric's strength is not altogether self-standing: PoMo can easily take a
>beating thanks to its very commonalities with positivism, its function as
>positivism's flipside, which Bhaskar (among others) has done much to reveal.
>The "opposition" between the physical sciences and the social
>sciences/humanities is part of that common foundation, and it's worth noting
>that this opposition was one of the major assertions to come from the
>Romantics: Tim's reference to Shelley is apt.
>
>CR certainly could do with a spokesperson who is charismatic, witty,
>quick-thinking, and a breathtaking writer.  Equally certainly, it isn't
>going to be Bhaskar; or at least not anymore.  A pity.  But a lot is going
>to depend on finding ways to unseat PoMo on what it sees as its home turf,
>particularly radical politics.  I've written elsewhere that without a
>concept of truth, PoMo cannot coherently sustain any notion of oppression or
>repression.  I think that's a start, but surely there's more.  However, my
>feel for the game says that so far, critical realists have barely even tried
>to reach a larger audience.  In this sense I agree with Karl's comment that
>CR has tended to be overly introspective.  Something does need to be done
>about that.
>
>---
>Tobin Nellhaus
>nellhaus-AT-mail.com
>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
============================================

Dr. Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Wales
SY23 3DA
Tel: (01970) 621769 


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