From: "maiantwo" <maiantwo-AT-spacestar.net>
Subject: Re: Defending culture (and embracing joissance)
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 13:11:31 -0500


Lyotard suggests that capitalism has "won" because of the openness of the
systems that employ it. It allows socialized and cooperative enterprises to
coexist with the privitization of enterprise as well as being more
"naturally" responsive than other economic systems. I would argue that
capitalism succeeds because it operates within societies that are open to
variations in regulation of activities of it's participatory governments.
Capitalism (in its pure definition) has not won--capitalism as part of an
open, responsive government has won. Without the temperance of responsive
governments (that embrace minorities as well as majorities), capitalism is
doomed also.

Marxism has not suceeded because of the closed nature of its system(s). In
its practiced state, the dogmatism and hegemony of marxism dooms it to
failure. Practiced marxism has not responded to the processual nature of the
activities of human beings. Marxism can still be a "winner" if socities and
the governments that chose to employ these principles of economic activity
employ more responsive (open) governmental systems. Lyotard mentions the
limitations of (little girl) Marxism and (the fetishim of) Capitalism not
only in "Postmodern Fables", but in greater detail of fact and metaphor in
the "Libidinal Economy.

Marxism, like capitalism, works best when it is responsive to a multiplicity
of ideas and structures to meet the pluralistic needs (and values) of the
people it serves. Both systems can coexist if this philosophy (which I
believe Lyotard embraces) is embraced within the governmental structures.
>From my limited reading of Marx, I would suggest that the processual nature
of economics (and its responsiveness to the
individuals/societies/governments) is an overlooked aspect of Marxist theory
that has been historicly ignored. Too often we associated Marxism with the
doomed policies of Leninim/Stalinism/Maoism/etc. I believe Lyotard mentions
this also in L.E.

I would agree that there is a resistance to "Americanism" and rightly so. I
believe Lyotard agrees with Baudrillard on the vacuum of culture that is at
once fetishized and reacted to with disdain by "other" cultures.  I would
also agree that any economic system (in its "pure" state) disavows alterity.

 Let us hope that governmental systems will strive to be open to the
multiple cultural and personal (noneconomic) values of all through
respectful revaluation of its structures and the people that the goverments
serve. It is this responsiveness and openness to revaluation that will make
any political/economic system a "winner".
-----Original Message-----
From: J. B. Sclisizzi <jbs-AT-toronto.cbc.ca>
To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: Thursday, July 08, 1999 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: Defending culture


>colin.wright3-AT-virgin.net wrote:
>
>> By contrast, postmodernism in its emphasis on difference
>> represents an ethico-political opportunity to recognise culture and
>> tradition and pre-modern belief systems in general while respecting them
>> in their alterity. Capitalism disavows the very possibility of alterity,
>> since, as with all Imperialisms, otherness is an affront to its very
>> self-understanding.
>
>it's difficult for me to view postmodernism and capitalism in opposition,
>since, as we can see, capitalism as we experience it today has no problem
>flourishing in a postmodern world.  capitalism doesn't disavow alterity as
>much as it reduces all values to monetary ones, and this flexibility is its
>power and the source of its insidiousness.
>
>lyotard concedes (in postmodern fables) that democracy/capitalism has won.
>global homogenization (which is essentially americanism) would seem the
>result of that victory.  i think the recognition and respect of other
>cultures in their alterity, which you suggest, might be a resistance to
>americanism, but not to capitalism.  but, overlapping the economic sphere,
>there is a question of non-economic valuation which is important ...
>
>brent ...
>