From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 20:01:54 +0100
Subject: Re: globalisation:


Eric/All

Two thinks - I'd broadly agree regading Lyotard and the post-modern...
except that in 'The Inhuman' and perhaps 'Postmodern fables' there are a
number of essays and stories/fables, I'm thinking of especially of
'Rewriting modernity' and the 'marie goes to japan...' - these amoungst
other texts are essential PM texts. As a consequence whilst I recognise the
distance that Lyotard placed between himself and the more reactionary
continental uses of the concept, there is still a case to be made for the
positioning of his later works within the more left version of the PM
trajectory. I have always understood Lyotard's version of the post-modern as
in some sense an attempt to re-instantiate a new version, a new take on the
modernist project, brought into line with the changing societies. In this
sense I think it is important to recognise that the concept of the
postmodern escaped from the initial users of the concept and moved into
entirely new uses.

Doesn't the 1920s examples Eric mentioned refer to the modernist/avant-garde
elements that conservative post-modernists were so glad to reject, I am
thinking of the new-french-philosophers, so keen on human rights, so 'for'
armed intervention, so against people struggling for freedom...

With regard to the comment on transnationals below - in reality they have
not changed that much - the idea that they would become almost
external-to-the-state has not come to pass. It is observable, and the
evidence still supports the statement that the local states of the core
capitalist block consisting of US, Pacific Rim and European etc enable there
local transnationals to exist. Without the parent states they would
immediately collapse, it is a relationship of mutual dependency. I have not
done much reading around this issue recently but I'd recommend Armand
Mattelarts work 'Multinational corporations and the third world' and there
is evidence supporting this argument in Chomsky's work as well. Probably
only the existence of parent states prevents local takeover of the
corporations resources, I would also suggest that the construction of a
globalised framework requires the existence of local/parent supportive
states now more than ever...

There is no evidence that the complete seperation of transnational
corporations and the parent/host countries will ever truly take place ----

regards
sdv

Mary Murphy&Salstrand wrote:

> hbone wrote:
> >
>
> The Soviet collapse didn't negate Lyotard, but accelerated some of the
> trends he reported, and stimulated new ones.  Destruction of natural
> resources, forced migration of indigenous populations, the many wars in
> Africa, for example.
>
> I think the cultural beginnings of postmodernism date back to the
> 1920's. Tearing up the old, seeking something new in visual and literary
> arts.  And that will most likely continue for the indefinite future, so
> its not,literally chronologica regards,
>
> Hugh/All
>
> Something I have been thinking about lately is this. After writing The
> Postmodern Condition, it seems that Lyotard attempted to distance
> himself from the concept in his later writings.  It is wrong to say he
> dissociated himself completely. However, he certainly appears to qualify
> it and replace the notion of a historical period with the sense of a
> rewriting or a working through. Here the postmodern is seen as beginning
> of the modern, its sense of groundlessness and lack of a constituting
> rule, than to any thing the comes after.
>
> Also, regarding you other post on corporations, it does appear that
> corporations today are tending to be more global and less US based.
> When coupled with the growing resistance to the US in Europe, Asia and
> the South, there could be the tendency for a militant posture of
> unilateralism to simply lead to greater isolation and the decline of the
> US as world leader.
>
> Who can tell at this stage of the game of world domination. Does anyone
> has thoughts about this?