Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 12:04:15 -0500
From: shawn wilbur <swilbur-AT-wcnet.org>
Subject: Re: postmodernists and politics - a nice brick and associated notes



"steve.devos" wrote:

> Shawn
>
> "...I'm probably prepared to make a more scathing indictment of a
> certain "postmodernism" - defined along Jameson's lines - than most
> folks here...."
>
> Exactly.
>
> My general sense of the work carried out within lists such as the
> 'Lyotard' one is that the major faults within the approach taken is
> that it is to reverential to the writers concerned.  For example
> consider the discussion of The Differend which disintergrated into
> silence over the summer, perhaps the silence that developed did so
> because of the absence of any attempt at critique?  Instead the
> attempts to read with the book rather than to understand it and its
> limitations.

Well, i'm inclined to think that reading a book - and, generally more
than just the book - is necessary to understanding, and that some level
of understanding is necessary before critique is possible. Marking
potentially problematic places in the text should probably be part of
reading and understanding, but much of my frustration with lists such as
this is that the very difficult, initial work of simply working through
a text is so often derailed by premature critique. It's not necessarily
"reverence" that drives attempts to read closely and thoroughly. With
authors i revere, and there certainly are some, i find i can more easily
- and with more justice towards author and text - race along ahead or
follow branching paths. It's when i'm reading authors i am disposed to
disagree with initially that i am particularly aware of a need to read
closely, or abandon the effort. And there are characters like Lyotard
who never seem to allow any easy relationship.

-shawn

> My admittedly cheap and brief questions thrown at the specific Lyotard
> text - were founded on the belief that we should try and unpack and
> critique the arguments concentrated in the statements made, and in the
> process of unpacking identify what is important and what may have had
> meaning in 1983 but which simply is not  tenable now.
>
> I'll think about the libertarian note....
>
> best
> steve
>
> shawn wilbur wrote:
>
>> "steve.devos" wrote:
>>
>>
>> > I do not however accept any blanket and unthinking rejection of the
>> > critique that underlies my rough notes.
>> >
>> I would think most of us don't accept "blanket and unthinking"
>> responses.
>>
>> The critique of "postmodernism(s)" is now a sort of tradition,
>> really
>> long-standing in comparison to, say, current cultural memory. I know
>> that i have spent nearly a decade involved in these debates in one
>> way
>> or another.
>>
>> My primary concern - along with the equally rough sketch of roads
>> not
>> taken within the history of "socialism" (broadly defined) - is to
>> see
>> these critiques rendered specific enough to be of practical use.
>> Particularly when we're talking about causal responsibility -
>> "fault" -
>> our standards need to be fairly high. There is an unfortunately
>> common
>> form of quasi-critique used with what seems to me increasing
>> frequency
>> these days - the attribution of "connections" between already
>> demonized
>> groups and targets of new marginalization. Not too long ago, there
>> was a
>> popular party-type game where the connections betwe
>> en nearly everyone
>> were emphasized by small "degrees of separation" from media figures
>> (Kevin Bacon, for example.) Now, however, nearly any degree of
>> separation can hide behind the attributions of "connections" to this
>> or
>> that outlawed group, as long as some thin thread can be established.
>> It's a kind of neo-McCarthyist rhetoric for our shrinking attention
>> spans. I suspect its very closely connected to present forms of
>> fundamentalism. Speaking of right-left connections, it is almost
>> certainly the case that much of the ground for the present assault
>> on
>> dissent was prepared by left academics embracing a fairly sloppy,
>> complicit form of "postmodernism." Once upon a time, "political
>> correctness" was an inside joke among lefty intellectual types - a
>> measure of uncomfortable awareness of how easily materialist
>> critique
>> can degenerate into dogma. And then, at some point, as some of the
>> left's projects became institutional programs, many of u
>> s forgot to
>> laugh (at ourselves.) I remember a day when a colleague said
>> something
>> to the effect of "of course, i'm politically correct." From the
>> soured
>> joke to a manichaean "all about good and evil" worldview is an
>> unfortunate short distance.
>>
>> I'm probably prepared to make a more scathing indictment of a
>> certain
>> "postmodernism" - defined along Jameson's lines - than most folks
>> here.
>> I remain cautious and unconvinced by Steve's rough sketch,
>> suspecting
>> that this may have more to do with long-standing differences between
>> camps of "progressives" than anything else. I suspect the "riposte
>> to
>> the 'libertarian elements' implication" may clarify what are, by
>> now,
>> long-standing differences between Steve and myself.
>>
>> -shawn
>>
>>