File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0301, message 112


From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: global meta-narratives no local narratives yes...
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 12:25:08 -0600


Steve, Hugh, Glen:

There is a thesis about postmodernism I am trying to express and I
recognize that it is probably a little incoherent. Possibly the thesis
is not even valid.  

The thesis stated in rather simplistic terms is this. Every once in a
while, an Event occurs whereby our world-view changes; some obvious
Western examples are Athens during the Age of Pericles, the development
of Christianity during the Roman Empire, and the Renaissance. I believe
ours may also be one of those times - and what we call postmodernism is
a first feeble attempt at expressing this changed reality.

I recognize you'll probably read this and say to yourself this is simply
another huge metanarrative and therefore completely contradictory.
Perhaps it is, but in my reading of Lyotard I think he is critiquing
metanarratives along somewhat Deleuzian lines insofar as he understands
reality to be composed of multiple, vast, intersecting planes of
difference; plateaus bursting with various flows.  The problem with
metanarratives is that they presume a linear, one-dimensional grid or
framework which attempts to describe reality from a single dimension and
presume this is still somehow capable of describing the whole. Such
linear totalitarianism was characteristic of both modernism and the 20th
century.

In mentioning Hayek, I was attempting to make the point that, once the
obvious ideological differences are put aside, one value of his theory
of economics as a spontaneous order is that is has something to offer
very similar to the concept of development and complexification put
forward by Deleuze and Lyotard. All three were saying that capitalism is
the engine of complexification, although Lyotard and Deleuze go further
because they see economics as merely the outward sign of an internal
disorder, a productive libidinal chaos of desire at the heart of things.
The monster named General Economy by Bataille is the real Leviathan. Its
lines of flow include such things as information, DNA, migrations,
culture, space, technologies, fashion etc. The shift that must occur in
our thinking, and this is the postmodern turn, is one that recognizes
reality as a kind of field in the sense this has been defined by quantum
physics. 

Instead of seeing Hayek and Popper merely as utopians or ideologues
(which they certainly were) perhaps it is possible to read them against
the grain, as Marx might have, were he still alive. Obviously,
Neoliberalism is far from having creating an open society in the
Popperian sense which is why there is such internal dissension today
amongst the ruling elites; and why such a strong disciple of Popper as
George Soros has argued for a more enlightened form of capitalism and
has become very critical of the current political arrangements.  

It is also interesting to read the comments of Hayek in light of the
current US aggressive stance of unilateralism vis-à-vis the rest of the
world community: 

"The international Rule of Law must become a safeguard as much against
the tyranny of the state over the individual as against the tyranny of
the new super-state over the national communities. Neither an omnipotent
super-state, nor a loose association of 'free nations', but a community
of nations must be our goal."  

Negri could not have stated the matter any better himself.

I don't think it is necessary to avoid critique and I am not arguing
that only capitalism is currently allowed a metanarrative, but I do
think Marxian and other forms of radical thought need to redefine
themselves in terms of the new conditions we face today.  Even if we can
no longer seriously believe in the old myths of emancipation, perhaps
this opens the door to an even more radical politics - one based upon
the global conditions that present themselves here and now in the 21st
century.   
 
eric





   

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