File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0305, message 71


Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 16:27:52 +1100
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: awakening from history


MessageEric wrote:

My question back to you is this. Is such a psychoanalytical approach to
history now completely outmoded or does it still have an unsuspected life of
its own?  If you feel in your gut this approach is not valid, what would you
then substitute in its place?

My answer is Yes, the psychoanalytical approach to history is outmoded, not
valid.

It's influence, however, (unsuspected life) permeates the individual and
collective memories of all us who read of postmodernity,  and will affect
anything we substitute in its place.  We cannot resurrect the corpse of the
psychoanalytical, but we cannot escape its affect on the here-and-now, the
personal symbolic universes in which we "live", have our "being".

We can't escape the ideas of  Freud and Marx, nor should we.  We can address
the world we live in and the relevance of those ideas to our personal vision
of the future of humanity.  If we can only see that future through the words
of post-modern writers, so be it.  If our concept of  social action is
simply to re-iterate and advocate PM ideas of the past few decades, so be
it.

However, for better or worse, the intellectual resources of 6 billion
people, in about 200 separate nations, will determine the future...Most of
these populations are religious in a sense that includes neither Freud nor
Marx, nor PM philosophers.  U.S. military power over religious beliefs may
be as successful as Israeli power over Palestinian beliefs, or it may not.

To be continued.

regards,
Hugh







   

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