Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 11:19:14 +0200 (SST)
From: RICHARD PITHOUSE <pithouse-AT-pixie.udw.ac.za>
Subject: Re: M-G: Chatterjee/Malecki


On Thu, 7 Nov 1996, Rolf Martens wrote:

> Should one call the culture of industrialism and modern technology
> "European"? In some ways, perhaps yes, but it's essentially
> *global*. 

Yes, I agree with you that modernity has a certain universality but as 
anyone in a non western country will tell you there has not been a clear 
seperation between generic industrialisation and specific 
westernisation. Western missionaries and western advertisers construct a 
powerful paradigm in which all value is located in the West. This is hard 
to resist and has many negative consequences. eg it undermines a 
tradition of communality, it creates a mindset in which solutions to all 
problems are to be sought from Western experts, it allows those elites 
which assist western capital to exploit third world countries to derive 
legitimacy from their association with the west, it creates a mindset 
which views the "new world order" as natual etc, etc, etc. The basic problem 
is that it robs people of the self-confidence to believe in themselves
and to believe that they have the right to criticise and to resist.

> I read a little bit of Chomsky once. But I haven't understood why
> he's considered important politically. Isn't he mainly a sort
> of bourgeois rehasher and diluter of some good (Marxist etc)
> ideas?

 The thing with Chomsky is that his critique of Western domination 
(especially as it operates through the media) makes it very clear that 
what is claimed to be "neutral" and "reasonable" is usually highly 
contentious and self-serving. For Marxist intellectuals like yourselves 
this is no doubt unremarkable and obvious but for people who have been 
conned into thinking that the USA is the source of all value Chomsky's 
critiques are profoundly liberating. I find that Chomsky and Fanon are 
two of the best people for stimulating the critical faculties of young 
South Africans. This country is so dominated by a specificly American 
consumerism that an attack on Western domination resonates more 
powerfully than a general attack on capitalism.

Chomsky uses emperical evidence to exposes lies and this opens a crack 
into which the lever of Marx etc can be inserted.

Stay Well
Richard Pithouse

PS All the postings on Zaire etc have been very interesting. 


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