From: dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 09:45:32 +0000
Subject: Re: M-I: beyond the pomo wars


> Date:          Wed, 6 Nov 1996 10:10:30 -0500
> To:            marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> From:          dhenwood-AT-panix.com (Doug Henwood)
> Subject:       M-I: beyond the pomo wars
> Reply-to:      marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU


Doug said:
> In an effort to be constructive, let me ask this question. It seems to me
> that one of the most urgent political tasks imaginable is building some
> notion of solidarity and collectivity in a world characterized by all the
> familiar cleavages. Marxian theory, with its emphasis on class, has a
> theory for that. One of the reasons I've been so hard on pomo is that it
> not only has no theory for building solidarity, its theoretical impulses
> are hostile to the very notion. It emphasizes particularity and self-doubt.
> So the question(s): is there any way to build notions and institutions of
> solidarity across nations, races, genders, etc.? Can we do radical socially
> transformative politics without our old friend, a Master Narrative?
> 
No we cant.Quite right Doug. Its simple really and we shouldnt allow pomos 
to dictate the terms of the debate. Who said that modernity was our 
thing?  I dont recognise it as one of Marx's categories. It is a 
loose historical label which carries none of the explanatory power 
of any of Marx's scientific categories. Marxists have an explanation 
for pomo- its the retreat of the petty bourgeois intellectuals into the
 marketplace where they dress up bourgeois freedom as individual difference. 
Their trouble is unlike Marx, they start and finish up in the marketplace 
-of which the academy is obviously part- so they dont have a clue 
whats happening. They are right by accident. Which means that their 
default position is fate. But that is the point we cant rely on accidents/fate
 to make a revolution. The Pomos, like all bourgeois organic intellectuals 
have to be destroyed on the road to revolution. 


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