From: LeoCasey-AT-aol.com Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 07:06:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: M-TH: Re: The Buffalo Parody? I admit that, having a life, I have neither the time nor the inclination to wade through much of what the Buffalo comrades write. What is suprising, however, is that no one on the list has considered that they might be engaging in a parody -- a mocking of the expressive style of a certain social group (Net obsessed Marxist-Leninist), with a highly superfacial appropriation of the most obscure forms of linguistic and semiotic analysis. (The most advanced form of "bourgeois thought": thank god, that Michael Eisner gave Derrida his start!) Maybe Thaxis is the _Social Text_ of the internet, and Doug Henwood its Stanley Aronowitz (what a deliciously evil thought). Now I know that sheer volume might lead an observer to conclude that only someone who believed he was engaged in a serious enterprise could dedicate so much time to it, but remember (1) we are talking about graduate students, a certain strata of which would do anything to avoid work on the doctoral dissertation; (2) how can you parody the obsessed without mimicing the obsession? Anyway, this is about as much sense as I can make of this weeks long exchange. If anyone remembers the days when the Buffalos first arrived on the scene, I objected to a particularly silly analogy in which Laclau and Mouffe were compared to the infamous Judge Bork. Justin replied that he did think Bork was a "radical democrat" in the sense that Bork was a believer in the radical supremacy of majority rule over all minority rights. (It's all in my personal random access memory now, so I hope I do no violence, semiotically wise of course, to his position.) I have two problems with that position: (1) I suppose that that one could argue this position if one accepted the classically Rousseauian position that democracy was defined as all form (the general will, whatever its particular expression might be at a moment), and no content. (And, of course, even Rousseau drew a distinction between the general will and the will of all.) But this is not the position accepted by most democratic, much less radical democratic, theorists. Virtually all -- and especially Laclau and Mouffe -- would insist upon some substance to democracy: not only a conception of individual and minority rights, but also some notions of a fair and open political process (which entail such things as freedom of expression and political equality). Thus, even if Bork were a Rousseauian, I don't know how accurate an impresion it leaves to describe that position as 'radical democratic'. (2) But I am not even convinced that Bork's judicial theology of 'original intentions' (the conceptual foundation of which was largely purloined, by the way, from the Straussians) is Rousseauian. Yes, Bork is a great supporter of majority rule on questions of cultural conflict (gay rights, abortion, affirmative action). But take him out to the backhouse of economic issues, and he becomes a great libertarian, with individual property rights taking precedence over all sense of majority rule and the common good. Thus, Bork must have been delighted with the recent decision in US v. Lopez, in which the Court struck down a federal law prohibiting the carrying of guns onto school campuses on the grounds that the commerce clause did not give the federal government the jurisdiction to intervene on this matter. While this may seem an arcane point of law, consider that the commerce clause has been the constitutional foundation for most federal labor legislation, environmental protection legislation and civil rights legislation since the Supreme Court's turn half-way through the New Deal. While this new trend might be defended as the restoration of 'states rights' (a cause championed in the past, along with the militias, by some of our ... well, less discerning, list members), and relegated to the arena of federalism, make no mistake that the effect would be to undermine the whole foundation of most post-New Deal legislation which has protected workers' rights, provided whatever protection there is for the environment, and established civil rights protections in the 'free market'. For all of these reasons, therefore, I insist that despite 'democracy' being one of those essentially contested concepts in which theorists and practitioners attempt to pour their own concepts, it really makes little sense -- in terms of understanding the thrust of his judicial philosophy -- to call Bork a "radical democrat." --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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