From: Russell Pearson <R.Pearson-AT-art.derby.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 10:18:42 +0100
Subject: Re: M-TH: Derrida



Dave B asks me: 
>Are you suggesting that we have to 
>abandon socialism as the promised land?

As just that yes! My somewhat cheeky question had a more serious
motive...perhaps indeed Derrida appeals to those whose experience of defeat,
but who want to retain some semblance of radicalism (the conceit of one of
Terry Eagleton's lectures discussed some time ago- delivered in Nottingham
and Duke to very different receptions). But given the almost total lack of
any form of revolutionary politics in the west, is it more rational to
embrace the irrational (and more fun in the meantime), or to vest one's
hopes in millenarium dreams of bread and honey or the land of Cockayne.

On the latter, I've been re-reading Susan Buck-Morss's work on Benjamin's
Arcades Project. She stresses Benjamin's interest in the proto-surrealist
sketches of just such lands of plenty (the book's at home and I can't recall
the title or the 19thC artist she depicts). On the question of utopianism,
Buck-Morss reports that Benjamin's ideas originate from a particular strand
of Judaic thought. This goes along the lines of stating that God created the
earth but we should expect no other-worldly salvation. Heaven on earth is a
secular affair- we are on this earth to create our own version of Cockayne,
without him upstairs helping us out...



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