From: Michael Current <mcurrent-AT-picard.infonet.net>
Subject: Re: Laclau and Mouffe and exploitation (repost)
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 18:53:42 -0500 (CDT)


Andy,

I appreciate where you are coming from, but I think that you are trying
to preserve, in "false consciousness," an element of marxism that is
simply not supportable.  In fact, your own discussion about slave
society tends to undermine it.  You describe a consciousness of oppression,
accompied by a consiousness of the hopelessness of revolt under certain
circumstances, and thus the enactment of resistance at a more fragmented
and personalological level.  Yet this is not "false consciousness," it
seems to me - sounds more like "realism."

False consciousness is largely a theory that was elaborated in an
earlier attempt to preserve elements of Marx's theory that had
proven to fail.  It was an attempt to insert a somewhat nuanced
theory of subjectivity into a discourse where it was almost
entirely lacking.

It is possible, I think, to assert that counsciousness *is* warped
by the psycho-manipulative tendancies of Capital, but to do so puts
the asserter on very thin epistomological ground.

There has to be "true" consciousness where their is false, of course,
and you suggest that there is.  There is a certain tendancy to do
an almost imperialist violence to other cultures and eras of human
history in the rush to prove such propositions, however.

I simply cannot see, without a detailed ontology which you did not
offer, how it is possible to _ignore_ discursive regimes.  I don't
see how you can, for example, look at ancient Roman culture and
insist on locating an "exploitation" that simply was not part of
the universe of thought at the time.  This is reading our own
prejudices onto the historical record - the same way that certain
scholars in my field insist that they have infomation about "being
gay" two thousand years ago - despite the fact that nothing
resembling the idea of being gay was part of the discursive
universe at the time, or so the best evidence suggests.

To follow your examples into mine, we would have to say that these
people were in so way gay in the modern sense but simply not
aware of it, or they were keeping it secret in most respects 
due to circumstances.  Yet their sexual practices were _not_
kept secret. . . .

I don't see, again, how false consciousness can be derived historically
or in any other manner besides an idealistic ontological leap.  To make
one is your right, but you need to spell it out.

Or you need to face the fact that the idea of a one-to-one relationship
between material social conditions and consciousness is simply wrong.
And that is possible, in a certain way, for people to come to desire
their own oppression.

That, of course, complicates matters in terms of specifying a praxis,
but on the other hand it is hard for me to believe that anyone can't
see that upholding a more traditional marxist idea of praxis at this
point is pretty damned complicated, too.

Michael

-- 
---------------------------Michael J. Current----------------------------
 mcurrent-AT-picard.infonet.net -or- -AT-ins.infonet.net -or- -AT-nyx.cs.du.edu
Specializing in Philosophy, Queer Studies, Depression, & Unemployment :)
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AND IT EFFECTIVELY STOPS PEOPLE FROM THINKING." - GILLES DELEUZE
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