Date: Fri, 19 Aug 1994 12:45:41 +0200
From: Warren.Sproule-AT-sociol.utas.edu.au (Warren Sproule)
Subject: Intro/Derrida





Greetings from one new to this list! By way of introduction, I'm  a
lecturer with the sociology dept, University of Tasmania (last stop before
the Antarctic), and my present research interests involve Marxist
approaches to communication and war... 

In terms of the latter, I'm especially concerned with a line of thinking
prevalent within my own discipline, that "classical" Marxist thinking has
on the whole ignored or underplayed the significance of warfare in social
analysis: Key statements of this position come from, eg, Kiernan, Dandeker,
or Martin Shaw. This view tends to cast as 'exceptional' Marx & (more
particularly) Engels' military writings as unconnected to the dominant
thrust of their theoretical work. It likewise minimises or critiques the
writings of Liebknecht or Bukharin, and leaves out of account the practical
military texts of Trotsky, Mao, Guevara, etc: Bernard Semmel's 1981
_Marxism and the Science of War_ is also tagged in such quarters as a
scrappily erratic and belated collection. Notions such as Thompson's
"exterminism", Jameson's "hypermilitarism" or Mandel's characterisation of
late capitalism as a "permanent war economy" are seen as either marginal,
fanciful or 'merely' descriptive.  At present I'm inclined to agree with
reservations, but I'm more than willing to be disabused of the notion with
contrary evidence - any strongly-held pro or con feelings from list members
on this subject?

Second (unrelated) topic: Jacques Derrida's _Spectres of Marx_ essay in the
May/June NLR #205. While neither the (IMHO, merited) critical drubbing
meted out to Fukuyama's "evangelical" Americocentrism nor the Hamlet's
Ghost trope was surprising, the general call for an urgent 'return' to a
"certain spirit of Marxism" (p.55) was to this observer astonishing. Hardly
less so was the later suggestion, that "...deconstruction would have been
impossible in a pre-Marxist space. Deconstruction has never had any sense
or interest, in my view at least, except as a radicalization, which is to
say also *in the tradition* of a certain Marxism, in a certain *spirit of
Marxism*"(p.56).

Is this genuine? Or could it be that D is hunting for new intellectual
ancestors in the wake of the relatively recent Heidegger/Paul de Man
affairs, each implicating and, according to Richard Wolin at least,
embarassing to both D personally and a deconstructive approach generally?
Either way, is Derrida's 'allegiance' a welcome event - responses?

Enough for now. Apologies if either of these potential threads have been
covered or are peripheral to the List's concerns: If so, put it down to my
virginal status here and feel free to reply back-channel.

WS.



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