Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 20:39:33 +0300 (EET DST) From: J Laari <jlaari-AT-cc.jyu.fi> Subject: rethinking marxism? First of all, sorry for those errors in previous post on pomo. I was in hurry. Secondly, a question: what is journal called "Rethinking Marxism"? I made some cd-rom researches and there popped up this condenced critique from 'Rethinking' (amazing piece, to say the least): " Ebert, Teresa L.: The Surplus of Employment in the Post-al Real (Rethinking-Marxism; 1994, 7, 3, fall, 137-142) A review essay on two books by Slavoj Zizek: The Sublime Object of Ideology (New York, NY: Verso, 1989); & Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991 [see listings in IRPS No. 81]). Zizek's work is judged an exemplary post-al (postmodernism, - Marxism, -structuralism, -industrial, etc) practice that revives a regressive bourgeois idealism that seeks to suppress the historical & revolutionary knowledge necessary for social transformation. Zizek's analysis explains the social in terms of the psyche, using a psychic & rhetorical reductionism as it reintroduces the surplus of enjoyment as the base for the ideological superstructure. Zizek's identification of bureaucracy as the great social evil is compared to the exhortations of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, & Rush Limbaugh against government interference of individual pursuits. His idealism substitutes enjoyment for labor as the fundamental locus for understanding ideology, the subject, & a conflicted social reality. " [From Sociological Abstract, I suppose..] If "Social Text" (which I don't know) have been considered as 'unprofessionally edited' then what should be said about this Rethinking Marxism? Few comments: (1) " An exemplary post-al practice " On the contrary: SZ tries to keep up with enlightenment tradition, and at the same time utilize some structuralist (in this case: Lacan's) conceptions. (2) " Revives a regressive bourgeois idealism that seeks to suppress the historical & revolutionary knowledge necessary for social transformation. " And I thought that the point with utilizing psychoanalytic theory was to show and theorize the (necessary categorial) foundations of conscious 'psychic' phenomena... in order to 'deepen' historical & revolutionary knowledge. (3) " Zizek's analysis explains the social in terms of the psyche, using a psychic & rhetorical reductionism as it reintroduces the surplus of enjoyment as the base for the ideological superstructure. " No, on the contrary. Rather point is to deliver theoretical background for social theory in a form of category of (individual) subject as a mediating moment between 'structure' and 'action'. That has quite usually been blank space in social theory - or some atheoretical common-sense conception of human being or somesuch has been used. SZ doesn't say that 'psyche' is basis for social, but rather tries to show what happens, and why, when child learns his or her way 'into social'. I don't understand why that's so hard to see. (4) " His idealism substitutes enjoyment for labor as the fundamental locus for understanding ideology, the subject, & a conflicted social reality. " I doubt that. The point is to provide basis for one moment of social (and ideology) theory: in this way SZ tries to clarify why 'ideology' is necessary, why it is absurd to retrogress back to some form of socio-biology ['genes produce society', 'brains produce culture']. 'Enjoyment' can be seen as critique of several post-al conceptions, according to those 'subject' is just contingent subject-positions [sociologically: roles that individual fulfill during his/her life - that is, 'essence' and identity of subject is in his/her social location(s)] and there's no consistence with subject. SZ in a way seems to be saying that there surely is some consistent individual feature, but unfortunately it isn't that easily grasped because it's 'unconscious', structural feature somewhere behind 'ego' and 'consciousness'. It's rather a question of legendary libidinal logic that linguistics or discourse. In sum & personally: I don't see why it's so hard to get that theory or category of subject isn't some total social theory but just one corner of it. If this screen, which you're looking at the moment, is 'grand social theory' then (for example zizekian) category of subject would be just couple of letters on it. No more, no less. Gee, looks like I have to write couple of lines on social theory someday.. Yours, Jukka --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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