File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-06-08.010, message 154


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



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