Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 00:46:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Howard Hastings <hhasting-AT-osf1.gmu.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: Mexican elections and the US


On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, PCR wrote:

> finally, a little or a lot late as this may be, the question is whether or not
> politics qualifies as evidence of critical theory, and if so, then how so, and if not
> then why is it on this list? 

Er, why is THAT the question?

  the responsibility to explain anything lies on the
> shoulder of the author or speaker, not the audience.

Everyone who posts on a subject does not have to include a justification
of his/her right to post, right?  Unless . . . one assumes politics have
nothing to do with philsophy and literature.

 your loaded questions, hh,
> reminds me of what responsibility does in fact lie in the critical judgment of the
> audience. it was not about marxist propaganda, nor liberal imperialism, but whether
> or not politics has anything to do with literature.

It is an assumption of idealist aesthetics that literature and politics
are quite separate. Marxists do not assume they are separate. They do
think the separation is itself political and tied to the segregation of
disciplines and disciplinary discourses generally maintained in
universities.

Some form of idealist aesthetics, along with the maintenance of
disciplinary boundaries, are generally affirmed by liberal opponents of
Marxism.

So from a liberal perspective, certainly that of the liberal ideology
dominant in this country,  it might make sense to ask what
"unimpressive" political "propaganda" is doing on list devoted to
philsophy and literature. 

It would not make sense to ask that question from a Marxist point of view.

Since you were definitely drawing a line by asking a list contributor to
justify the fact that he had posted at all, and since the line was drawn
against a post expressing Marxist politics, I see nothing puzzling about
my questions to you.  And it is your post which limited the questions
which I could ask.

Is the problem that Pennefeather's post was "political" or that it was
"Marxist"?

 so, i am not saying either
> choices of yours, albeit plausible to remove the ambiguity of my expressions, these
> options of yours obfuscated any realistic idea about the matter (which is whether or
> not politics has anything to do with literature, and if so, then how so, and while
> telling us how so, then why so?).
> 
> Howard Hastings wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, PCR wrote:
> >
> > > I think this post of yours is on the wrong list, George, but I am not the
> > > mediator. Politics is full of unimpressive rhetoric such as this. Perhaps, you
> > > have read Karl Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, in "Utopia and Ideology",
> > > written way back in 1936? It discusses the possibility of political science. In
> > > any case, I don't think this list is a good place for propaganda. Care to
> > > explain all this?
> >
> > Seems odd George should have to "explain" a post expressing worry about
> > the effects of U.S economic hegomony over developing countries.
> >
> > Are you saying that it would be inappropriate to discuss politics on a
> > list devoted to philosophy and literature?  Or are you saying that it
> > would be inappropriate to discuss politics from any view other than that
> > of the dominant liberalism in this country?
> >
> > hh
> > .....................................................................
> >
> >      --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 

hh
.....................................................................



     --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---