Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 11:46:46 -0500 (CDT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?eduardo=20enriquez?= <eduardofenriquez-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: postmodern critique of post structuralism Re: [postanarchism] Reynolds: "Mille Plateaux: The Rhizomatic Music of Frankfurt, Germany"


 --- "J.M. Adams" <ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com> escribió: >
Mille Plateaux: The Rhizomatic Music of Frankfurt,
> Germany
> 
> by Simon Reynolds
> 
> (taken without permission from the wire 146, april
> 1996)

Today, the
> Frankfurt School is mostly remembered for its snooty
> attitude towards popular culture, which it regarded
> as
> the 20th century's opiate-of-the-people, a
> soul-degrading inferior to High Modernism. Adorno in
> particular has achieved a dubious immortality in the
> Cultural Studies world, as an Aunt Sally figure
> ritually bashed by academics as a prequel to their
> semiotic readings of 'anti-hegemonic resistance'
> encoded in Madonna videos and star trek.
> There's no denying Adorno deserves derision for his
> infamously suspect comments about the "eunuch-like
> sound" of jazz, whose secret message was "give up
> your
> masculinity, let yourself be castrated... and you
> will
> be accepted into a fraternity which shares the
> mystery
> of impotence with you". 

since i dont know exactly whats the frankfurt school
definition of popular culture i will not take issue
with them but i think is very important to make the
distinction between "popular culture" of the kind of
things like backstreet boys or britiney spears which
really will exemplyfy what they mean by "culture
industry" and what is also called "popular culture"
such as for example traditional folk songs and
rhythms. it is here that it is useful the use of the
terms "popular culture" for culture created by
comunities without the imposition be it by religious
or political hierarchy or of course by Capital; and
"mass culture" which will be of course Capital in
populistic costume in order to do what it most
basicalyy does and wants to keep doing, grow and
expand. i have the suspicion that in the USA and the
industrialized world or what using the fredric jameson
definition of "postmodernism", will be the world where
postmodernity arrived, there seems that one cant
really speak anymore of folk music. for this it will
most important that the disticntion be made.

 now of course with things like punk, trance or say
death metal theres a dilemma since if at the begining
they might appear as close to representing the
cultural manifestation of comunities perhaps initially
even manifestating themselves diametrically opposed to
the dictates of Capital (music industry, "corporate
rock", etc) there will occur a massification due to
communications and of course the transnationalism of
capital. it is the situation of seeing a diference
between a Washington D.C. listener of Minor Threat in
the early 80s who even had the chance of going to
their concerts and seeing the band very close being
able to sing the songs with them and dance almost
ritually in the place ("moshpit")(not too diferently
from the situation of say someone belonging to an
african tribe listening to drums beating in the spot
and dancing with them)and of course un sudamericano
fan del "punk" como yo que le gusta "minor threat"
only being able to have contact with the music using
cd players. 


> Influenced by post-structuralist theory and named
> after a gargantuan tract by French philosophers
> Gilles
> Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Mille Plateaux release
> deconstruction electronica. Situating their activity
> both within and against the genre conventions of
> post-rave styles like Intelligent Techno, House,
> Jungle and TripHop, Mille Plateaux identify these
> musics' premature closures and seize their missed
> opportunities. The results may not offer the easy
> satisfactions of less ambitious Techno
> labels/auteurs,
> but they do constitute the most consistently
> stimulating catalogue in the post-rave universe.

there is good basis for saying as Alec callinicos did
in "againts postmodernism" with respect to
"post-structuralism" as seeing it as too much focused
on finding "new ways" "breaking limits"
"transgression" etc and having as main enemy
enclosing, limits, etc to see it as another modernist
movement. and especially gilles deleuse in his
philosophical rhetoric seems to me the most modernist
of all the three "giants of poststructuralism"
(foucalt too busy with history and derrida just
"deconstructing" but apparently not interesting in
constructing again ). anyway i will be very interested
in a "deleuzian" post-structuralist view on say
indians living in the amazon jungle who have been
doing things the same way for centuries who wish to
remain that way or say heavy metallers who dont want
to do nothing else than recycle Iron Maiden.
deleuzianism is too much influenced by nietzchesian
vitalism to be reconciled with a legitimate
conservatism in my view due to the non-presence of
hierarchical mediation and of the proved
sustaintability on the self fullfilling reproduction
of life without afecting other lives significantly.
personally i think this aspect of deleuzianism is
because of him being, of the three "giants" of
postructuralism, the least influenced by Heidegger. 

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