------- Fra Doug Henwood - marxistisk økonom --------
This discussion inspired me to pull off the shelf a copy of Materialist
Feminisms, a book by my old grad school friends Donna Landry and Gerald
"Mac" MacLean. Here, I think, is the nub of the political problem with the
entire pomo/deconstructive mode. Here's a quote from their discussion of
decon & politics (pp. 79-80):
"Deconstruction can help us remain vigilant against the freezing into
orthodoxy of the strategic, self-reflexive politics desirable, and even
necessary, for a materialist feminist practice. As ÆGayatriÅ Spivak has so
often insisted, 'Deconstruction cannot found a political proram of any
kind.' Deconstruction is rather a tool to be used within practical
politics, a critical movement that prevents the settling and fixing of
foundations and totalities. In order to conduct an argument, we rely on
certain premises, and these premises 'obliterate or finesse certain
possbilities' ÆSpivakÅ that question the very grounds of these premises,
their availability and vailidity. This might be undertood as the necessary
theoretical conditions and limitation of all practice. Above all,
deconstruction teaches us to pay attention to those moments when the limits
and constructedness of our arguments and positions may otherwise seem to
disappear...."
Yes, we should always question our premises, and avoid freezing into rigid
orthodoxies, but to quote the fellow æLeninå whom a lot of this is directed, it
makes it virtually impossible to answer the "What is to be done?" question.
While it may have been appropriate 20 or 30 years ago to foreground
difference and premise-questioning, and to focus on the aspects of culture
as material practice (and as Mr Orthodoxy himself said, when an ideology
grips the minds of the masses it becomes a material force), I think quite
the opposite move is crucial now: to devise strategies for linking culture
and what we used to call the "base"; to see once again, in Volosinov's
famous formulation, the sign as an arena of class struggle; and to figure
out how to forge some unity among all the disparate actors that make up the
"working class." As Kim Moody æredaktør av det fagopposisjonelle Labour
Noteså has said, we have the opportunity to do class right this time - now
that we are full conscious of all the "articulations"
of race, sex, and nation.
There's a temptation among some practical types to dismiss this all as
intellectual wanking. But I'm old-fashioned enough to think that what
intellectuals do matters a lot. The deconstructive turn - with its
attention to difference and reflexive self-questioning - has left a
tremendous vaccuum in political life. As the ruling class has been
consolidating itself on a global level - across the lines of cleavage like
nation, race, and gender - intellectuals who profess an attachment to the
egalitarian project of "the left" have contributed little to the formation
of an institutional or intellectual opposition.
Michele Barrett has written: "ÆPÅost-modernism is not something that you
can be for or against: the reiteration of old knowledges will not make it
vanish. For it is a cultural climate as well as an intellectual position, a
political reality as well as an academic fashion." That reads to me like
surrender. Underneath it, I read a despair that any radical change is
possible. From that position, the temptation of playing games with signs
instead of playing politics seems fairly irresistible. Me, I'll reiterate
an old knowledge - the ruthless criticism of all that exists.
Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217
USA
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email: <dhenwood@panix.com>
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Vh
Anders E