Thinking about the comments on my post on the politics of cultural studies, I get the impression that the political point I was making hasn’t been articulated clearly enough.
As I argued in an earlier post at Troppo, postmodernism, though it has contributed some valuable epistemological insights, is right wing. Not in its intention, and the personal politics of many postmodernists are progressive. But its overall effect has been to promote political quietism and a sort of nominalist mysticism where people believe they can change the world through changing language, in texts usually addressed only to other academics.
The British writer Tariq Ali puts the point far more eloquently than I can in his new book, Speaking of Empire and Resistance:
…the popularity of postmodernism and of cultural studies, both of which denigrate the study and pursuit of history as a grand narrative. The resurgence of the American empire, and the fact that Bush and his neocons are not scared to nakedly parade their strength, to say, “We do these things because we can, because it suits our interests, and that’s what matters”- this is a problem for that wing of the academy that thought it could live in its own world. It wanted to be critical, but it also desired not to get involved in big debates: politics and history, these were old things. They were on to new things. They would discuss tiny little fragments, tiny little episodes. They would discuss gender, they would discuss identity, and these things were far more important. History has shown that this is now not the case, and the academy has to become more critical if it’s going to move forward.
Precisely.
It’s not that gender and identity and culture are unimportant. But to study the micro-politics of identity is to ignore the prime causal factor - the deep structures of history and the contestation over society embodied in the world of politics.
History has returned with a vengeance - perhaps those living at its end and rerunning medieval nominalist debates should wake up, look outside the windows of the ivory towers, and take note.
The irony is that postmodernists and cultural studies are denigrated by the intellectual Right as left-wing heresies. The critique should be better mounted from their Left.
Elsewhere: Another take on the History Wars at Liam’s place.
So your argument is that some academic preoccupations are reight-wing because they fail in their attempt to be effective left-wingers?
I don’t accept that. They’re still left-wingers, just a bit more incompetent than the average.
Dividing academics into the categories of “useful left” and “useless left” does not somehow magically produce a category of “right” academics.
If you like.
But I’d still argue there are quite a few genuine “right academics around”.
Why do you think it matters, EP, since you’ve claimed that academia is irrelevant and the net is the new forum for public debate?
I think Hobsbawm’s take on this is worth reading:
Didn’t Lenin say something about “useful fools”?
I couldn’t agree more, Rob.
I believe in truth.
Rob’s comment crossed with mine.
Yr spot on - identity politics as such is neutral politically - it can just as easily be used to valorise ethnic hatred and division as to valorise different sexualities for instance. Even then, it often has the effect of fragmenting people who should stand beside each other - for instance gay men and lesbians.
Hobsbawm is worth 20,000 cult studies theorists.
Why do you think it matters, EP, since you’ve claimed that academia is irrelevant and the net is the new forum for public debate?
Because left-wing-dominated academia is still an important power base, indoctrination centre, propaganda platform, and recruitment resource for the Left. As a bastion of the enemy, it needs to be overrun or destroyed.
What would you put in its place, EP?
How post modern of you Evil Pee to read Mark‚Äôs post as just a textual elision between degrees of “leftist”.
You may be in danger there of not discovering antagonism as a result of investigation, but rather imposing it as an assumption.
But then again, you’re pretty much an old lefty hippie in how you see the world aren’t you old chap As an ongoing dialectical struggle where the Man (or Woman in your case) uses the system to oppress you and where people are narcotized by the mass media. But there’s a revolution coming baby. It’s called blogging and it will set you free. But while you wait for it to happen (Not doing much about yerself though are you? One of those weekend hippies I guess), you seek solace in eastern mysticism - like Buddhism and the I Ching.
I reckon if yer were born 55 years ago, you‚Äôd end up exactly as the kind of person you‚Äôre determined to be antagonized by now. (Hey, but maybe you were and now, like too many other apostates, addicted to renunciation). And like the Weathermen or Viet Cong, you believe, “it‚Äôs a bastion of the enemy, it needs to be overrun or destroyed.”
Meanwhile back in the real world, yeah Rob I agree that the last few decades have seen the rise of mythologized and custom-tailored histories aiming to satisfy often inchoate needs rather than to answer questions and chart maps of human progress - driven I suspect by a unholy alliance of post-colonial nationalism, “me‚Äô generation identity politics and a mass media (’specially TV) that now over-emotionalizes everything to stop channel hopping during ad breaks.
And provided we don’t wade too deep into the morass of the Frankfurt School, I’d also agree that some of the Marxist approaches developed in the 50s and 60s provide some useful tools for historical enquiry. But we need to remember they are just tools. As was Gibbons’ skeptical and dry humour through which he filtered contemporary accounts of ancient Rome
But let’s face it, we’re never gonna arrive at what would generally be agreed to be purely objective historical studies. The best we can hope for is that people do the legwork and revisit source documents when they can, have a pragmatic understanding of human nature, enough intellectual and/or academic independence to put forward unpopular thesi, who understand that ideologies are means and not ends, and who can cast a ironic eye over the chronicles of human misadventure, stupidity and general vainglorious acts.
Basically, reason and humour. The two things that separate us from all other living creatures that have inhabited history for the past 6 billion years or so.
Too comfortable and glib dear nabakov. So much of this is a case of yes and no these days. Correctly, as you (and he) have repeatedly observed, Evil Pee is a creature of the left, arguing against a convenient albeit bizarre, interpetation of his former self.
Yet Mark’s and Eric’s and Rob’s and your own accounts need to come to terms with the arguable facts that these identities have become real political actors, no longer checking to see if their footnotes are wrong, and behaving in the mix, without legitimate licence, and are meanwhile knowing of all this themselves. The po-mo momement arrives, whether you like it or not, for it passes straight through that thought alone.
Which is to say that no other world admit someone as patently absurd as Evil Pee, unless it was pure po-mo to begin with.
I’ve always just rather thought that I am a conflicted and subjective person engaged in praxis like everyone else. And I guess that relativism bites deeper into my world view than I can imagine - but I still have to eat, play, make some decisions about reality and act on my world view.
Fortunately there are plenty of evil vicious ratbags out there to concentrate my mind on exterior circumstances.
Eating people is wrong.
Yes, EP, is very po/mo. Does he get paid by the forces of evil for piecework - a dollar for every comment on a blog or political forum?
Chris, we can accept that postmodernity is with us without having to accept postmodernism as theory, surely?
If post modernism is right wing, then colour me red (state, not communist) and give me a spot on FOX news.
As a reasonably post-modernist, not to meantion relativist, I would have to disagree. Sure it can be used for right-wing purposes, but saying that it is inherrently right-wing I think is false. It is very possible to be post modern and relativist, even to the extent that I am (at least a philosophical level), and still not be “right-wing”.
Nic the issue is twofold:
(a) what basis do you ground your politics on, if yr a relativist?
(b) if postmodernism reinforces the prevailing order by encouraging apathy, and the celebration of capitalist production of media content, and takes people’s attention off the real forces fucking up the world, isn’t it an objective ideological judgement to say it’s right wing?
Excuse my French (theory). Tehe.
a) I base it on allowing people the freedom to choose what they want to do and have no man reproach them for it, so long as it does not directly adversely affect other people and/or their right to choose. But the ends jutifies the means so long as it actually does.
b) Just because something is used for right wing purposes does not make it right-wing.
(a) That’s just liberalism, Nic. The issue with po/mo is epistemology - is there truth? Is there objective history?
You should see po/mo historians confronted with the question of whether the Holocaust was real or just a discourse. Like I said with identity politics, you can turn these things around - some German historians of a very right-wing stripe will now say “let’s look at this from the German point of view”.
(b) Depends whether you measure things by intention or effect.
It would be impossible to answer Nic and Kim together. Possibly impossible to answer Nic at all. Yes, I agree kim. That’s the short answer. The longer answer is that the argument has thickened, whether we might like it or not. Yes, I happen to like it, albeit inconveniently, not least for myself. The politics of voice and representation have something going for it in my book. Inclusiveness, at least.
If you measure things by effect, then Michael Moore, the Guardian, Daily Kos, Margo Kingston and Phillip Adams are all right-wing.
Are you trying to embarrass me into changing sides?
Go with the feline majority, EP.
Chris, I’m not saying that identities shouldn’t be politicised - as a feminist, obviously I think they should be. But I think that’s it’s vital not to lose sight of the wider (political, economic) forces in the world which create these identities. They can also be a ghetto and a trap in some ways, as well as liberating in others.
On Tariq Ali’s point, and the question of what moves history, Adorno had something interesting to say:
No universal history leads from savagery to humanitarianism, but there is one leading from the slingshot to the megaton bomb.
And of course, as Ali notes now we bomb in the name of humanitarianism. Infinite war to bring about peace, destroying the village to save it.
a) There is no such thing as truth to me, or at least “Truth”. That is, nothing can ever be completely proven, there is just agreed standards, agreed interpretations, agreed “morality”, agreed “values”, agreed “facts”, agreed number of scare quotes that are allowed to be used in one post. They are societal constructs and they change over time as people’s opinions change and the issues are debated. There is always room for discussion, debate and valid arguments can still be made - they might just be indefensible due to the weight of avaliable evidence. There is always at least a 0.0000…1% chance you could be wrong.
Of course, this makes it impossible for anything to function, so you have to cheat a bit and draw some artificial “absolutes” that arent really absolutes, just things you believe to be necessary - e.g. discrimination is inherrently wrong - but these must be changeable also, they are merely assumptions you work from when formulating philosophical arguments.
This is in a secular context, which is where I like to live for global issues. When you throw religion in the mix it of course gets infinately more complicated and paradoxical.
This is just how I see things, and yes I realise the above made absolutely no sense because I find it difficult to explain it.
b) A butter knife is made to bread butter onto bread and other such food-related uses. In times of desperation it can be used to kill someone. Does this make it an item for killing people? Not, its still a bloody butter kinfe (pun not intended).
I’m friends with a very po-mo postgraduate who does a great kind-of-karaoke song called ‘I’ve been to identity politics but I’ve never been to me’.
Drag hand gestures, dance and everything.
I completely don’t get how you square that with your religious beliefs, Nic, where you seem to hold to truth with a capital T.
There are truths - that is to say, there is no archimedean point from where we can objectively observe - but this doesn’t imply relativism. Truth is still related to the empirical. If I say “Bush is killing innocents” I can back that up with argument, and someone else can respond with counter-argument. Similarly, all the argument over the Lancet study of civilian deaths refers back to the possibility (if only theoretical) of counting all those who have died.
But if I say “I am a man” then that is an untruth. The broader classification of people into two genders provides the grounds for deciding - even if it is culturally influenced and mediated.
I believe that equality is a good and that this is my truth. I don’t accept that rich shits should have the freedom to exploit people.
Liam - Kewl!
“bread butter on to bread” oh dear…
Kim, I think the so-called broader forces of history (economic, political etc) remain relevant, but much more relationally than presumed in the past. Why do so many citizens vote for a lying prime minister? Why do so many working class people vote against their ostensible economic interest? Why is EP on the right? If you get my drift …
I get your drift, Chris.
I do also think it’s a more important conversation than whether Deleuze is a better philosopher than Spinoza or whether Reality TV is the new Shakespeare.
“I completely don‚Äôt get how you square that with your religious beliefs, Nic, where you seem to hold to truth with a capital T.”
Not entirely. I still very much entertain the possibility that I could well be wrong, it was always (and is with many thing actually) a process of plausibility - taking what you consider to be the most plausible explanation and going with it until something comes along, whether it be evidence or a thought process, that tips the scales enough. And within scripture there is a whole lot of different interpretations that are just like everything else - totally open to argument, even in a literalist context. But lets not go there yet again.
I define relativism as the complete absense of absolutes, as they are essentially in opposition. Having true relativism is damn near impossible, so I construct fake, changeable “absolutes” to allow a system of some sort to exist in your head. Your last statement is an example of one of those.
It could be argued that this applies in a lesser extent to things like biology, but there is still that margin possible wrongness.
Basically, you cant say someone is wrong and expect them to believe you unless you can prove it, and prove it well enough to win the argument. You are then “right” until the next one. That was a crappy explanationatory paragraph, hopefully you get the point because I sure wouldnt have.
But, Nic, a literalist reading of the Bible is an irrational position based on faith. By your criteria, you should prefer a reading based on both spirituality and the insights of critical scholarship. But yeah, let’s not go there again.
I think I get what yr saying but I still think that we need conviction and we need to at least aspire to the truth.
“we need conviction and we need to at least aspire to the truth.”
Can you elaborate?
Can you elaborate?
I’ll try tomorrow - gotta go sleep now!
Rafe would have something to say here about how Popper resolves this question of absolute vs relative truths. Seriously. Rafe, where are you?
Yes, I miss Rafe and I’d be interested to hear what he’d have to say on this topic.
The net is the new forum for public debate??? That’s a real hoot!!! Especially coming from EP *chuckles*
You’re right, Niall, there is no debate on the Internet — despite its centuries of existence. I stand corrected.
Kim?
Returning by popular demand.
Actually I have been trying to do some reading instead of giving in to the addictive tendency to flit from blog to blog.
Everyone just HAS TO READ Social Sciences as Sorcery by Stanislav Andreski, written about 1972 and based on the US and European scene, it is apparent that nothing has changed much except that Australia is now up to date with all the anti-intellectual tendencies in academia and the life of the mind at large that he described then.
One of his points is directly relevant to this thread, and it precisely articulated my view on the matter. The suggestion is that any tendency to confusion and muddle supports the status quo because clear thinking and focussed actions are required to improve the situation and these are undermined by muddled thinking on the part of academics and intellectuals, more or less regardless of their conscious or explicit ideological or political orientation.
The next question is, what is the status quo? Almost everyone here says it is Right. Some say it is Left. I say it is Statist, meaning that both parties are committed to policies that lead in a similar direction towards big government, driven by pork barelling to buy blocks of votes and vested interests.
So for that reason I don’t see the real contest as Liberal vs Labour or left vs right, but rather the contest to get understanding of the benefits that flow from a suite of policies summed up as laissez faire or minimum state liberalism etc against another set that is promulgated by both sides of politics as we know it.
And so to bed.
Good to see you back, Rafe.
Still thinking about what I mean, Nic!
Taking up Jason’s point about absolute and relative truth.
It is helpful to think of the correspondence theory of truth (agreeing with the facts) as an indispensible regulative principle in discourse.
Do not be tempted by the Terminus Theory of Truth according to which we have a duty to have and to hold onto the Truth (capital T) or at least do our very best to so.
It is also helpful to be able to talk about relativities and relationships (between statements and situations) without making concessions to any of the corrosive forms of relativism. The truth of a statement is relative to the state of affairs that it purports to describe and it is true or false depending on the state of affairs. That is very different from suggesting that the truth of the statement is “relative” in the corrosive sense that its truth or falsehood changes in arbitrary ways.
I don’t think that the above suggestions are undermined by the theory dependence of facts.
More can be said about this if it helps. A lot of these things are commonsense but they have been obscured by fads and fashions that persist regardless of counter-arguments that have been in the literature for decades.
This is an area where half-baked argumentation is rampant in sections of the humanities and the social sciences, also people tend to be very attached to their positions and most unwilling to take the trouble to understand alternative views.
Looks like i killed that thread off.
Sorry Mark!
Don’t worry, Rafe, your comments are interesting but I’ve had a long day and I’m too tired to respond sensibly. I plan to come back and say something in due course!