Identity politics

Dennis R Redmond dredmond at gladstone.uoregon.edu
Tue May 26 17:47:07 PDT 1998


On Tue, 26 May 1998, Max Sawicky wrote:


> Alterman is wrong in stereotyping the political role
> of POMO's when they are not spouting their intellectual
> stuff, both because POMO's are political and some anti-
> or non-POMOs are not. I think he's right in suggesting
> POMO is anti-political as a theory, not because it is
> abstract (cf. Rakesh) but because it is junk.

Um, I beg to differ. Postmodernism, as America's leading Marxist, the literary critic Fredric Jameson put it, is the cultural logic of multinational capitalism. It's not completely "junk" any more than our mass-culture or consumer society is completely trash -- some things do get produced well and efficiently (Toshiba laptop computers, telecom switching devices, Linux kernel code). Quality pomo theorizers include Terry Eagleton, Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, etc.


> From partisans or defenders of identity politics, I'd
> be curious to know how such politics is envisioned
> to succeed in practice. Give us a scenario.

Postmodernism and identity or micro-politics are the culture and politics of multinational capitalism. There are conservatives and revolutionaries within this general category, of course; Clinton and the neoliberals are clearly in the former camp. If you want Rightwing blueprints, read any IMF report praising the efficiency of capital markets to the skies If you want Leftwing blueprints, look at the German Green Party's action program, the first coherent wish list of the 21st century global proletariat.

No, not every politics is multinational; the Second and Third Worlds still have lively nationalisms and proto-nationalisms. But the general tendency in the metropoles is towards the multi and away from the national.

-- Dennis



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