>>> Dennis R Redmond writes:
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.
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.
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Believe it or not I was thinking something like this. I guess it is not that unbelievable. What tipped me off was the emphasis on breaking down boundaries. This is figuratively transnational. It makes sense that post-modernism which places so much emphasis on the symbolic would symbolically represent or be the superstructural reflection of neo-imperialism., late, late capitalism, rotten beyond putrid. Of course, this does not automatically turn into socialism anymore than imperialism could have. We still have to knock it out acting as subjects,;its objective features will not do on their own.
Charles