if I'm thinking of the same book, quite some time ago; if it's a more recent book, then no. I should take a look.
>You'd probably agree with what he has to say. A basic point is the
>idea that there are no meta-narratives is a meta-narrative.
of course it is. and I think derrida for instance would agree (see 'Writing and Difference', p280 for example). does eagleton say that pomoistas do/don't think this; or would he say derrida is/isn't a pomo, I'm not sure?
>Maybe you could expand on
>your point about certain meta-narratives being in the service of a
>suspension of critique?
well, I'd begin by emphasising that I'm both for and against meta-narratives at the same time. that is, I think they are an impossible thing to achieve or give effect to, since no commentary on ideology is neatly separated from that ideology, but that doesn't mean we can avoid them. (** I think critique, dialectical and deconstructivist, works from very different premises than an outlook which was more committed to either insisting on meta-narratives as the name for critique, or even insisting that meta-narratives should be done away with. which is why I would think meta-narratives are both unavoidable and to be treated with suspicion.
(I hope eagleton is still talking in terms of immanent and dialectical critique?
maybe I'm being repetitive here, but I thought it was important to clarify.
I was trying to figure out why some marxists locate the problem with postmodernism in its refusal of meta-narratives. whether pomoistas actually do this is debatable depending on who we might be speaking of; but I was more interested in picking up on at least a small part of a less obvious assumption contained in this criticism: namely, that opposition and critique are synonymous with meta-narratives - dispense with meta-narratives, and you dispense with marxism, or so the story goes.
so, it made me think of those occasions when a show of 'knowingness' was actually the occasion for reintegration of a resistant subject into a conservative narrative or politics. which is why I think you're right to point to detachment and ironic detachment as an attitude of powerlessness - but it is perhaps only an attitude, a wish, more than a reality.
CYNICAL detachment is making a show of this in order to allow for an identification to continue to take place with various narratives, mostly liberal if not conservative. so, it isn't just powerlessness that's at issue, but exactly a recognition of a resistance; and one which kind of fulfills our desires for being detached and 'in the know'.
like reagan's wink; or goldblum's grin; or even the spice girl's campiness, it not only performs a detachment - cynically - from the narratives and objectives of reaganism or a racist film or a commodity frenzy which allows those who would otherwise resist the narrative to say 'well, they don't take it seriously, so if I vote for/enjoy/buy, then I'm not really getting sucked in, because we're just sharing a joke'.
i.e.., I can say to myself: my detachment is secure, I'm not really enjoying capitalism, just enjoying it cynically - not only with full knowledge but also with a knowledge that isn't tainted by what I'm doing. what we are allowed to enjoy is or own conceit (that our opposition is accomplished and complete) as the trade for identifying with the narrative. I was interested in 'starship troopers' because it presented a racist genre (well all the racist genres: teen movies, alien invasion films, war films) without the obligatory 'anti-racist' gestures that would absolve it, without being a racist film, if that makes sense. alex disagrees in part with how I saw this, and no doubt others will too, but that's what impressed me about it.
you also wrote:
>Eagleton's theory is in part
>that the reason critical theory and postmodernism has spread like
>some sort of virulent, mutating virus is the left's stunning defeat
right after
>the 60's. The 60's didn't pan out from an anti-capitalist
perspective.
no doubt we are in the shadow of defeats. but why an approach, or even a set of questions should not be posed after a defeat strikes me as not a very good historical approach. and nor would it be useful to make us think only of victories as some way of protecting ourselves. a lot of people came out of the experience of the sixties with what I think is an incredible and sometimes boundless enthusiasm (people like guattari), and one that often is not shared by those if us who grew up with neo-liberalism. but you're right that the upheavals of the 60s/70s was a defining moment, but didn't it affect everyone who is of a certain age? maybe he just doesn't like the questions/answers others give to this experience? is that what he means or something else?
yoshie wrote:
>Zizek also has a great line on the problem of irony and cynicism. In
a
>nutshell, ideology doesn't simply work by making us blind to what's
>really going on; irony and cynicism allow us to keep on doing what we
are
>doing even when we _know_ that what we are doing is not in our
interest.
>....irony is a bad faith of educated workers who 'know
>better.
I like zizek's take on this as well, but I don't recall him talking about irony so much as cynicism. his comments on the cynicism of the communist party leadership in eastern europe is not exactly translatable to a discussion of the irony of 'intellectuals'. but I agree with the general point re: ideology.
the question I would ask however is to what extent is this 'knowingness', the conceit that one knows what is really happening, prevalent not only amongst certain postmodernists, assuming that we might have an idea who we're talking about, but also amongst certain marxists. in which case, I think the issue is not confined to postmodernism, but one that afflicts anyone who really believes in their ability to accede to a level of meta-narrative.
angela