> What is there that cannot be expressed in plain English?
the presumption that just because something is clearly put it is true. something appears as clear not because it is true, but because it is made to appear as such. this is not a new insight, by any means. marx signals this with the opening line: 'at first glance, the commodity....'. it has become important to restate this exactly because the field of oppositional politics, of left politics - including many marxists - has forgotten this important principle of critique.
> If
> Pomos are so important, how have they contributed to a strong left?
which pomos? some i like, some i detest, some do not regard themselves as pomos but are seen to be so for reasons which have more to do with how people want to set up a debate.
>
> What have they done for us (and by "us" I mean, among other things,
> people who are not religiously attached to Marxist dogma in the first
> place)?
well, the above for me is important. i would also add that i think the shift from thinking of identities as discrete entities to thinking of them as immediately and always relational is crucial. again, this i think is also an insight of marx's; but one that has been put aside in those tendencies within marxism that want to emphasize classes as more or less disconnected (or separable) and various subjectivities as existent prior to struggle. i make these connections not to say that marx is the direct ancestor here, nor to suggest that marx's offerings are exhaustive, but to suggest that rather the challenge of pomo is not (as some have claimed) a challenge to marxism but it is a challenge to go back to marx and reread his work in light of certain questions being posed. marxism is dead without this engagement. i for one am in no doubt that those who call for a militarization and taylorisation of marxist politics, of any oppositional politics are significantly more threatening to the future of an oppositional and marxist politics than most of those who are being tagged as pomos.
cheers, angela