>I find it fascinating, and no doubt revealing in ways that I can't yet
>understand, that people criticize Butler & the posties in general for being
>both obscure and nothing new. (And not just separate groups of people - the
>same individuals have made both charges, some of them right here in this
>list.)
Why is this fascinating? Does this fascination mean that you think it irreconciably contradictory to believe that someone can be both obscure and nothing new? Maybe I'm not understanding the way you use the terms, but I don't see the contradiction. One can be both "difficult to understand" and "have nothing to say." Just ask those people who make that music called "electronica."
>In both cases, it seems like an anxiety is defused through a
>dismissal: either they're incomprehensible (perhaps deliberately so) or
>irrelevant.
>
>Where does the anxiety come from? I think that a lot of old-style leftists
>want to blame the depoliticization of the masses and the rather sorry state
>of Marxism on the evil influence of postmodernism, however loosely defined
Great point, methinks. People looking for explanations (or excuses, or justifications) often light on the easiest target--and boy are the pomoers an easy target. It seems to me, though, that even if postmodernism were destroyed tonight, the masses would not be armed (politically or intellectually) to fight the revolution tomorrow. There is certainly something else creating interference. But what is it?
> and the relative success, in intellectual circles, of
>postmodernism, however loosely defined (if at all) chafes badly.
For me, their success is bothersome not because it has taken place (only) in intellectual circles, but because that's all its participants aspire to. As far as I can tell, they have no intention of reaching out to real people; why should I hold out my hand for them? My (admittedly head-in-the-sand) solution? Ignore them. They aren't talking to me anyway; if they were they wouldn't exlusively use obfuscatory syntax and polysyllabic words (like "polysyllabic"). Give me Dwight MacDonald, keep Jacques Derrida; I'll take Crime and Punishment, you can have Discipline and Punishment.
Eric Beck