if the first and/or second: i am reminded again that many marxists do not think this banal insight is of any particualr relevance, and in many cases is not a working assumption at all, in all the discussion over 'the pomos'. much of this discussion you will admit has been underpinned by the presumption of a distnce between 'culture' and 'economics', or what is another version of the same thing, by the distance between 'real class struggle' and 'aesthetics'. or, in another form, that productivelabour equals manual labour; the working class are those folks who work with their hands (not their heads)..... maybe this hasn't informed your comments on butler or otherdesignated pomos (i'd have to go back and look to be sure), but it has certainly been the the big theme of this entire discussion. (angela to carrol cox)
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While I was trying to refine some thoughts on Butler, it occurred to me to set up these sorts of categories: art and revolution, postmodernism and marxism, culture and history. The idea was a way to give some form to the opposition that did not just dismiss one or the other and didn't rank them--at least not in my mind.
So, then culture is understood as the expressions of the conditions, which constitute history. Postmodernism in this sort of system becomes more of an effect rather than a cause, but not entirely so, since cultural expression of course also forms (or informs?) the general sorts of conceptualizations of what is most meangingfull about the conditions. Then history becomes the more concrete economic, political and social institutional processes, their events, and the general sorts of change these undergo.
Sorry, I am in a 'why can't we all just get along mood this morning'
Chuck Grimes