On Sun, 3 Oct 1999 kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca wrote: [mucho snippage]
>
> Critical Marxism: those who insist that the illusory
> freedom of the bourgeois thinking subject is rooted in class
> division.
>
> "There is no class relationship." Why? Because it
> constitutes our lived reality, it is in what Lacan calls
> "the Real." As such, we can only approach it in part. In
> other words, class derived theory itself is a (failed)
> attempt to come to terms with the traumatic Real. This is
> important, so it should not be misunderstood. If we are
> going to theorize class, it is necessary to acknowledge
> that class itself shapes our reality. In other words:
> class struggle is present only in its effects. The attempt
> to totalize the social field, to assign to social phenomena
> a definite place in the social structure is always doomed
> to failure. If one is caught in the effect, in the trauma,
> the aim is not to uncover the source (as if this was
> possible) but to engage directly the excess. We cannot
> penetrate the obscure origins of power because we should
> not. For, upon finding it, we end up in the most
> authoritarian position of all: the tyrant. The one who
> *knows* beyond a shadow of a doubt. Perhaps we can take
> hints from Dark City. The hero discovers the truth, and
[und so weiter...]
Man, are we getting Sokalled here? Just a thought.
Miles "I'll get on my knees and pray that we don't get etc" Jackson