On Fri, 25 Feb 2000 23:57:43 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> What has happened in cultural studies is exactly to take Debord, Brecht,
> Walter Benjamin, Gramsci, and even Marx himself & to drain Marxist
> _politics_ out of their thoughts. Minus Marxist politics, their ideas can
> be made to seem compatible with liberal democracy & capitalism (and
> formalist art & art criticisms to decorate them).
Dear Yoshie,
Are we to take it that *all* cultural studies is compatible with liberal democracy and capitalism? If you're going to paint a devil, at least give it a name and a face. I believe Marx had something to say about abstractions and generalizations... but since all reification is a forgetting, and all cultural studies is ideology, and I consider myself someone who studies culture, I forget what he said.
Someone once said (you know who you are) that relentless criticism becomes torture... and someone else said that in a world of shit, some navel gazing should be expected (as a necessary condition for survival). I think it was Eagleton who then noted that if people didn't write and do stupid things, nothing would ever be accomplished (so, who wants to talk about Who Want to Marry a Millionaire?). We all have reasons to be angry - but these enemies - postmodernism, lit crit, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and god knows what else... they all have historical grounding. Postmodernism isn't new, as has been noted in a good many posts of late - its key tenets are pre-Socratic. Let's get over it. Do we enjoy criticism, sure we do. Do we enjoy being stupid, yep, and mean, yes, and sometimes compassionate and understanding. We are damaged goods. Handle with care.
sweet incomprehension and pathos, ken