> I think I agree. But it does raise the question of what sort of
> "discourse" is likely to advance "the left" as a viable, and visible,
> political entity as opposed to keeping it stuck in its current state of
> moribund, and (in these circles at least) ivory tower irrelevance. <...>
well, a simple way to avoid getting swallowed by the giant sucking sound--not the suck itself but its sound--produced by the backward-glancing, genealogy-minded, reductively- obsessed, hair-splitting, nomimalistico-scholiastic rubbish of ivoiricism academique is to spend a bit more time think- ing about implications and a bit less time dwelling (in the housing par excellence of pissants, the pup tent of misery: a wet blanket draped over a stick in the mud) on origins. and i don't mean 'theoretical' implications, which are (imo) in the largest part a dishonest trick for (re-)imposing the limitations of the past on the possibilities of the future, according to the prevalent theory that all possibilities are 'determined' by the conditions which give rise to them and, as such, merely more or less repetitions of the past.
heresy, i know, the notion that one might proceed naively, having not fully measured every possible nuance of the po- tential implications of every single aspect of everything that informs one's every word and deed. it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. 'it' being give all the clever folks fodder for their next 'brilliant' entry into their CV.
if indeed you decide to do this, don't look for much quarter from your academic pals. they'll tolerate you--and let you know they're doing so by punctuating their interlocution with rounds of resounding silence, so voluminous that you can hear the sighs of their purported (but objectively dead) predeces- sors echoing in ways that will make you wonder some days if the stuff between your ears is as empty as the rest of the stale-with-age air they carry with them, like the lint lodged in their cuffs.
> Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 18:06:15 -0500
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> <...> I'm tired of being irrelevant.
no need to fear: being irrelevant is *so* twentieth-century.
cheers, t