On Fri, 21 Jan 2000, Daniel F. Vukovich wrote:
> At 12:09 AM 1/21/00 -1000, Stephen E Philion wrote:
> >Just to add to Yoshie's comments, see Aijaz Ahmad's *Classes, Nations, and
> >Literature*...His critique of Said is very powerful...not least of all
> >because he begins it by affirming the often heroic (I'm not big on that
> >word, but just pardon the slippage) positions he has taken on Palestian
> >self-determination....before he procedes to criticise the weaknesses of
> >his theoretical model, which Yoshie has discussed below...
>
>
> Absolutely wrong. Actually, the critique of Jameson in there is quite
*Absolutely* wrong? Am I *absolutely* wrong, for starters, that Ahmad's introductory remarks to his essay on Said are not sincere praise of his heroic stances he has taken vis the Palestinian struggle? I don't think one has to agree with all of Ahmad's arguments to concede at least that much. Now, if that is the case, how is Ahmad making an 'ad hominen' attack?
> good, if also over-stated at points (due more to that polemological, as
> opposed to cerebral/scholarly style of Ahmad). (Though Xudong Zhang and
> others have argued that there is, despite the orientalism in Jameson's
> "National Allegory" essay, some useful stuff in there for looking at -- of
> course -- quasi- "nationalist" or anti-colonialist lit. ) The critique of
> Said is worthless, ad hominen crap.
Well,
Ahmad is not actually capable of
> critiquing Said on theoretical grounds,
This just seems to be assertion, any examples?
just as his (and Eagleton's)
> "responses" to Derrida are, alas, embarassing to anyone who takes marxism
> and socialism as, in part, intellectual or cerebral projects (I refer to
> the Verso collection from last Fall I think). The fact that Said is
> bourgeois and plays the piano and likes opera are, really, not that
> important, and have nothing to do with orientalism as a concept or practice
> or a problematic. But the hatchetman Ahmad "thinks" otherwise.
>
That's just silly, where does he say such things?
> Much better critiques of Said have been written by, e.g., James CLifford or
> Bruce Robbins. Nobody reads (takes seriously) Ahmad except the "left
> conservatives" who dont read *any* post-colonialist or Subaltern Studies
> or related work, and dont want to; it saves them a lot of bother and
> re-confirms their ignorance. Ask or look around, you'll see.
>
Left conservatives? Gosh, all you do is throw out labels. I don't care if Ahmad is 'liked' or not. I do think he is quite right that most criticism of his book focuses on the Said chapter, which, anyone who reads Ahmad's book realises is not where the meat of his argument is made. That of course is in the first and last chapter.
> Said's book has generated quite a lot of response, not least b/c it has
> helped enrich and move the intellectual landscape in a way that few other
> books and thinkers have. Said has his own critique in Orientalism
> Reconsidered (from Critical Inquiry I think), in which he properly "admits"
> that, on a gut or basic level, what he is saying there is the same thing as
> what Fanon and Cabral have said, and that he would emphasize, even more (it
> is in there, if you read it), the international division of labor. Said's
> intellectual influences in that book include, Gramsci, Foucault, Raymond
> Williams, and Vico-- and it shows. Read the damn book. If you can
> understand what a problematic is, and if you can understand hegemony in a
> deeper way than, say, Kissinger, you can for the most part cruise right
> through.
>
Now this is ad hominem. Anyone who disagrees with you is a HanK Kissinger? You bring up Fanon and Cabral. Fanon is very popular here amongst nationalist Native Hawaiian students on campus. They love to quote from him and go on and on about the "Natives" and "settlers". But, they read Fanon utterly unaware of the remarkably sophisticated Marxist class analysis that Fanon employs in his discussion of these two entity's relationship. They take there to be 'natives' en masse and 'settlers' en masse. No sense that Fanon breaks down the categories in terms of the specific class structure of decolonizing nations at that time (which are, in many many instances now quite different, another point lost on our campus misappropriators of Fanon). Thus, Fanon is actually far more critical of the native bourgeoisie, nationalist politicians, and intellectual...Downright vitriolic in his treatment of them. If you ask me, Ahmad's first and last chapters lay out in a very reasonably argued fashion why the Marxism of Fanon and Cabral is lost on this generation of Fanon and Cabral fans... His argument is that Said, in an unintended fashion, has fed into that trend and also been used by those who want to further it.
> I just think it is not right for people to criticise it without having read
> any of it.
Myself, I read Said and Foucault long before they were read by people who love Foucault, Said, Cabral, Fanon and despise Marx (1984)... Actually, I thought the the most devestating section of Ahmad's critique of Said was whre he demonstrates the often contradictory comprehension and usage of Foucault by Said. But again, one could even agree with you about the Said section, and still not touched at all on the heart of the book's arguments. Most of Ahmad's would be critics engage in this strategy, the *New Politics* discussion of his book is a classic example...I would hope you would not.
> "bolshevism" in-thought (at the level of thought or intellectual practice),
> is deeply reactionary. And that references to the "objective interests"
> of "the" working class are more phantasy than reality.
These are issues that Ahmad has actually treated rather carefully, along with other 'left conservatives' like Raymond Williams and EP Thompson.. I'm not sure who it is you are responding to though. I see nothing in your response that is relevant to the arguments that Yoshie has made vis. Said. And I'm quite sure that Yoshie has also read Said btw. And Rakesh, forget it, find me a book the man has not read....
Steve