"Daniel F. Vukovich" wrote:
> Michael,
>
> [snip] I was trying to downplay our differences or our
> non-communication, and to show that I was not, in fact, being melodramatic,
> as you accused.
>
> [snip]
O.K. I stick to the substance of my posts, but I too would like to see the element of hostility in posts lowered somewhat. If you respond favorably both to Michael's economics and to Mao's China, there should be some basis for not merely slamming each other personally.
Now as to the word "postmodern." Anyone familiar with the practice of historians, of the history of literary criticism and scholarship, and of the history of history of philosophy should know that it is rather commonplace to make general statements about some supposed "school" or tendency (e.g., Augustan Age, Aristotelianism, Absolutism, Old Regime, Romanticism, etc. etc. and then make endless qualifications and exceptions when the writer gets specific. They are very useful terms to start a conversation (or even a careful analysis) with -- and no one gets all fucking excited over them. When we aren't fighting, we all know in fact both that "postmodern" is a very sloppy term indeed AND that it is a useful term (so long as the user is prepared to accept modificatins/exceptions/etc in particular cases.)
I could probably rip Justin's list apart, and I'm sure others could do an even more efficient hatchet job on it. But except for point- scoring the list isn't a bad way to begin. ???
And of course the recent posts have been far more specific than those on postmodernism as a whole. They have dealt specifically with questions around using psychological categories for social discussion and the validity of psychoanalysis. Whether or not postmodernism names a discussable topic or not, psychoanalysis certainly does.
Timpanaro once said that western marxists were in total agreement on one thing -- the infallibility of Freud. Communists are not the only dogmatists around.
Carrol