You call postmodernists unhappy modernists as if that is derisory. But you could equally say that Marx was an unhappy modernist precisely because he saw the dynamic element of society as also its most negative and restrictive feature. Capital giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other.
Besides the 'culutral turn' is already anticipated by sociological/philosophical theories of 'modernity' because they perform the ideological refraction into understanding modern social forms as culturally produced rather than understood in their direct integuement with capital - the shift from production to consumption if you like. By employing the basic culutralist empiricism of notions of identity, the individual/ society, they are begging to be deconstructed.
This does not lead to a celebration of postmodernism - there might be better ways of enacting this deconstruction. Indeed by the unilateral rejection of totality (except for maybe Jameson), postmodernists have ejected the theoretical psosiblity of understanding how something like capital works when it is throughly totalised.
But your orignal statement "no postmodernists = no postmodernism" seems to denegrate the actuality of postmodern ideas and relegate them to just bad theory. This is not helpful. Because the contradiction between the individuals formal constrcution as subject and his real political/ economic reality remains posited by the social world, and will continue to do so along as we have 'modernity' dominated by capitalist social relations.
The specific political problem that creates the need called the postmodern is the failure of the left and the incapacity of the generation of intellectuals from 60s 70s , now in positions of socal responsiblity, to honestly account for it. All seem to be in agreement that something specific has changed but perhaps look for anywhere but the political to identify its sources.
I happily remain an unhappy modernist
Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi Sent: 04 April 2001 07:09 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: Re: The coming Glorious Revolution
Erik Empson writes:
>The extent of the diverse and contradictory explantions of the postmodern
is
>something that could be charcaterised as...er..positively postmodern. (and
>it is understandable that this looks like it might decompose under its own
>dynamic) But whilst this ambiguity seems to be the essential import of the
>postmodern, it is first and foremost a reaction to the equally ambiguous,
>contadictory (and ideological)designation of our societies and knowledge of
>them as 'modernity' or 'modernism' salient in the academy. Postmodern
>rubbish might disappear when the self-satisfied crap of 'modernity' does.
>Because any attempt to affect an ideological closure on the here and now
>(even when concieved as a development) easily lends itself to the argument
>that it has allready past.
We are all moderns, whether we like it or not. Marx wrote in _Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts_: "The resolution of _theoretical_ contradictions is possible only through _practical_ means....Their resolution is by no means, therefore, the task only of the understanding, but is a _real_ task of life, a task which _philosophy_ was unable to accomplish precisely because it saw there a _purely_ theoretical problem." What troubles the minds of "postmodernists" -- who are basically just unhappy modernists in the world of "Freedom, Equality, Property, & Bentham" -- cannot be solved theoretically. Either it will find a practical solution in the course of (or as a result of) political struggles or it won't find any.
Yoshie