BUT, amidst all of this not-quite-what-you-think-of-when-you-think-U-of-C leftism, there was no one who would extend this "transgressive" scholarship into a critique of political economy. It was a cease fire of sorts. The econ dept didn't make waves about a leftism that they considered puerile and irrelevant, while the leftists tiptoed gingerly around the econ dept's turf.
Within that context, Tom Frank's argument that capitalism excels at recuperating every transgressive gesture was an important intervention, at least locally. How resonant it is outside Hyde Park I don't know. Whether or not it essentially reproduces a left critique of postmodernism that's coming from a lot of different directions I also don't know, though my sense is that The Baffler got there early. When nobody in their milieu was paying attention, for example, they devoted a great deal of attention to the war zone in Decatur. Tom Frank and the rest of them may have started to repeat themselves now, but I consider them comrades. The building they were in was seriously underinsured. Go to the benefit.
Michael McIntyre
>>> gadfly at home.com 07/02/01 02:46PM >>>
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Folks in & around NYC - there's a benefit this Thursday, July 5, 9 PM,
> for The Baffler,...
>
on reading the "about the baffler" page at www.thebaffler.org, i am a bit confused. clearly these folks are pro-"enlightenment" and want to project "bafflement" as its opposite (i do not agree, but i will try the socratic method of posing innocent questions rather than present my justifications for my belief ;-)). they wish to attack the "intentional obscurity" caused by the "academic professionalization" of "cultural criticism". later on i read "Yes, postmodernism is the cultural logic of late capitalism". what might they be talking about when they complain about obscurity? (after all one does not complain, upon leaving high school, about academic obscurity when one is introduced to more complex notation and theory in college physics or mathematics).
seems to me that the baffler is yet another instance of the righteous left (liberal scientists, enlightenment/"single truth" believers) attacking the relativist left, only this one does not seem (at least to me) very well reasoned in the "about the baffler" page (the authors jump from cultural critics to corporate sponsorship to post-modernism with little justification, or so it seems to me). as stanley fish points out, academia and the public sphere (including the "left" part of the public sphere - see for instance the views of chomsky and ehrenreich, the stars of the western left: http://www.zmag.org/ScienceWars/index.htm) continue to be very much in the control of the orthodoxy, derrida's popularity notwithstanding (the reference to the left is mine, not fish's. his point is in response to dinesh d'souza and similar conservative critics' constant complaining about the degradation of the canon and overall academic standards due to the hijacking of academia by left-wingers, postmodernists, etc).
what exactly are the folks at the baffler talking about? that there is a vast conspiracy that involves corporations and postmodernists aimed at bafflement and duping the public? and if its not postmodernism that they are talking about (despite mentioning it by name) then who are these priests of high culture that have declared that the "production of mass culture is not worth talking about"? and if these high critics are unwilling to make the "distasteful assumption that that the public stupidly fell for the commercial ephemera that increasingly made up our cultural surroundings", is one to assume that the good folks at baffler have gathered the courage required to bite the bullet and assume that the public is stupid (at least in these acts they mention)? if so, why would they expect the public to pay heed to them?
while i do not share the beliefs of these folks, i am really trying to understand if their point is any different from that being made by the orthodox left about postmodernists and other relativist thinkers, and if this viewpoint they present is valid and useful in shaping my beliefs. i do so in order to see where i could join hands in a common cause (questioning authority, as stated) that might be larger (in its capacity to bring change in the real world) than arguing philosophies (and i see the potential for finding such a common cause since i note that one of the folks at baffler is thomas frank whose book "one market under god" i recently read and found interesting).
--ravi