>
>On Wednesday, June 19, 2002, at 12:44 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>>Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>>>
>>>actually, i think it's more cynicism than "postmodern relativism"
>>>(i've never understood exactly what that is, anyway, speaking of
>>>straw men)
>>
>>"There's no such thing as value - there's only supply and demand."
>> - chief investment officer of a large insurance company, circa 1988
>
>do you think that's actually an expression of something postmodern?
>
>well, it seems in any event a good example of something jameson
>would identify as an example of postmodernism, and arguably about
>something you could call postmodern relativism. but insofar as i've
>ever understood the phrase, i've always understood it as
>applying--or perhaps rather, *seen* it applied--more to jameson, for
>example, than to any of the phenomena about which he writes.
>moreover, insofar as many see the resurgence of fundamentalisms as
>precisely a postmodern phenomenon, that would belie the broad
>brushstroke of "postmodern relativism."
I have a plane to catch in a couple of hours, so I can only give a telegraphic response. But I think a good deal of what traditional types dismiss as "postmodern relativism" is a product of living in a society where everything is up for exchange, with money serving as the universal equivalent. All that's solid melts into air, etc. Jameson himself said p.m. is the cultural logic of late capitalism.
Doug