I mostly sympathize with the Enlightment values behind these banner-waving attacks on 'theory' but they display a certain political naivety. Any political position can be justified from almost any philosophical position. French Stalinists denounced Nietzsche with great vehemence whilst supporting Lysenko. Derrida's political position is a fairly conventional old-style French leftism. Foucault's political practice looks good compared to many other French intellectuals from the PCF Stalinists to the pop Hayekian 'new philosophers' (does anyone remember the Time front cover; 'Marx is Dead' about the new philosophers?). The academic Marxism that post-structuralism supplanted was sometimes riddled with crude functionalism, reductionism and ad hominen arguments, but a lot of academic Marxism was good work inspired by good values. The obligatory anti-Enlightment rhetoric of post-structuralists is tedious, but once you get past this some good work has been done from this approach: Stephen Resnick, Richard Wolff and J.K.Gibson-Graham are examples.
Dr Geoff Robinson Lecturer Australian Studies & Politics Faculty of Arts Deakin University Warrnambool VIC 3280 Ph: 03 5563 3512 Fax: 03 5563 3534 Mobile: 0407 731 963