i've gotten to the chapters on postone's criticism of critical theory, which I'm sort of skimming while waking up with my cuppajoe. got a lot on my mind, and a lot to do today, so i'm not really into it. even so, i wish i could get into it since i was thrilled to turn to this section yesterday a.m. i did my thesis on the limits of the frankfurt school's critical theory which i'd entitled, "entrapped in the present." it was kind of neat to find that my ideas in that paper, written as an undergrad, were confirmed by postone.
at any rate, what i'm banging up against at the moment is trying to understand what postone means by "totality". you, robert, or angelus novus (is he still on the list?) have any klews for me? i seem to recall this as a technical term from marxist theory but, so far, postone isn't really grounding it. that's one of the problems i have with this book: he is so abstract and rarely seems to ground his concepts in anything concrete. he never turns to debates around specific issues to elaborate. another thing i find disconcerting is the tendency to simply summarize the author, without a lot of illustrative quotes. sure, there are footnotes, but i guess i like a lot more detail.
thanks!
shag