[lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity

[brad bauerly]

I would agree that Walter Benn Michaels uses rhetorical devices to his
detriment in a lot of what he writes.  However, there also tends to be a
strong tendency to apply to him views to which he does not explicitly claim.
I would also understand what he is saying to both apply to the academy and
to the general political situation we are living in.  The recent debates
over health care and Obama being a case in point about the attempts by some
liberals and fellow traveler's of the Democrats to use race as a means of
distraction from the class based influences and decisions being made.

I stumbled upon this great Collette quote which I thought succinctly sums up
much of what passes for 'progressive' politics these days, both in and out
of academia and does it in a better style then WBM's has tended to: "The
general will is invoked in order to confer absolute value on individual
caprice; society is invoked in order to render asocial interests sacred and
intangible; the cause of equality among men [sic] is defended, so that the
cause of inequality among men (property) can be acknowledged as fundamental
and absolute. Everything is upside down." Lucio Colletti 1973 Introduction
to Marx's Early Writings.

Brad