[lbo-talk] corporate rationality

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Wed Oct 14 15:59:51 PDT 2009


At 01:53 PM 10/14/2009, Dennis Claxton wrote:
> I think part of Reed's complaint about anti-racism is that those who
> espouse it can use it as to quell some of their own anxiety about race.
> It's like the teacher on South Park who told the kids drugs are bad...
> "Racism is bad... ummmkay?"

well, you see, this is interesting to me because Michaels refuses to countenance such arguments. Explaining racism via some psychic formation would be anathema. Biological racism doesn't exist and neither does cultural racism. There is no shared culture among blacks, therefore there can be no cultural racism. People believe it, but it doesn't exist. It reminds me of Carrol when he wants us to stop, for god's sake, talking about class in any way that might indicate a cultural analysis of, say, working class identity or middle class identity. Doug usually bristles as such comments -- or has. Michaels would agree with Carrol though: Stop thinking that way, he says, because when you do, you are advancing neoliberalism.

And this is just one more reason why I'm completely puzzled as to Doug's support. You can get Michaels argument -- the one Doug supports as he's articulated it on the list -- without the baggage from any variety of thinkers with their own baggage and, I think, much more radical baggage that will actually move us forward. Michaels's clear opposition to a thinker like Judith Butler... it just doesn't square with what Doug has otherwise said on this list and elsewhere. Doug's own deep interest in talking about the culture of the white middle class, the identity formations among the elite, the central role played by identity formation in just about any phenomenon? These are useless exercises for MIchaels and not just useless but they advance an ideology of neoliberalism.

As my critique of Michaels's discussion of feminism shows, for example, Michaels's actually engagement with feminism encourages people to not just come away from his discussion with erroneous understandings of feminism, it encourages people who probably already think feminism is hogwash to think it even harder.

I can't support that and I don't know why doug wants to either. Telling me over and over and over again that Michaels' has no problem with feminism, per se (he thinks they are good things) does not square with an author who uses a non-feminist male religious leader as an example of feminism. Nor does his claimed support for anti-racist struggles (they're good things) does not square with an author who misrepresents a key text in the field. I think anyone who has some inchoate resentment that, somehow, anti-racist, disability, indigenous, environmental, feminist, and queer rights struggles take away from a focus on class will just continue thinking that and will use Michaels to advance their argument further. They won't be encouraged to become familiar with anti-racist and feminist and queer theorists/activists who actually have engaged in self-criticisms re: class and *do* see their activism as intesely bound up with class.

We need both/and thinking, not Michaels' either/or.

not that you disagree... but...

as for your explanation, I also still find it insulting to make assumptions about what motivates people to be racists or what have you. It's fine on the analysts couch, but I have never bought this as social explanation. It is one of my problems with Zizek. When it gets taken up, as Doug recently did, to dismiss people's arguments as a symptom of some kind of psychosis, it's insulting. For Doug, none of us have a legitimate argument. It can all be explained away by our identity attachments.

But again, as Michaels says, you don't justify what you think by reference to your identity, so it's a little hilarious to watch Doug try to do just that -- only to others! And then tell us of his unqualified support for Michaels! The mind boggles.

shag



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