[lbo-talk] Platypus: what we are, what we do, and why

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Apr 9 07:13:12 PDT 2010


On Apr 9, 2010, at 10:01 AM, JAMES Heartfield wrote:


> Chris C.:
>
> "More than 50 years of "Third World" so-called "revolutionary"
> movements
> have failed to produce any emancipatory results whatsoever"
>
> Is that something of an overstatement? Having visited both the South
> Africa
> and the West Bank and Gaza, I was very impressed with what people
> had done
> there in straitened circumstances. I hear that Vietnam is quite
> impressive,
> too.

Sorry to wax Foucauldian, but this word "emancipatory" is not without problems. It assumes that there's some inner essence yearning to breathe free - and that could breathe free, were it not for all those external constraints. Once removed, it would bound about like a newborn lamb. But, really, what does this emancipation look like? And who is this little shriveled repressed person inside us, anyway? Would I recognize mine if we were introduced?

Doug



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