[lbo-talk] anti-pro contradictions

[Alan Rudy]

As always, different folks mean different things by post-modern.  I didn't
mean the world of desituated deconstruction or free-floating signifiers,
less postmodernism - which I always read as self-aggrandizing ideology
critique, and more post-modernity.  I meant to refer to the ways that the
pillars of the modern era were Utilitarian economic, political and
scientific production, each assumed to be a central player in the
progressive movement of history with atomistic, self-interested and
competitive individuals as the agents of history.  It is broadly argued, or
at least it has been broadly argued to me, that the early 60s represent a
relative peak in the widespread embrace of these modern, progressive
institutions - I think of my PhD-in-Physics, working-at-the-AT&T-Bell-Labs,
local politician and neo-Malthusian environmentalist dad here - and that
1968 serves as well as any other year to mark the advance of an era where
fewer and fewer people see any of the three as straightforwardly progressive
forces.

Under these conditions, whether in support of scientific capitalist
democracy or not, the subjects, agencies and institutions of progress
(reformist or revolutionary) were fairly clear.  These days, though this is
certainly quite uneven, without a clear public faith in the inherently
progressive nature of capitalism, democracy or science we live in a
post-modern world or, at least, a world that is significantly lost faith in
the pillars of modernity.

As Carrol points out, none of the vagaries/contradictions of capitalism,
democracy or science are news to a raft of people on the left, Marxist,
anarchist or what-have-you, but this is not to say that many of the more
structuralist left readings of modernity haven't fairly uncritically
embraced an awful lot of modernity, its progressive tendencies and a
straightforward sense of the subject of history lying in _______________
(fill-in-the-blank).  The funniest thing, to me, about post-structuralism (I
know, different from though often conflated with, postmodernism) was always
that it sounded so much like the relational reading of Marx I was raised
with.

This probably is less coherent than I'd like but, heck, I'm still drowning
in grading.

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 2:17 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


>
>
> c b wrote:
> >
> > Alan Rudy
> >
> > "...its also that the left seems - given post-modern uncertainty about
> > singular or even primary identities - to have no clear alternative
> > vision of community"
> >
> > ^^^^
> > CB: I think this should be "some of the left".   Some of the left is
> > not hungup on post-modern uncertainties.
>
> I'm not sure why Alan thought it useful to drag in "post-modern"
> concerns here, but it is quite irrelevant, and gave cb a chance to dodge
> the actual issues.
>
> _All_ of the left better be aware that in a world of contingencies
> certainty is damn hard to come by, and usually wrong. And that is good
> Marxism if you read Marx enough.
>
> Carrol
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