> Julio - yeah, used to be enamored of this position but I'm
> not any longer. As I said earlier, to Joanna, I think the
> whole project of basing a politics on a perspectivist
> epistemology is less than useless: "it's looking for a subject
> of history at all that's the problem."
I'm not sure I understand your views on this. To me, it is pretty obvious that we are all subjects of history. The question, of course, is which kind of history. So I suppose you're referring to the "search" for a revolutionary subject. Well, yes, because without a revolutionary subject, how can any revolution be possible? And if a revolution is necessary, isn't it better than the subject be conscious of its task? Of course, if a revolution is necessary, then "history by default" will search and find that subject, one way or another. But "history by default" and one-way-or-another don't seem to me like good search procedures. If pain can be averted by turning it into a conscious search, why not do so? At the end of the day, it'll be some mixture of both. But, again, I'm afraid I'm not really understanding your points.
> Unlike Carrol, though, I think that folks who buy into this
> approach are pretty harmless. They're wrong, on my view, but
> they aren't going to do any serious damage and will end up
> sittingin a corner, with other believers, staring at their navels
> trying to decide who has a more legit right to speak, who is the
> true subject of history, who is more or less alienated, etc. based
> on their social location. As such, y'all are a pretty harmless
> bunch - in practice - cause y'all will never get shit done.
I agree like 1,000% that we are pretty harmless. But I don't think that is because we are trying to see where one's political efforts are best applied (and that's ultimately what's at stake in this "search" for the revolutionary subject thingy), given the constraints each of us face. It is because our search and the followup on that search are not very good. FWIW.