AUT: RE: Re: the masses (Poulantzas), was antiwar movement

[".: s0metim3s :." <s0metim3s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David:

: What I meant
: was not that we might not be from the
: masses, but rather how do we relate to
: those who remain within the
: mainstream (subjected/dominated) mass
: culture?

I think I get your point (and agree about the
infallibility thing), but isn't there a
contradiction between, rightly, insisting that one
not be condescending and assuming that other
people are the ones who are subjected/dominated?
I mean, how can one tell one isn't
subjected/dominated? What are the signs of this?

I think I can safely say that I'm subjected, else
my utterances would be completely unintelligible
to anyone else (rather than just unintelligible to
some, many, who knows).  In any case, I'm
suspicious of phrases like 'mass culture' and
'mainstream' -- they're too ready to switch into
claims about 'false consciousness', and seems to
me that there isn't some generalised public sphere
(which we might appeal to as some goal of
discourse), but rather a series of subcultures,
which overlap at times, at times not, which we
step in and out of variously at times and in ways,
and some of which have more resources at their
disposal to broadcast as if they are the
'mainstream'.

I'll check out the Balibar refs, thanks.

On Poulantzas, yeah, i know how he topped himself;
I'm interested in the prelude to this.  Someone
told me a story about P being hit by a car,
injured on the street and ignored by passers-by
because of his darker skin-colour, this in the
context of a rise in anti-immigrant politics in
France.  I'm not sure how true this is; but it
would make me miserable, perhaps inconsolably so.
Given Balibar's arguments with the CP over
migration, it would square since the stakes just
became so much more immediate ...

Angela
_______________

<end message>




     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---