Re: re:Benjamin, Adorno, etc.

["Valerie Scatamburlo" <valeries@xxxxxxxx>]

On August 24, 1995, Ralph Dumain wrote:

> Perhaps it would be obvious if I knew what the fuck "flaneur"
> means.  I am willing to learn the myriad things I don't know, but
> the fundamental responsibility of any teacher is to induce their
> students to care about what they are talking about.
>
You are absolutely right about this but I'm not about to launch into an in
depth explanation of the "flaneur" in Benjamin's thought.  I will say this
however, for Benjamin, the flaneur was that person who aimlessly wandered
through the large and hurried crowds of the cities and found in little things
- those often overlooked - a kernel of meaning.  Many have claimed that
BEnjamin was undialectical - see the introduction to his text "Iluminations"
by Hannah Arendt - but several others, including myself believe that
Benjamin's thought was clearly influenced by Marxian dialectics, etc., etc.<
Benjamin waa less concerned with grand theories and more concerned with
everyday life - you might say that he was concerned with the dialectics of
the concrete - with what was going on in the immediate surroundings and the
politics of the day.  I won't say much more at this point on that issue.

On August 24, Valerie S. wrote:
I guess my question to Ralph is - what specifically is y our
> >critique of Jameson - it's one thing to call him a Euro butt
> >sniffer and quite another to engage his work-
>
Ralph wrote:
> Of course I've done nothing to pursue argument.  Let me get back
> to this in a minute.  But first a few words about this medium of
> communication.  Are people so yet mesmerized by the printed word
> that they think every message that is composed for a forum like
> this is intended as a submission of a paper to a refereed journal?
>
No Ralph, I'm not mesmerized by the printed word and I certainly don't expect
people to provide posts or responses written in academic-speak.  Hell, when I
read and sometimes respond to things on this list, I do so in a manner which
is a far cry from academic speak - I enjoy e-mail and lists for a little
while everyday precisely because it takes me away from the "rules" of
academic discourse!!!!

Ralph wrote:
Secondly, I'd be amazed if I hadn't been through this many times
> before that so many people on the left are allergic to humor.  Do
> you seriously believe I have recommended that Bloch, Adorno, etc.
> be summarily dismissed?

Ralph, I've been called many things, but allergic to humour - no!!!  Do I
seriously beleive you'd summarily dismiss Bloch, Adorno, etc. - I don't know,
but I couldn't be sure from your post - perhaps I'm too new to this list to
appreciate your sense of humour- Exxcuuuse me!

Ralph wrote:
 And another thing.  I have been called a sexist, racist,
> anti-Semite, nationalist, and now a homophobe by the very same
> types whose leaded brains are incapable of paying attention to
> what they read.  This phony solemn display of outrage over my anal
> fixation (which could be the butt of innumerable humorous
> ripostes, and I do mean butt) is quite characteristic of certain
> sectarian Trotskyist cults whose members do nothing but hurl
> accusations of racism, sexism, and homophobia at one another all
> day long, and the barricades they man (or should I say 'person')
> will be all by themselves with a jar of vaseline in a ghost town
> somewhere, so much are they in touch with the masses.  Or is a
> certain someone jealous because I didn't volunteer to dijeridoo
> you too?
>
WELL Ralph, if you would READ my post sent in response to your remarks, you
would see that I never once used the epithetes of racism. sexism, homophobia
etc. - so don't use that to dismiss my questions to you.  Furthermore, I
don't belong to any Trotskist cult nor am I jealous that you didn't volunterr
to dijeridoo me - whatever the hell that means!!!!


Ralph wrote:
 Now back to my non-argument.  What is behind my mockery of Jameson
> is not any theoretical positions he takes about anything.  Not
> yet, anyway.  Not at all.  It is my sense, prejudiced and
> ill-founded perhaps but nonetheless my hunch, of his relation to
> his subject matter.
>
> I saw him lecture once and met him afterwards, and I did not get a
> good impression.  He gave a terrible slide show of some paintings
> and a sketchy argument linking perspective to the bourgeois ego.
> He also gave a paragraph from Flaubert and examined his use of
> space.  Why did I have an instinctive reaction that all this was
> very silly?  It's very impressionistic, to be sure, but when I'm
> dealing with intellectuals, English Dept. people above all, I
> often wonder what world these people are living in.  It's not the
> things they choose to study but something about how they think and
> view thought.

Ralph, really I do understand that what you put forth was a non-argument, I
was merely curious as to what your beef against Jameson was.  I too have had
the personal pleasure of meeting Jameson tete-a-tete and not only do I have
problems with him as a person but I also think hi politics are dubious.  I
attended a conference at Duke last Fall and I was tottally disgusted by the
whole display - if the people there are considered the Left - we're all in
serious trouble.  Now I probably shouldn't say that but hey I call em like I
see them.
>
Ralph wrote:
> Now calling Jameson a Euro-butt sniffer is not meant to trash
> Europe but to call into question the relation of a person to his
> field of endeavor.  Jameson is not a product of that time and
> culture.  How would one link the past with the present, the
> distant to the close at hand, the esoteric concerns of specialized
> scholarship to the interests of someone outside of it who may
> nevertheless be willing to learn something that strikes a chord?
> Jameson may not be Bukharin, but there seems to be something
> scholastic about him too.  But I'll grant you he's a smart guy.
>

He certainly is a smart guy Ralph and that is something no one can deny, but
at the same time and in perhaps a different way, I share your disdain for
much of what passes itself as "critique" in the academy.  I think acadmeic
work should address contemporary social and political issues - too much
academic rhetoric is far too concerned wirth defending the deconstruction of
18th century literature (I'm not talking about Jameson here, since I think
his work goes beyond this) and too little concerned with addressing the
actual material condDitions of contemporary society and culture.
On August 24, Valerie wrote:
>Cultural studies is not a monolithic entity and to treat it as
> >such conflates the radical strands with the liberal pluralistic
> >versions.
>
Ralph Wrote:
> I've already said I'm not going to attack the Brits and that
> includes Paul Gilroy.  I have yet to be convinced that what you
> might call radical strands means anything to me.
>

All I'm trying to communicate here is that the study of "culture" is very
important in attempting to understand what the hell is going onin American
politics.  While "culture wars" have been an enduring feature of American
poltics, in the last 5 years, the Right has clearly taken command.  Yes of
course, there have been some obdurate demands made in the name of "political
correctness"  but the success of the right's propaganda campaign against
p.c., multiculturalism, etc. can't be solely explained in terms of the vast
network of funding which undergirds the right-wing agenda - in other words- a
simplistic political economy explanation doesn't cut it and hence the need to
better understand the operations of the cultural terrain - an area which the
Right has long understood.  In other words, to understand what's going on in
the U.S. today, one needs to supplement and expand Marxist explanations which
often, in their more reductionist forms, limit analysis to the realm of
political economy.  Of course  we need political economy and thorough
explnations of capitalism but these alone are not enough to explain the
contemporary state of American society and this is why some of the insights
of cultural studies practioneers are invaluable.

Valerie wrote:

I'd like to see Mr. Dumain offer a more compelling
> >critique of the "cultural Marxists" such as Benjamin, Bloch,
> >etc.
>
Ralph wrote:lp
> This is all too polite.  Not only was my critique not compelling,
> it wasn't even a critique, not an argument, not an exposition.  It
> was a joke.  Many a truth is said in jest.  But jokes it seems are
> not only culture-bound but even individuals don't all "get" the
> same ones.  The joke here was my exasperation concerning the
> relation between European theory and American reality.  As every
> foreign observer has noted about Americans (USA), we are a
> practical but unreflective, theoretically deficient people.  This
> has been true until very very recently.  Our own experience is at
> the cutting edge of capitalism-based culture (this is not anything
> to brag about, necessarily), but our own self-understanding until
> recently lagged decades, perhaps a century behind our own
> practice.  Hence we have had to get all our theory from Europe,
> because all we had was pragmatism and evangelical Christianity.
> (Not quite all, but let this stand for the moment.)  Well, I'm
> glad these Europeans gave us conceptual tools which we were too
> backward to develop ourselves.  Yet it is exasperating to deal
> with certain gaps in experience and attitudes to culture.  The
> world that Bloch, Adorno and the rest knew is distant and past;
> what's in it for us here now?  I don't blame them except I want to
> take my dijeridoo to Adorno for his telling dislike of Charlie
> Chaplin and jazz -- what a useless snob.  But what am I to think
> of American academics who treat their world as if it were the
> center of the universe?  And worse, Europe has come down to its
> last theoretical gasp -- postmodernism -- which we slavishly
> imitate now.  The point of my joke was habits of mind -- see also
> my cross-posting from the Hegel group -- habits of mind
> perpetuated by intellectuals who like everyone else are slaves to
> their environment, smart but unimaginative, guilt-ridden and
> self-conscious but nonetheless mystified by the division of labor.
> Telling jokes can be a shortcut for people who have lost their
> patience and are too much in a hurry for argument.
>
> Ralph, your response to my post, while irritating at first - and I would be
less than honest if I stated otherwise - that crap about the dijerdoo (or
whatever) really pissed me off - clearly indicates to me, in some bizarre way
that we actually share a similar disdain for much of what goes on in the
academy today.  But perhaps where we diverge is this - although circumscribed
by its socio-economic context and its "professionalism", the university still
remains one of the last bastions where radically oppositional knowledge and
praxis can be cultivated - history teaches us that this space can be used for
furthering progressive agendas- the 60's - whatever the obvious criticisms
that can be launched against that decade, demonstrate this.  My concern is
that we work towards getting beyond the hostility that many acitivists feel
towards academics (not that this hostility isn't in many instances justified,
for it is) - but clearly the time has come to see past these things- shit's
happening in a Big Way - Republicans are seeking to introduce measures more
Draconian than anything introduced by the Reagan-Bush administration - and
it's time to step up and say something, no???




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