Re: Pomos in the academy was Deleuze/Guattari on fascism

[SHAWGI TELL <v600a8e6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Morton Wenger provides excellent demolitions of postmodernism.


Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
V600A8E6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


On Sun, 21 Jan 1996 g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, 19 Jan 1996, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> >
> > Louis asks why D&G and postmodernism are so hip nowadays, at least in
> > humanities circles. He speculates that this may have to do with nostalgi
> > afor the 60s...
>
>
> I think their wriring style may have something to do with
> > at authority. Since all of this is pretty safe as well as easy, it finds a
> > place in humanities and the softer social sciences while Marxism gets
> > drummed out and Marxists fired.
> >
> > I might remark that the last factor may play a role in the comparative
> > popularity of the two approaches. An undergrad comrade of mine here was
> > complaining bitterly that since I was canned there is no one to teach
> > Marxist philosophy among the 3000 faculty members at OSU, particularly
> > because the Marxist in the English Dept was also denied tenure this year.
> > But of pomos there is no shortage. So young people don't hear about old
> > Karl. My classes were always full up when I taught them!
> >
> > --Justin
>
> I think that postmodernism is not so much nostalgia for the 60s as the
> product of the failure of the 60s and the quiescence of the
> working-class since the ending of the long economic boom.  I think that
> it is also important to
> recognisethe *class* basis of postmodernist theorizing. Lyotard's notorious
> definiton of the "post modern condition" says it all.
>
> "One listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald's food for lunch
> and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and "retro
> clothes in Hong Kong."
>
> Within the academy as Justin correctly points out the task of the
> postmodernists was to destroy Marxism.  this they performed with great
> glee, mainly under the cover of being anti-stalinists, hence the
> importance of the Gulag obsession.
>
> But their dirty work is largely done and now they are being pushed over
> in turn by the New Realists- the policy mongers.
>
> In the meantime a whole generation of students has been depoliticised.
>
> Mo Mhallacht ortha uilig.
>
> Regards
>
> Gary
>
>
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>


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