[PEN-L:2138] Re: Re: was 'discourse' now identity politics

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

But, Angela,

Whatever the name of Butler's theory,
that perspective doesn't have a
monopoly on the thinking of young
people today. I have 25 young
people here who are Black and
proud, African centered, admires
of Malcolm X, whatever.
They don't agree with decentering
their subjects.

You are correct, very correct
to point to the SELF in self-determination.
This is a critical point in developing
the Marxist theory of the individual,
psychology, the self, identity,
subjectivity, consciousness,
self-consciousness,
personality ,whatever. Marx's
writing on alienation is another
big chunk. Marx's 1844 Manuscripts
are a major thesis of the self.

Freud is not a dead dog,
either. There are Marxist
sublations of Freud.

I'd critique classic Marxist
theory of the self with
feminism or woman/man
relations, myself. But in a manner
that preserves and overcomes
the classical Marxist approaches.

But everything I have read
of and about Foucault, Butler
et al. so far (whatever the name of
their approach) throws out
the Marxist baby with the
bathwater. It becomes
idealism, a new supernaturalism.

You shouldn't think we are
not conscious of our analysis
of the self.

Charles Brown




>>> rc&am <rcollins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 01/13 11:58 AM >>>
louis,

you have not been listening at all.  i have confronted certain
impasses and difficulties in my activism over the years, which i then
sought out readings for some wider sense of explanation - this i have
said countless times..

i'm not a fan of butler's, but if you think this is mumbo-jumbo' (and
i hate to bring up the age thing), but there are some young kids (15)
i know who understand this more than they understand marx - it speaks
to them in ways which you might not understand, but to them what you
find intelligible is 'mumbo-jumbo' - and that is an unfortunate term
for something you can't understand....

butler is not an identity theorist.  you are.  when you speak of the
need for self-determination, you advance a whole set of assumptions,
assumptions which are manifested in practice, in activism, and in the
forms of organization, about the SELF that you argue needs to be
SELF-determined.

angela