1. [Fwd: Problems of Relativism of Non-Postmodern Varieties]

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is the first of three posts to the marxism list in
July two years ago that help illuminate the present thread
on Hume etc.

Carrol

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Problems of Relativism of Non-Postmodern Varieties
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 03:11:30 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>
Reply-To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
References: <s5b74ea4.012@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

When you read our contemporary marxist discussions of postmodernism, you
would think that without postmodernism, there would not be relativism or
problems associated with it. This masks the nature of relativism and its
effects among the massses of people in core capitalist countries.

With or without postmodernism, relativism would exist in 'common sense'
of
people in the USA and Japan (the two countries I have lived in).

Relativism of the kind that common people often subscribe to has nothing
to
do with postmodernism as _philosophy_. Most Americans and Japanese can't
explain what postmodernism is if they are asked to describe it. It has
more
to do with the social conditions where no significant mass movement
(which
would rise up to contest or rip asunder the Official Truth or ideology
and
whose effects would affect the social relations significantly or change
it
totally), the political conditions that have, to a large extent,
institutionalized 'liberal pluralism' and 'interest group politics,' the
ideological conditions where the mass media have come to display some
dirty
tricks of the ruling class as 'open secrets' (which we 'know' but are
not
supposed to make much of), to hide others as 'classified for the reasons
of
national security,' to muddle people's minds by producing the effects of
'deniability,' and so on, and finally the economic conditions where
quite a
lot of people occupy 'contradictory social positions' (who don't own or
control capital but have significant work autonomy and some ideological
power over other workers).

Under the conditions that I described just above, many common people
resort
to a kind of commonsense (non-philosophical) relativism: 'I have my
opinion, you have yours, let's agree to disagree.' It's a way for people
to
manage their personal relations with a minimum of painful conflicts and
not
to engage in further investigation, debates, etc. which might produce
knowledge and desire for collective political actions. And it is these
conditions that marxists should attack, if we are in any way interested
in
contesting relativism, as most here claim that they do. You guys, in my
view, overestimate the influence of postmodern philosophy and
underestimate
the problems of people's 'common sense.'

Yoshie Furuhashi