Re: Political Ecology

[LeoCasey@xxxxxxx]

<< Postmodern radicalism collapses ultimately into reactionary conservatism,
since its practical effect is negligible (with regard to the status quo),
while it rationalises and further compounds the alienation and atomisation
inherent in contemporary capitalist development. >>

What brand of contemporary radical theorizing doesn't fall victim to this
sort of condemnation? You express a fondness for Jim O'Connor's brand of
Marxism, but I can not see how one could reasonably claim that O'Connor's
theorizing has had a more meaningful "practical effect" than that of a Hardt &
Negri, or a Zizek, or a Laclau & Mouffe? GIven that the nature of this
political conjuncture is defined, at least in part, by the absence of a
powerful critique of the status quo that has a mass following, it is hardly
dispositive to suggest that particular schools of thought do not meet this
criteria. In the dark of night, everybody looks the same.

Nor does it seem to me that you have made a case that "post-" theories
compound the alienation and atomization of our current social condition.
Asserted it, yes; demonstrated it, no.

Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.

-- Frederick Douglass --