[PEN-L:28544] RE: Re: rejecting a school

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:28537] Re: rejecting a school

[how's the font?]

I wrote: >>BTW, how is "post-structuralism" defined? I'm "post-structuralist" since I learned from the Althusserian structuralists ... but  moved on. But I don't think that's what the term means... <<

Christian writes:> It all depends on who's doing the defining, of course.  However, you might think of structuralism as relying on the claim that  _everything_ can be clearly mapped into social, ideological, semantic, cultural system(s). Such systems are knowable (even if not easily so). In the "bad" (some would say Althusserian--I wouldn't say this) version, human agency is a thing like other things--a calendar, a watch, daytime--and so can't be counted  on to change the system's rules.<

>The basic gesture of post-structuralist critique is to point out that the "structure" of structure has a certain degree of play in it. (As Derrida says, it's like the play of a machine part, which won't work if  it's either too tight or too loose. It's not infinite play, as some say JD has said.) And so the whole problem of agency (not just human--animal, unconscious, institutional, ritual, cultural) is reintroduced, but with a difference. Put another way, the post-structuralist gambit is to demonstrate that any structure or "thing" that is presumed to be well-defined,  autonomous, "real" (as opposed to fake or false), etc., relies on something  extrinsic to it for its sense, effect, etc.<

More than post-structuralism, this sounds like "loose structuralism," which is an improvement over "bad structuralism" (in which the social structure determines human thought and activity). Or as economists might say, it's structuralism with a stochastic (random error) term added.

But I think it would be better to embrace a dynamic vision: societal structures (institutions) "make" people and their actions, by limiting and shaping their preferences, expectations, ideologies, etc., while it was people who (in the past) created these structures in the first place. But any of these structures -- including capitalism --is simultaneously being rebuilt and being destroyed:  an institution represents a constant struggle between the people whose actions have the effect of preserving and/or expanding it (e.g., class-conscious capitalists, opportunistic workers) and those whose actions have the effect of undermining the institution (e.g., opportunistic capitalists, class-conscious workers). In this view, institutions always change over time, not only due to exogenous shocks but due to endogenous tensions. 

 
>>Can someone name the main achievement of one author who has been dubbed "post-structuralist"? It is much better to talk about one specific thing than to go on and on about abstractions such as "post-structuralism." <<

> Achievement? Well, I think that the popularization of the value of "marginality" has something to do with post-structuralism. And, though I don't give litcritters credit for it, our awareness of the way that  gender, ability, race, sexual orientation, etc. have been meaningfully, materially excluded from consideration of "rights" discourse has something to do with poststructuralism. Or were you thinking achievement like book titles?<

Almost always, book titles are achievements only in the academic hierarchy. But it seems to me that Herbert Marcuse thought that marginality was really important back in the 1960s (and he was from the Frankfurter tradition).

Call me a materialist, but I wouldn't give credit to _any_ intellectual tradition for bringing issues of "gender, ability, race, sexual orientation, etc." to the fore. Rather, I'd give credit to the women's movement, the "independent living" movement, the civil rights movement, and the gay-rights movement for doing so. Academics get hung up with their theories and their conventional wisdoms, but when there's a bunch of people out there shouting about gay rights (or whatever), academe listens. Many will condemn, act defensive, etc., but some will try to modify the theories and wisdom to incorporate the role of such movements. An even smaller group actually contributes to the (partial) success of the movement.

 
JD (but not Jacques Derrida)