[PEN-L:33192] Re: Re: RE: imperialism vs. Empire.

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Devine, James wrote:
>
> >joanna bujes quotes Michael Hardt:
> >>  >We can be confident that in the long run their real interests will lead
> >>  >global elites to support empire and refuse any project of US imperialism.
> >
> >this sentence sounds like an assertion of inevitability. I thought
> >that such assertions were totally "out" in this best of all possible
> >postmodern worlds.... and aren't Hardt and Negri postmodern?
>
> Do "postmodernists" - whoever they are - end their books by talking
> about the irrepressible joy of being communist?

I tend to agree with dropping the term "post-modernist," but if such
exist, I would guess rather central to their enterprise would be one
more "going back to XXX." And while Spinoza is really a pretty good
pre-marxist to go back to if one is in for that sort of thing, it seems
a rather unfruitful process. And yes, it's easy to think of
"post-whatsit" of any variety ending their books by talking about the
joy of being communist: it's such an undefinable term that if the book
has not been too offensive to contemporary sophisticated taste, such joy
will not be offensive but even add a little jazz to the mixture.

And surely, whatever one calls it, proclamations of inevitability have,
historically, catered to one of two tendencies: absolute obedience to
The Party or sitting on the sidelines and watching the world go by.
Carrol

>
> Doug