Re: further reflections

["" <april_biccum@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hiya

>You
>should read James's hilarious remarks about this as he mercilessly
>ridicules TS Eliot and the whole culture of exhaustion.

In what work does the merciless ridiculing appear?

>
>Just speaking of the USA: one cannot overlook what is different for all the
>diverse immigrants who built up this country, but not only was black forced
>labor the original basis for the infrastructure of this land as well as the
>consolidation of European capitalism, but culturally, black people have had
>a decisive influence on the shaping of American culture.  Naturally, all
>people uprooted from the familiar have had to adapt and improvise in new
>and unfamiliar circumstances, but who more than the first mass of
>involuntary immigrants, stripped of nearly everything and forced to create
>forms of expression undreamed of before?

Also, I think all y'all who're gettin' cranky with Ralph should read and
then re-read this paragraph.  It's crucially important and something most
"radical" intellectuals ignore.

>The combination of the modern and
>the primitive, of European technique and indigenous improvisation, have
>affected all of America up and down:

You don't honestly mean "primitive" do you?  You do recognize that the
category "primitive" was constructed by the modern colonial project to
justify colonizing, "civilizing" (ahem!) and otherwise enslaving
non-European peoples.


>Another aspect of this is the theoretical underdevelopment of the USA in
>comparison to a much greater sophisication achieved in continental Europe.

I suppose Canada is not even on the map in terms of this theoretical
achievement and/or underdevelopment?

>So physically, materially, intellectually and artistically, American
>intellectuals have had to look toward Europe in order to keep themselves
>from drowning in unbearable philistinism or loneliness.

Do you think this is changing at all?  Even if someone like Angela Davis has
brought her Eurpean education back to the U.S., the establishment of her
"history of consciousness" program would go some way to changing this,
wouldn't it?

> >>Now the rights and wrongs of James's judgment is not as important
> >>as the >very fact of a difference in perspective.
> >
> >And to what do you attribute this differance?
>
>Not differance, please!  Difference.  Re-read this entire post for your
>answer.

That was a misspelling, my apologies.  Too much Derrida.

April





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