Davey Boy 2.0 Posted June 21, 2010 Report Share Posted June 21, 2010 http://www.truth-out.org/chris-hedges-this-country-needs-a-few-good-communists60024 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted June 21, 2010 Report Share Posted June 21, 2010 Thanks for that. I like Hedges' stuff. This piece makes me nostalgic for all the old Frankfurt School/Western Marxist critiques. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgnor Posted June 22, 2010 Report Share Posted June 22, 2010 He's mostly right unfortunately. I've found that organizations which we often treasure as protective bodies, and that go unquestioned most of the time, tend to structure themselves in ways that preclude opposition from within. It's hard to get a project started sometimes due to the red tape, let alone one that frames itself by challenging red tape. Cultural Critique is alive and well, but the social sciences have developed such excellent languages for talking about these things, and so few people understand them, that the conversation stays relatively small and remains ineffectual. I disagree heartily with his point that Capitalism is a "revolutionary" force though. Revolution is a human capacity that ultimately demonstrates the existence of a trend toward the common good, not towards fetishistic disavowal of social responsibility. Trust me. If you use "pointy-headed" intellectual talk people accuse you of "twisting things". Ask Nietzsche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted June 22, 2010 Report Share Posted June 22, 2010 Spot-on, I think - there is that insider-privilege thing that goes on so often among people purportedly working for the common good. Maybe it's a result of critique having been forced to the margins, so that the people that manage to carve out a niche there end up getting all territorial about it. Whenever the term "postmodernism" comes up with my students (which, thankfully, is less and less each year), I always get into the Sokal affair, and how pomo was just a clever way of saying that there are no absolutes (which Nietzsche did so well) while sticking your head up your own ass at the same time. "Revolutionary", though, is such a loaded term. Hedges points to it in the Marxist sense, as antithesis to feudalism, so in that way it's really a neutral concept - even (especially?) in the sense that revolutions seem to always end up devouring their own children. I'm not convinced that it's possible in The Big Picture for an enlightened, "common good" mode of social organisation can ever come about, at least, not as we can presently conceive it - not unless some miracle happened and everybody suddenly "got" that our power over one another and our environment has always been our most intimate nemesis. I mean, who's got more just pop-cultural clout, Gandhi or Che Guevara? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradm Posted June 22, 2010 Report Share Posted June 22, 2010 postmodernism[thread-hijack]Has anyone figured out what comes after post-modernism? Poster-modernism?[/thread-hijack]Aloha,Brad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted June 22, 2010 Report Share Posted June 22, 2010 I think it circles back to cave-painting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgnor Posted June 22, 2010 Report Share Posted June 22, 2010 most(ly)-anarchism Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgnor Posted June 23, 2010 Report Share Posted June 23, 2010 Anyone read Hardt & Negri's stuff?the common might work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phishtaper Posted June 24, 2010 Report Share Posted June 24, 2010 postmodernism[thread-hijack]Has anyone figured out what comes after post-modernism? Poster-modernism?[/thread-hijack]brad' date=' im disappointed ... Post postmodernism Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted June 25, 2010 Report Share Posted June 25, 2010 Popomo... sounds like a Louis Armstrong tune. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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