[Ambroise]

I did take a philosophy class on Continental Philosophy once, and the course covered works from Kant, Nietzsche, Derrida, Lacan, Schiller, Heidegger, and several others. A lot of the readings were "Huh, what?" until the professor reviewed them in class. Despite the fact that our professor was rather excellent on elaboration, the course had unusually lax grading standards, and I suspect it was precisely because of that reason.

[Red Barn]

It's not the "difficulty" of the poststructuralists that bothers me - lots of things are difficult, after all - it's the fact that, politically and culturally speaking, their collective impact has been so horribly enervating over the long haul.

I'm still amazed that young "Leftists" don't get this.

You can't build a usable theoretical framework - never mind a functional revolutionary strategy - out of this shit, any more than you can build a barricade out of lime jello. Why else would its shining lights be treated like pop stars, and its functionaries funded up the wazoo?

It's like giving people blankets infected with smallpox.

[Potemkin]

You can't build a usable theoretical framework - never mind a functional revolutionary strategy - out of this shit, any more than you can build a barricade out of lime jello. Why else would its shining lights be treated like pop stars, and its functionaries funded up the wazoo?

It's like giving people blankets infected with smallpox.

I tend to agree. However, the same logic applies to Chomsky and those like him as well. If the ruling class regarded Chomsky as a serious threat, he'd be sitting in Gitmo right now. Do you doubt that?

[Red Barn]

^ No, not at all.

But how about a hundred thousand Chomskys? Or a department of Marxist/Anarchist Studies in every small town university? That would be much harder to dismiss, don't you think?



I don't expect many to agree with me on this, but I do see the academic mainstreaming of this particular worldview as a perfectly insidious, brilliantly cynical move. We now have "radicals" who actively sneer at activism, and armies of baby "Leftists" racking up staggering debt while writing incomprehensible dissertations on the Little Mermaid.

It's all just such a fucking waste.

[anticlimacus]

The writings of those on the New Left and French intellectuals seem to have been socially defeatist in the sense that power and domination are an inevitability, and the only way to deal with it is privately, through some sort of stoic authenticity. However, this should not disregard that there has, I think, been some contribution by many of the writers in the political field (this is not even to mention philosophy), although nothing in relation to mass organization. Acknowledging their all too frequent lapses into obscurantism, these writers have had some considerable influential in deconstructing culture and influencing counter-culture, particularly with the use of language, media, identity, and categorization (e.g. gender, sexuality, sane/insane, rational/irrational, etc.).

I don't expect many to agree with me on this, but I do see the academic mainstreaming of this particular worldview as a perfectly insidious, brilliantly cynical move. We now have "radicals" who actively sneer at activism, and armies of baby "Leftists" racking up staggering debt while writing incomprehensible dissertations on the Little Mermaid.

Indeed, Red Barn there is a sense of this academic pretension which leaves one to wonder, in the end, what's the point? But at the same time, what's different between an academic conversation about the Little Mermaid--or, better put, pop culture production--and, say, an academic discussion on whether or not there really was a Shakespeare? I do agree that there is a high degree of cynicism, and I think it leads them to being more metaphysical as opposed to attempting to become politically active in concrete ways. It is frustrating if your concern is political action, and I think they can be critiqued on that level--but academia, in general, can often lean towards obscurity and esoteric discussion on topics almost irrelevant to most of the population.

[Red Barn]

Acknowledging their all too frequent lapses into obscurantism, these writers have had some considerable influential in deconstructing culture and influencing counter-culture, particularly with the use of language, media, identity, and categorization (e.g. gender, sexuality, sane/insane, rational/irrational, etc.).

Yes, of course they have.

And in 1972 one might actually have described that particular program as "radical." But 2013, when transgendered teens appear on Oprah every other day, the idea that identity politics, bereft of class context, are still wildly "transgressive," and are at the very vanguard of Left consciousness, is completely ridiculous. At this point they're anything but transgressive, and are, in fact. the safest berth around.

And why shouldn't they be? Neoliberal capitalist hegemony is 100% identity neutral. Global consumer culture is nothing if not inclusive, and there's no extreme of social liberalism that it refuses to embrace. Wasting generations of would-be "radicals" on the endless parsing and re-parsing of what's essentially of a done deal is insane.

. . . But at the same time, what's different between an academic conversation about the Little Mermaid--or, better put, pop culture production--and, say, an academic discussion on whether or not there really was a Shakespeare?

The difference is that nobody pretends the conversation about Shakespeare is Leftist.


.

[anticlimacus]

The difference is that nobody pretends the conversation about Shakespeare is Leftist.

Sure. And I would definitely agree also to your point that the neoliberal capitalist hegemony is entirely identity neutral. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend the New Left, which I feel leaves us largely apolitical. I just don't think it's the case that all those thinkers, particularly Foucault, can be dismissed, and actually have important insights on the diffusion of power within society. Zizek, on the other hand, I never cared to even consider. And unfortunately we get a lot of cult like followings of figures like Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan which takes us to, as you said, meaningless dissertations on subject like "The Little Mermaid".

[Red Barn]

Oh, gosh, no - I wouldn't dismiss Foucault (much as I detest him). That would be stupid.



But it's exactly as you say: this mess "leaves us largely apolitical" - which is, I think, an idea central to Chomsky's complaint.

[KurtFF8]

Personally, I blame Kant for this. Hegel compounded the problem, of course. Ever since, obscure and turgid prose has been regarded as a mark of 'genius'. This is deplorable, especially in French intellectual culture - the French philosophers of the 17th century wrote in admirably lucid and clear French prose. You can understand Germans doing this, but Frenchmen? Deplorable.

And to perpetuate it, folks like Adorno tried to justify (in the "How to read Hegel" section) this obscurity as itself having meaning in a sense and being part of an effort at working through philosophy.

This of course comes from Hegel who said that you can't just summarize a piece of philosophy but it requires working through it to understand the concepts in question. This is an interesting point of view that makes more analytical folks like Chomsky cringe of course.

While I'm not necessarily a partisan of continental philosophy over analytical (in undergraduate studies I did analytical and in graduate, more continental theory), I do think there is a problem with folks like Chomsky when they think that just looking at facts reveals quite a bit.

And of course I'm a big fan of Althusser for certain things, and he was quite clear that Marxism is a science yet there is still much room for theory to play a role.

[Potemkin]

And to perpetuate it, folks like Adorno tried to justify (in the "How to read Hegel" section) this obscurity as itself having meaning in a sense and being part of an effort at working through philosophy.

This of course comes from Hegel who said that you can't just summarize a piece of philosophy but it requires working through it to understand the concepts in question. This is an interesting point of view that makes more analytical folks like Chomsky cringe of course.

While I'm not necessarily a partisan of continental philosophy over analytical (in undergraduate studies I did analytical and in graduate, more continental theory), I do think there is a problem with folks like Chomsky when they think that just looking at facts reveals quite a bit.

And of course I'm a big fan of Althusser for certain things, and he was quite clear that Marxism is a science yet there is still much room for theory to play a role.

As I said, I think there is definitely a need for continental European theory on the Left - the ideas of people like Lacan or Athusser, despite the obscurantism they sometimes lapse into, matter, and I have little patience for the kind of simple-minded empiricism which passes for 'thought' among some circles in the Anglosphere. However, Chomsky is decidedly not the simple-minded empiricist which Zizek tries to portray him as, and Zizek himself is not the Second Coming of Althusser which some of his groupies seem to think he is. In other words, I think this whole 'debate' between Chomsky and Zizek (which is rather one-sided) is fundamentally foolish.

[Paradigm]

It's not the "difficulty" of the poststructuralists that bothers me - lots of things are difficult, after all - it's the fact that, politically and culturally speaking, their collective impact has been so horribly enervating over the long haul.

I'm still amazed that young "Leftists" don't get this.

You can't build a usable theoretical framework - never mind a functional revolutionary strategy - out of this shit, any more than you can build a barricade out of lime jello. Why else would its shining lights be treated like pop stars, and its functionaries funded up the wazoo?

It's like giving people blankets infected with smallpox.

Well, I personally value poststructuralism for things beyond its political import, but I also happen to think it provides a useful framework for understanding things like power relations and hegemony. Does it provide a clear roadmap to revolution? Of course not. But when you can see how systems of power affect our very language and conceptual schema, then the other manifestations of power around us can be made transparent for what they really are. Of course, there is the danger of pessimism: if you take a deep enough look at what you're up against, it can feel overwhelming. But as a revolutionary, it's also important to know your enemy.