Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 20:52:53 -0700
Sender: pen-l@ecst.csuchico.edu
From: "R. Anders Schneiderman" <anders@garnet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: PoMo in the 90'ies
 
On Thu, May 5  1994, Steve Cullenberg wrote:
 
> Deconstruction is a way of reading texts (written and otherwise) which in
> part seeks to find binary oppositions and show how they are structured
> hierarchically, and then to explode this hierarchy (a method of reading, as
> Antonio Callari pointed out, not far from Marx's injunction to criticize
> everything).  Or take Derrida's concept of "differance."  Derrida uses this
> concept to deconstruct Western philosphy with its logocentrism in which
> methaphysical notions of center, origin, and essence are determined in
> relation to an ontological center, which represses absence and difference
> for the sake metaphysical stability (and dominance).  Perhaps there is not
> a proactive, detailed agenda here, but in the battle of "how to think", and
> what is accepted as "good arguemnt", I think the political import of this
> "critique" should be clear, no?
 
If it's clear to you, could you please explain it to me?  Perhaps I'm
missing a more subtle point here, but it seems to me that deconstruction
boils down to this:  all systems of thought which offer suggestions for
guiding our action are based on a structured hierarchy of oppositions
which is internally contradictory.  I'm fully willing to accept that.
So, what's the political implication?  That you can't always be right?
That nobody has a perfect plan?  That there are always internal
inconsistencies, contradictions, etc.?  Aside from teaching a little
humility (not that it has to most pomos!), what "political import"
does it offer?
 
I ask this not as someone who has never taken pomo seriously but as
someone who took it very seriously in college, and then got tired of the
fact that this seemed to be mostly what pomo had to offer.  As someone
whose first political memory was Watergate, as part of a generation that
assumes that most politicians, community leaders, and activists are
hypocrites and that things are probably just going to get worse, the idea
that Western civilization--indeed, all great philosophies of the
world--fell apart if you looked at it hard enough was just a confirmation
of the cynicism and pessimism around me (although it was also a great way
to piss off many adults).
 
In college, the most influential radical teachers were pomo, and they
taught us to look down upon those poor, dumb Marxists who actually
thought they understood reality (a theme hammered home in most of the
pomo books we read).  When I got to grad school and carefully read Marx
and Marxists for the first time, one passage struck a chord: "the
philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point,
however, is to change it."  That's when I decided it was time to chuck
pomo, even though I shared all of its epistemological assumptions.  So
far, no one's given me any reason to think I was wrong to do so.
 
Anders Schneiderman
Center for Community Economic Research
UC Berkeley