[Mark Allinson]

I must get hold of this new book, which "The Australian" reviews under this title:

"Pomo demolished by a blow from left field"

"The Trouble with Theory, therefore, is not a politically conservative book, and herein lies its strength. Eschewing the usual wild right hooks in favour of a few well-aimed left jabs, Kitching has knocked postmodernism on its arse where most have only rocked it back on its heels."

So this is not a confrontational text from the Right, but from an intelligent thinker on the Left, apparently sick and tired of the embarrassment of being associated with such pathetic and destructive nonsense.



[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited August 02, 2008).]

[Michael Cantor]

This is delicious. Mark - absolute truth! - I read this as "Porno demolished..." and, heart pounding, clicked on it immediately. What a massive combination of relief (Porn lives!) and disappointment (oh God - not again!) when I realized my mistake!

[Mark Allinson]

Ha!

Sorry to disappoint, Michael.

Yes, "Pomo" can look "Porno" - depending on what font you are using.

And it's not far off, either - Pomo is a sort of intellectual porn - cheap, crude and distasteful.

[David Rosenthal]

Lefties have been writing against "pomo" about as long as the writers people call "pomo" have been writing. In fact, Mark, I have seen you here conflate "pomo" with certain kinds of Marxism, but many, many Marxists have railed against "pomo" over the years, often with arguments very similar to yours.

(By the way, in my experience people who use the expression "pomo" or "postmodernists" or "postmodernism" to identify the referent of their critique either:

(a) tend to have read little or none of what they are attacking;

(b) are referring to a pretty bizarre straw man comprising an odd collection of thinkers and writers who wouldn't likely identify with each other;

(c) are attacking shallow imitators whose easily refutable ideas and arguments bear little resemblance to the particular members of that same odd collection from whom they claim their heritage; or

(d) are some combination of a, b, and c.

The biggest general exceptions to this are people who identify a certain period -- the current one, or the one that has just passed -- as "postmodern," and the constellation of conditions, values, and social relations that define that period as "postmodernism." Those people then write a critique, account, or history of that era and its dominant structures the way one might write about "modernism," or "Victorianism," or the "enlightenment," etc. Frequently, those authors are then mistakenly thought to be advocating for the values, conditions, structures they are attempting to identify, enumerate, and analyze and are therefore subsequently lumped into the odd collection mentioned in b and c above.)

David R.

[Mark Allinson]

Thanks, David.

Yes, I take your point about the opposition to Pomo coming from both sides - I recall that Alan Sokal was firmly of the Left when he launched his attack on Pomo in Physics .

But as the article says:

"... the roots of postmodernist theory which, he suggests, descend into the soil of late 1960s radicalism, a "highly dubious" period in French intellectual history. This is important because postmodernist theory is often regarded, with some justification, as a philosophical delivery system for a left-wing agenda: the rejection of imperialism, the defence of anarchist notions of the state, opposition to constructions of identity based on gender or race."

I haven't seen the book yet, so I can't say if his approach falls under your a,b,c or d categories. Given his credentials, I would very much doubt it.

[David Rosenthal]

Originally posted by Mark Allinson:
"... the roots of postmodernist theory which, he suggests, descend into the soil of late 1960s radicalism, a "highly dubious" period in French intellectual history.

I disagree with the characterization of that period of French intellectual history as "highly dubious." Many of the French intellectuals to whom he is referring wrote masterful and compelling works of unsurpassable erudition, and they often did so with flare and style. They often came from previously marginalized members of the French academy -- gays, Jews, Algerians, women, German and Russian exiles, etc. It strikes me as a fertile and exciting time in French intellectual history.

Furthermore, most of the ideas they worked with predated the 1960s by a mile. Many academics at the time accused them of ignoring recent trends that were supposed to have "overthrown" the paradigms that seemed to interest them. Many of them were well read in, very thoughtful about, and predominantly influenced by classical -- particularly pre-Socratic -- philosophers and were thus accused of a kind of nostalgia.

They were often brash, sometimes irreverent, and constantly pushing linguistic boundaries to represent complex and complicated ideas. As a result, people called them things like "obfuscatory," "inaccessible," and "dubious." They were outsiders who seized the reins for a moment, and the reaction of many was, and remains, dismissive in a way from which those who would rail against "PC" intolerance and authoritarianism ought to distance themselves.

Mark, I must warn you that as much as I enjoy our little discussions of these things, I cannot sustain this one much longer. As you know, I don't have much stomach for it, and besides I am leaving town tomorrow for several days in Lake Tahoe. The mountain air will distract me from such thoughts. But I am much obliged for the opportunity to blather on a bit.

David R.



[This message has been edited by David Rosenthal (edited August 03, 2008).]

[Mark Allinson]

David, I wish you every happiness in your stay at Lake Tahoe, and I hope the break, and the surroundings, inspire some good poetry.

By the time you return, I might have had a chance to read the book, and we can continue this (or another) discussion.

Enjoy your break!

[David Rosenthal]

Mark,

I will add this before I go. Many writers have "demolished" "postmodern theory" (again, usually a strange chimera) just as many writers have "demolished," say Plato, or religion, or metaphysics, or evolution, or communism, or capitalism, or poetry, or Newton, or string theory, etc. Nothing, of course, is really ever demolished in this way -- these are polemics and intellectual arguments, and they go on as long as there are voices willing to participate.

Most certainly these theoretical jousts have little impact on the structure, politics, and hegemonic relations of the academy. The ideas and idioms of that intellectual discourse are often circulated and employed in the service of the political negotiations and battles for control of the academy's institutions, but this is often done so selectively or in a way that deforms the ideas themselves. Compare Stalin to Marx, for example. Condemning communism or socialism by referencing Stalin makes little sense.

My point is that I suspect what you oppose is much less any particular intellectual movement or position, than a certain way of asserting authority. It isn't "PC intolerance" or "Pomo obscurantism" or "Marxist authoritarianism" that are the problems, for example, but intolerance, obscurantism, and authoritarianism. Fight those. Fight the structures, strategies, and techniques employed in their service. But remember that it is not so much an intellectual battle as a political one. No intellectual refutation of "postmodern theory" (or anything else, for that matter) -- no matter how well-wrought and effectively argued -- will "demolish" the real social relations of power within the academy.

I am tired and rushing. I hope you get the gist of what I am trying to say. I imagine you do, whether or not you agree.

Anyway, thanks again for the well-wishing. And yes I will enjoy the Sierras, the trees, and the alpine air. If I can't get some poetry out of that, I really suck as a poet.

Best,

David R.

[Tim Love]

I've recently read "Living with Theory" by Vincent Leitch, 2008 (see my notes ). He reviews the history of teaching theory. He starts rather stridently - "I for one do not long for or personally miss the previous era's insulating aestheticism, obsessive stylistic analysis, predictable search for image patterns and archetypes, and thin history ... It warned against the heresy of paraphrase, fearing the connection of literature to life ... Compulsory objectivity and obligatory critical disinterest, sacred cows of many a theory opponent, often mask blind spots, racial and gender privileges, nationalistic mindsets, and prejudices" - but then he eases off. He thinks post-structuralism's prominence has been receding since the late 1980s, that its teaching has become more or less standardized by now. It's just one of many approaches (like New Crit and much older methods) that are adopted nowadays, forming a "postmodernisation of reading practices" where "close reading" retains high prestige among academic reading practises. He deals with the politics too (in his US context anyway).

[John Whitworth]

If you don't like the stuff but don't know WHY you don't like it (beyond a general and, I think,justifiable distrust of French intellectuals) then read Raymond Tallis's 'Not Saussure', which will give you all the ammunition that you need. The man is far more intelligent than I am and has read far more books. Also, unlike the pomos that I've tried to read, his aim is to make things as simple as possible so that you can follow it. Don't you just LOVE chaps like that?