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I hope I don't sound like I'm nit-picking, but coming from a background where post-structuralism is still very strong, film studies, I've long fought battles against rampant relativism stemming from the aversion to essentialism. The strength of deconstructing essentialism, however, has been the ability of marginalized people and groups to construct their own narratives. When this is done it seems to me that there can be no return to a unity of truth, but isn't that what allows real participation? When conditions present themselves that enable workers to see their own narrative, breaking the unity of truth and thus become politically conscious of themselves as a class? Whether or not revolutionary action needs theory may be one thing, but the ability to realize theory in one's everyday life requires conditions that depend on constructing a narrative outside that of the official story. Is this not what is precisely what is happening in the Occupy movement? While you make some valid points about how new media has dominated this particular movement, I think you throw the baby out with the bath water. Film and media scholars who have a sharp interest in class politics have a long tradition of challenging academic colonialism in a post-modern guise so I hope you see us as allies. The frontlines are not only the Occupy camps around the country, but also the spatial-temporal representations we gather in as we twitter, watch globalrevolution live, watch MSNBC and compare it with FOX News. We need to start to understand media from a perspective that includes how narratives are rendered and how truth-values are presented because Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford are looking to exploit that very issue. In Solidarity, Jeffrey Masko > Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:16:58 +1000 > From: gary.maclenn...@gmail.com > Subject: Re: [Marxism] covering the protests > To: westsid...@hotmail.com > > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > > > > > > > > > > > MY comment: "Truth has once more > > taken centre stage and attention has shifted away from the truth effect or > > how one constructs the truth." > > > > Your comment: Seems off base, now more than ever who and how narratives > > are constructed are coming to the forefront; > > especially when considering mainstream news narratives. Now more than ever > > is the time to talk about the > > meanings or truth values of memes, themselves a surplus of shifting > > meanings. > > > > My Reply: My original comment was rather cryptic, I'm afraid. What I had > in mind was a critique of the neo-Nietzschean position "truth is a mobile > army of metaphors [only] " and "there is no such thing as the truth". > > The dominance of these mantra during the heyday of poststructuralism > focused attention exclusively on the truth effect or how truth was > constructed. In the process notions and categories such as propaganda and > lies slipped into obscurity because they depended on a notion of truth. > > Of course one must always pay attention to the truth effect, but this must > be within the context of a strong belief that there is such a thing as the > truth. > > comradely > > Gary > ________________________________________________ > Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/westsidefc%40hotmail.com ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
