RE: Re: RE: human "capital"

[Nicole Seibert]

Ken,
True. Just a thought.  Although I don't think that paying for resistance
makes it any less of a resistance.  And if you go far enough with your
resistance and get a Ph.D. your return on your investment is hardly worth
the effort.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Ken Hanly
Sent:   Friday, February 16, 2001 4:40 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:8210] Re: RE: human "capital"

But dont people often pay for courses that give them skills that make them
more likely to find jobs and hence of being wage laborers-- rather than
resisting the relationship? At most it would be an attempt to attain better
wages and job opportunities. Opting out and becoming a hippie subsistence
farmer and growing high grade marijuana for personal use would seem more a
way of resisting the wage/labor capital relationship and that would in the
hippie world view not be foregoing anything worth while
 Cheers, Ken Hanly

- Original Message -----
From: Nicole Seibert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 1:56 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:8201] RE: human "capital"


> Jim,
> Have you read Paula England's Comparable Worth?  In particular, in Chapter
> 2 -- "Theories of Labor Markets" she writes, "The neoclassical theory of
> human capital posits that individuals invest in their stock of skills by
> paying and/or forgoing something in the present for the sake of some
future
> gain" (51).  This would suggest that the individual has a choice in
whether
> or not to invest in human capital.  Maybe investing in human capital could
> be seen as a way of resisting the wage/labor capitalist relationship?
> -Nico
>
>  -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Jim Devine
> Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 1:36 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L:8033] human "capital"
>
> [was: Re: [PEN-L:8031] Re: Re: RE: Social Capital]
>
> At 10:17 AM 2/13/01 -0800, you wrote:
> >  In order to come to grips with this expanded vision of the labor force,
> >economists devised a new concept.  Specifically, they invented a new
> resource,
> >which they called, "human capital," a theoretical quantity, which is
> >supposed to
> >reflect the effect of the education and experience of a worker.  Thus,
> human
> >capital is separate from and in addition to the conception of the worker
> >as a basic
> >mechanical device.
>
> in CAPITAL, vol. III (Intl. Publ. pp. 465-6), Marx remarx on the concept,
> though he doesn't call it that. He argues that wages are totally unlike
> interest on capital, since (a) the worker must labor -- typically for a
> capitalist -- to earn this "interest" and (b) he or she cannot liquidate
> the capital value of the human capital, i.e., convert it into money.
>
> What I don't understand is why Gary Becker and Jacob Mincer never read
> this. It would have prevented the publication of their research on "human
> capital."
> ;-)
>
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
>
>
>
> _
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>



_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Social Capital

[Nicole Seibert]

Mat,
I have responded to your questions below with answers pertaining to human
capital, which if I remember correctly is close to social capital according
to economists.  Barkley can correct me if I am wrong.
-Nico

-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Forstater, Mathew
Sent:   Tuesday, February 13, 2001 5:51 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:8062] RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Social Capital

Barkley- All very interesting. I know of Bordieu, but I admit I tried to
start
reading some of his stuff a few times and just couldn't get into it. Either
I
couldn't understand it or whatever. The big influences on me were the French
Marxist structuralist anthropologists like Pierre Bonte--Godelier, Rey,
Terray
are the names most people would know, although I had some differences with
their
stuff.  My teacher and the person who got me to study Marx seriously and go
into
economics was the late Peter Rigby, who wrote Persistent Pastoralists and
Cattle, Capitalism, and Class and some other earlier books, plus a very
interesting slim volume at the end of his life called African Images: Racism
and
the End of Anthropology.  I have no problems with the ideas of reciprocity,
other redistributive institutions, and so on.  And of course the importance
of
social fabric, social institutions, social relationships, etc.

Let's see if we can pin down what's bugging me.  Some questions:

1) Do the social capital theorists see individuals as "rational"?

Human capitalist see individuals as rational.

2) Do they view individuals (and subjectivity) as prior the social?

Here I will quote from England page 51, "In neoclassical theory, whether one
will undertake an investment (in human capital or anything else) depends in
part upon one's 'discount rate,' the way in which present compared to future
utility is valued.  One's discount rate is part of one's tastes.  The lower
a person's discount rate, the more one defers gratification, and the less
present-oriented one is."  Additionally, whether an individual invests in
self or not depends on how much they expect to get back.  For example, the
rate of return is not considered sufficient enough by some economists for
individuals to invest in a Ph.D.  As far a measuring social capital it makes
sense then that tastes (or subjectivity) come prior to the outcome.  The
choice to invest has already been made.  I am confused however, by your
wording of, "individuals as prior the social"?

3) Is the social the outcome of individual action (as in some 'new'
institutionalist stuff)?

Does 2 answer this question?

Let's start there.

Mat


-Original Message-
From: J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 3:08 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:8053] Re: RE: Re: RE: Social Capital


Mat,
  Actually among the very first users of the term
"social capital" was a very non-formalist anthropologist,
Pierre Bourdieu, in his _Outline of a Theory of Practice_,
English translation, 1977, original French version, 1972.
His usage was somewhat different from the current
Putnam et al social communitarian usage.  He thought of
it in terms of what might be called "social debt," as in
"they had us over for dinner, now we owe them a dinner."
Classical anthropologists viewed this as reciprocity, and
it was especially studied by the French, e.g. Marcel Mauss
in his _The Gift_, who was an influence on Bourdieu.
   Bourdieu used it to study "primitive" societies (not his
term) in which one would give gifts in order to accumulate
such social capital from one's tribal compatriots.  Thus, the
extreme version of this was the potlatch of the Northwest
American Indians who gave competing feasts in which they
gave away stuff.  Great social (capital?) advantage would
accrue to the one who gave away the most stuff.
 The main strand in the US comes out of the neoconservatives
and focused on social relations in cities.  Putnam cites as the
original usage of the term a superintendent of education in
West Virginia in 1919 (forget his name).  Then there were some
Canadian sociologists in the 1950s, forget their usage.  But,
then in 1961 Jane Jacobs used it in her _The Life and Death
of American Cities_ in a very current context, informal social
networks that can make it easier to carry out economic activity.
 The main direct stream of influence, however, came from a
1977 paper by the neocon, Glenn Loury, who used it to supposedly
explain black ghetto poverty.  Poor urban blacks were supposedly
poor because they lacked social capital.  James Coleman picked
it up in his 1990 _Foundations of Social Theory_ (Harvard
University Press), and Putnam, who is a political scientist at
Harvard, got it from there.  It played a major role in his 1993
_Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy_
(Princeton University Press), which was a major smash hit.
In a nutshell, Northern Italy is doing much better

RE: human "capital"

[Nicole Seibert]

Jim,
Have you read Paula England's Comparable Worth?  In particular, in Chapter
2 -- "Theories of Labor Markets" she writes, "The neoclassical theory of
human capital posits that individuals invest in their stock of skills by
paying and/or forgoing something in the present for the sake of some future
gain" (51).  This would suggest that the individual has a choice in whether
or not to invest in human capital.  Maybe investing in human capital could
be seen as a way of resisting the wage/labor capitalist relationship?
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Jim Devine
Sent:   Tuesday, February 13, 2001 1:36 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:8033] human "capital"

[was: Re: [PEN-L:8031] Re: Re: RE: Social Capital]

At 10:17 AM 2/13/01 -0800, you wrote:
>  In order to come to grips with this expanded vision of the labor force,
>economists devised a new concept.  Specifically, they invented a new
resource,
>which they called, "human capital," a theoretical quantity, which is
>supposed to
>reflect the effect of the education and experience of a worker.  Thus,
human
>capital is separate from and in addition to the conception of the worker
>as a basic
>mechanical device.

in CAPITAL, vol. III (Intl. Publ. pp. 465-6), Marx remarx on the concept,
though he doesn't call it that. He argues that wages are totally unlike
interest on capital, since (a) the worker must labor -- typically for a
capitalist -- to earn this "interest" and (b) he or she cannot liquidate
the capital value of the human capital, i.e., convert it into money.

What I don't understand is why Gary Becker and Jacob Mincer never read
this. It would have prevented the publication of their research on "human
capital."
;-)

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine



_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: Social Capital

[Nicole Seibert]

Christian,
How would you measure this?  Could you not account for this through other
transactions?
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Tuesday, February 13, 2001 4:12 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:8052] Re: Re: Social Capital


jbr wrote:

>But, how does one commidify "trust" or
>"community"?

Corporate "goodwill" is close to this, no? It is frequently understood to be
the "good name" of a company above and beyond the book value of its combined
assets. It is frequently recorded on balance sheets (and even depreciated),
and accounted for in M&A transactions.

Christian



_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Slowdown

[Nicole Seibert]

There was a article in the guardian (yesterday?) that said the reduction in
US interest rate by the fed was due to the possible breakdown in our banking
system?  I didn't understand it all, but apparently the Bank of America is
in serious trouble and may go bankrupt?  Any ideas on this?
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Charles Brown
Sent:   Friday, January 05, 2001 12:49 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:6668] Slowdown


By Peronet Despeignes in Washington, Ed Crooks in London and Tony Barber in
Frankfurt
Published: January 4 2001 14:25GMT | Last Updated: January 5 2001 00:09GMT



The euphoria following the surprise interest rate cut from the Federal
Reserve faded
on Thursday as more indications appeared of the growing weakness of the US
economy.

The International Monetary Fund contributed to the gloom by saying it
planned to
reduce "meaningfully" its forecast for global growth.

Stock markets held on to their gains of the previous day, but made no
further
progress. In early afternoon trading both the Dow Jones index and the Nasdaq
were
slightly lower. The dollar slipped back against the euro, which rose back
above 95c
during the day.

Futures markets moved to price in a further 1.25 percentage point cut in the
Federal
funds rate from its current 6 per cent by next August.

Further signs of the US economic slowdown came in a surge in corporate
layoffs and
in demand for unemployment benefits, and a sharp drop in a principal
indicator of
activity in the nation's service sector.

The National Association of Purchasing Management said its index of
service-sector
activity slid to its lowest level in a year, from 58.5 to 53. The indicator
suggests
that growth in the service sector, which has so far offset the contraction
in
manufacturing, persists but at a much slower pace than a few months ago.

The Chicago-based international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &
Christmas said
its monthly estimate of layoffs among top US corporations tripled from
44,152 in
November to 133,713 in December, with the bulk of the rise coming from
retailers and
auto companies

And the Labor Department said initial weekly claims on unemployment
insurance rose
to 375,000 in the week ending December 30: their highest level since July
1998. The
figures showed the sharpest increases in and around the Midwest, the
industrial
heartland of the US.

Unemployment insurance claims have risen fastest more quickly than in any
seven-month period since the 1990-1991 recession, although the official
unemployment
rate has risen only slightly.

Some economists have speculated that the urgency shown by the Fed in making
a
surprise rate cut ahead of the scheduled open market committee meeting on
January
30-31 may have been because policymakers had early access to the December
unemployment figures, which are due for release on Friday.

Michael Mussa, the IMF's chief economist, said he thought the chance of a
sharp
global slowdown was remote. But he said he thought the IMF's latest
forecasts, made
last year, were now over-optimistic.

He said: "The data in recent weeks suggest some general slowing across the
global
economy, most pronounced in the US and Japan, and signs of slowing among the
large
economies of Europe", he said.

The European Central Bank on Thursday kept its main interest rate unchanged
at 4.75
per cent, in line with market expectations.

The ECB is concerned about the potential inflationary impact of last year's
high oil
prices and the euro's weakness, and wants to monitor forthcoming wage
settlements in
the euro-zone carefully. But economists said the ECB might cut rates as
early as
February or March, especially if policymakers accept the Fed's analysis that
the US
is at risk of falling into a sharp downturn.


__
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com

RE: Re: another software query

[Nicole Seibert]

This is only a problem when we forward things to each other; we can also
forward "advertisements" that require further downloading from the
advertisers or the originator of the forwarded items website.  This does not
last forever and can be a problem if, well..., if you are not attached to a
university and are paying for your internet connection.  Sometimes it is
best if we cut and paste an article into our message to forgo such problems.
It is easier to cut out the junk.

Also, Jim you might want to fix you http:// address.  You have a semi-colon
where a colon should be.

Over and out until next year,
Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Friday, July 10, 2893 6:44 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:6499] Re: another software query

Did my mail ever do that to anybody else?

>
> almost every day, I get an e-mail (usually from some reputable company --
> but once from Michael Perelman) which automatically launches my dial-up
> networking applet when I open the message. (I guess they want to help me
> download the info they're selling.) I then can't get rid of it, without
> shutting Eudora down.
>
> First, this is awfully like a virus -- and I've told amazon.com that.
> Second, is there any way to fix Eudora so that it isn't susceptible to
> this? I use Eudora 5.0. Thanks ahead of time.
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
>
>


--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: meme

[Nicole Seibert]

Are you suggesting that Sociology does not experience that same hypocrisy as
"master of my fate" and "dupe to social structure" implies?
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of kelley
Sent:   Sunday, November 12, 2000 12:51 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:4336] Re: Re: meme

At 10:03 AM 11/11/00 -0800, you wrote:
>At 12:42 PM 11/11/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>>i would like to understand the meme meme!
>
>As I understand it, meme is to society & culture as a gene is to an
>animal's body. The society and its culture (including technology, I
>presume) is seen as simply the sum of a bunch of memes, which spread sort
>of the way that genes do, a sort of quasi-Darwinian process. The followers
>of Dawkins see "selfish genes" as driving animals, which suggests that
>memes are similarly greedy, trying to conquer the world. (The more
>intelligent note that the spread of memes is more Lamarkian than
>Mendelian, since acquired cultural characteristics are passed on to the
>next generation.)
>
>But it's a really bad sociological theory -- though of course most of
>those who talk about "memes" sneer at sociology while practicing it.


this is exactly what i've thought of it.  i am subscribed to a number of
hacker/geek lists and whenever someone challenges the dominant norms--say
bringing up challenges to their cyberlibertarian views--it is all dismissed
as a meme(s)--and evil at that!  what is profoundly hilarious to me is that
a bunch of ppl hell-bent on the idea that they have the capacity for
rational autonomy--a mastery of their fate--can believe that memes can be
overpoweringly evil.  i suppose it is an instance of what Alvin Gouldner
called "methodological dualism"--though i'm stretching it a bit.  Gouldner
noted that sociologists tend to believe that somehow everyone else is a
dupe of social structure while they have, somehow, escaped that fate.

this, of course, fits nicely into the cyberlibertarian view that they are
the vanguard, that they will survive the darwinian struggle and the rest of
us be damned.  in the meantime, tho, a fervent desire to squash anything
that disturbs them -- in their lexicon, a fnord.

so, in my mind, it's their convenient way of trying to understand the
forces of social structure which are unfathomable.  leftish sociology and
marxism are, of course, out of the question so, like rightwingers and
conspiracy theories, they turn to meme theory to explain why things just
don't go their way.


pathetic, really.

kelley


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: [PEN-L:3526] Re: 20Re: Brenner, C. L. R. Ja mes, & José Carlos Mariátegui (was Re : Brenner Redux)

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi all,
I have not been following this argument.  But I can think of at least one
form of free labor that capitalism has never lived without - women's labor
in the home.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Colin Danby
Sent:   Thursday, October 26, 2000 2:51 AM
To: p2; pen-l
Subject:[PEN-L:3526] Re: 20Re: Brenner, C. L. R. Ja mes, & José Carlos
Mariátegui (was Re : Brenner Redux)

Jim D writes:

> Anyway, please don't just _assert_ that capitalism needs slaves, etc.
> Tell me the logic behind your argument.

There may be an ontological difference over what we mean when we say
capitalism -- is it an analytical category or an historical one.  Mat,
when he says:

> Enslaved labor and the slave[ry] trade were central in the rise and
> development of the only capitalism that history has known.  Any way
you cut it,
> it wasn't peripheral, it wasn't an aberration, it wasn't insulated, it
was a
> central and essential part of the capitalist mode of production.

and

 > I don't have a problem with the notion of articulation of modes of
production.

is allowing for an analytical sepration between different ways of
extracting labor, but treats "capitalism" as something historically
specific and actually-existing.  He asks us not to shut our eyes to
lived history and the fact that the actual rise of industrial capitalism
is closely linked with unfree labor.  As it is with genocide,
colonialism, and modern racism.

Now, could industrial capitalism have developed differently?  Could
capitalism manage on its own, without articulation to other modes?  Who
knows.  It's not a resolvable question, or even an interesting one.

It is a serious error to reason from the structural completeness of an
abstract model of capitalism to the notion that capitalism in the real
world is structurally complete and free-standing.  (For about the same
reason that we shouldn't reason from the awe-inspiring structural
completeness of Walrasian general equilibrium to a real world without
power.)  We should not confuse models with the things modeled.

(This is a problem Marx wrestled with -- there's a reason why _Capital_
sticks the problem of origins rather awkwardly at the end of the first
volume.  It's a problem in any kind of structuralist thought.  There's
no easy solution, but if you look at Marx's work as a whole I'd suggest
that he thought that concrete historical work and abstract analysis have
to talk to each other and push at each other's limits.  Marxism is not
just volume 1 of _Capital_.)

If capitalism is actually densely intertwined with other modes, then it
doesn't have a simple historical trajectory, and we can't assume that it
is fully-structured or possesses independent laws of motion.  This
distresses people who would prefer to do nothing but class analysis, yet
claim the high ground of social theory.

Best, Colin


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Wallerstein & Post-Modernists (was Re: Wallerstein on slavery and capitalism)

[Nicole Seibert]

The subject has no action when passive voice is used.  This is not
postmodern; this is standard English 101.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent:   Saturday, October 21, 2000 1:31 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:3374] Wallerstein & Post-Modernists (was Re: Wallerstein on
slavery and capitalism)

Mine:

>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > >The only thing that Wallerstein offers above, by way of
> > >"explanation," is that coerced or semi-coerced wage labor or corvee
> > >labor was "needed," _so_ it was reintroduced in some parts (though
> > >not other parts) of Europe (note the passive voice in Wallerstein's
> > >theory), just as "the use of slave labor in large scale plantations
> > for almost the same reasons in the US."
>
>I wonder what your *explanation* of slavery is  though  besides your
>playing with
>words here. Who cares about the "passive voice" of the sentence above? Only
>post-modernists on LBO, I guess.

The passive voice makes the social _agents_ -- classes -- disappear,
in both the theoretical & empirical senses.  Post-modernists are very
fond of this disappearance of historical actors from theory.

Wallerstein's world systems theory is very close to post-modernism
(especially post-colonialist versions of it -- like Gayatri
Spivak's).  Hence his _After Liberalism_, etc.

>Let's get to the heart of the issue here.  Did
>slave labor exist in the United States or not? If so, what form and
>why?  Was it is
>benefiting the interests of capitalists  or not? Was slavery a capitalistic
>institution" or not (Yes it was. Plantations were larger scale enterprises
>producing cash crops for exports to the core, which in return
>benefited the pockets
>of slave owners). More importantly,  was the imposition of slavery
>in the South
>parallel to developments elsewhere in the core of the capitalist
>world system?  YES
>IT WAS. Even in the HEYDAY of industrial revolution (1760-1830),
>slavery did *not*
>disappear. British imperialism abandoned its strategy of exporting
>slave labor from
>*West Africa* due to increasing competition from other European
>capitalist powers
>for slave producers. What it  did  IN PLACE  was the encouragement of
slavery
>"outside its own supply zones (such as the US South and Brazil" (W p. 216).

Slavery existed from near the beginning of colonial North America.  A
Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619
in Jamestown.  Some historians argue that the status & treatment of
the first Africans in Virginia were close to those of "indentured
servants" brought from England, etc., and the institutionalization of
chattel slavery & use of slaves for the international market began
only from the mid- to late-seventeenth century in North American
colonies; some dispute this argument and say that _from the very
beginning_ the treatment of Africans was racist and they were already
slaves, _not at all different_ from slaves in subsequent history.

*   ...By about 900 A.D., however, a regular slave-trade had
developed between the Niger River valley and the Muslims of Spain.
With Negroes brought from West Africa and Slavs from Russia, the
Spanish Muslim capital of Cordoba became one of the greatest
slave-markets in the world. With the decline of Muslim Spain, this
bulk of this trade shifted to East Africa. By this time, some peoples
of Africa had come to depend upon the slave trade, and Zanzibar had
become the great slave emporium. Wars between African tribes were not
fought to kill, but to take prisoners who could be exchanged with
Arab slave-traders for imported goods. It has been estimated that 25%
of the slaves taken out of Africa ended up in Muslim lands. Even more
important, this centuries-old trade had rooted the institution in the
African economy and had established the general pattern of that
trade
   

However, the Arab slave trade led neither to the establishment of
capitalism in the homeland of Arab traders nor the emergence of
capitalist slavery ahead of time before Europeans got around to them.

*   ... When the Portuguese began exploring the West African
coast and establishing the forts and trading posts that were
eventually taken over by the Dutch, they found that trade in spices,
gold, ivory, and other luxury goods was profitable, but that slaves
were the basis of trade and that they could have disposed of much
more of their trading goods if they accepted slaves in exchange.
Nevertheless, they did not develop this commerce, preferring to
concentrate on their original goal of gaining control of the market
in Eastern spices. Although the Spanish began entering into the slave
trade early in the sixteenth century, it was still a relatively
small-scale operation

*

The above did not yet cause the beginning of ca

(no subject)

[Nicole Seibert]

Unsubscribe pen-l

 winmail.dat

Science and ideology

[Nicole Seibert]

For every good example of ideology effecting science we can find horror
stories as well.  Hitler's experiments come to mind.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent:   Friday, September 08, 2000 1:34 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: pomo again (response to Jim)

>Jim Devine wrote,
>
> >. . . postmoderns reject a basic principle of science, the view that
> > there's more to reality than what's in your head ("your
> > reality"). There's something outside that we're trying to discover. I'd
> > have to do a survey of the postmoderns to see how common it is, but my
> > experience indicates that they prefer literary criticism to science.
>
>It's called the ghettoization of potentially critical perspectives. The
>problem with science is not the claim there's something more to
>reality than what's in your head, it is when scientists claim a
>privileged access to that something. When they make that claim: 1. they
>are not being scientific and 2. they usually have an ulterior motive. An
>obvious example would be Lionel Robbins' effort to define "economic
>science" and the establishment of a pseudo-Nobel prize for "economic
>science".
>
>The tip off should be when a discourse gets too insistent that it (the
>discourse) is somehow more than "just" a discourse. That's when the
>premises don't have to be established or defended by argument, they are
>just "given". I mean that "too insistent" literally. One of the easiest
>ways to detect a scientific fraud is by looking for ritualistic displays
>of "infallability" in the text. As a rule, one can assume that "well known
>facts" are assertions that the author doesn't want to bother to check.
>
>Temps Walker
>Sandwichman and Deconsultant

Much of writings that claim to be scientific have been distorted by
ideology, due to the fact that science has been practiced under class
society with sexist, racist, & other oppressions, but this fact is
not a reason for dispensing with the distinction between science and
ideology or between truth and falsehood _altogether_, or for saying
that a claim to being scientific is but an effect of the will to
power (Nietzsche/Foucault).  In fact, how do you judge that there is
"an ulterior motive" in X and that the said "ulterior motive" makes
the discourse in question false or unethical or both?  What standard
of judgment allows you to say X has an "ulterior motive" which makes
X bad science, if not historically developed (and constantly revised)
standards of ethics & science?

More importantly, what is an "ulterior motive" anyway, and is it
necessarily bad?  For instance, scientists like Richard Leowntin,
Stephen Jay Gould, Ruth Hubbard, etc. have the "ulterior motive" of
social emancipation (from class, gender, race, and other
oppressions), and it is their very "ulterior" motive that makes their
science better and more truthful than otherwise.  In other words, not
all "ulterior motives" are bad, and it is impossible _& unnecessary_
to try to separate cognitive interests in truth from all other social
interests in order to be scientific.  Nay, the "ulterior motive" of
commitment to social emancipation is probably a precondition for
really good science (recall Marx's theses on Feuerbach).  From the
point of view of pretended impartiality & detachment, one cannot
discover the truth of social relations.

To sum up, why throw out the baby with bathwater?

truth is partisan (to the working class),

Yoshie


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

Dead white men

[Nicole Seibert]

Jim: My argument is against the view that everybody's views represent
_nothing but_ subjective opinion.

With all the dead white men I have been studying it sure seems like it.

-Nico


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

[Nicole Seibert]

Yes, I think I was trying to work out why and how the dialectical process
occurs that Kristeva talks about.  Seems we need to reevaluate our criteria,
models, etc. for judgment occasionally.  With the space/time compression it
is just happening more often.  Does anyone know of any researchers that have
worked on this type of topic before?
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Peter Dorman
Sent:   Thursday, September 07, 2000 3:48 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Re: Re: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for  Doug)

Am I right in locating the core error in pomoism (as currently defended)
in its assumption that claims are either "true" or "unjudgeable
opinions"?  Such a view excludes the possibility of criteria that would
pass judgment on claims even in the absence of any knowledge that they
are truly "true".  The Putnam-type argument (which I accept) undermines
teleological criteria (a claim is better to the extent it approaches the
final truth) but not the sort of criteria most of us use to judge
claims: consistency with evidence, logical coherence, consistency with
other claims we accept, passing ethical tests (like Kant's), etc.

These kinds of criteria give me grounds for rejecting GW Bush even
though I doubt I possess "the truth" about government, economics, etc.

Peter


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

[Nicole Seibert]

Sure, I do.  But the categories, models that I use to judge them are
periodically critiqued (usually about every four years).  Reference to
Kristeva's work on science.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Thursday, September 07, 2000 11:05 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Re: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

I agree with Yoshie here, and I d o not think that you believe what you say.
Do you find it hard to pass judgment on Henry Kissinger or George W.
Bush? --jks


>Understanding that this is relative however makes passing judgment almost
>impossible.  And I am not talking about the judgment of whether or not to
>walk off the cliff which so many of you seem to think I am talking about.
I
>am talking about academia and establishment of grand narratives, theories,
>definitive works which so often are passed off as truth.  At least now I
>know to limit my discussions of relativism to the life of the mind.  Lacan
>and Kristeva discussing language, signs and symbols are surely limiting
>their discussion to the life of the mind.
>
>The new question then becomes do pomos actually discuss anything that takes
>place outside of the mind?  This would then automatically limit the
>criticism to the same orientation.  I know Foucault discussed prisons, but
>wasn't this just on how they made people feel?  Kristeva discusses the
>language of science, but not scientific findings themselves...  Well?
>
>-Nico

Theories that refuse to pass judgments & retreat into "the life of
the mind" (whatever is meant by the term) do not further but in fact
hinder political projects that aim at social emancipation: feminism,
socialism, etc.

Yoshie

 >>


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Feminism (posted originally on marxism@lists.panix.com)

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi All,
My question was a more rhetorical one guys.  Yoshie said that work, as I was
suggesting pomo is, that concentrates on the life of the mind is a waste of
time.  One of the things she mentioned was that the life of the mind
confuses issues when it come to doing actual activist type work.  This is
not exactly what she said.  She may be able to give you a better answer - I
didn't keep the post.  Anyway, I was suggesting that feminism didn't start
outside of the mind.  Pomo, in fact, would help support burgeoning
theoretical approaches to scholarship, because it takes into account the
need to reevaluate theory.  It is a dialectical approach as Kristeva points
out.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Jim Devine
Sent:   Friday, September 08, 2000 12:29 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Feminism (posted originally on  [EMAIL PROTECTED])


>Nicole wrote:
> >So, how did feminism start?

As someone who was outside the process, my impression was that the recent
wave of feminism that came out of the 1960s anti-war and other movements in
the US was a reaction to the male chauvinism of the "New Left" leaders.
Paraphrasing, many women said: you men talk about liberating Vietnam,
liberating Blacks, etc., but what about women? Why are you men making all
the decisions while we make coffee? (FYI, according to eye-witness accounts
I've heard, no bras were actually burned, at least at the first, famous,
"bra-burning" event.)

BTW, I can see no reason why feminism is necessarily postmodernist, nor why
postmodernist is necessarily feminist. (Justin, thanks for the summary of
what "pomo" means.)

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine "Segui il
tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.)
-- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Hume & the Postmodern Grin without a Cat (was Re: pomoistas)

[Nicole Seibert]

I think you are right, but understand that pomo is not a philosophy.  It is
a way of analyzing theory, methods, almost anything that uses language and
metaphor.  At its base it points out misnomers and illogical arguments.  It
is dialectical criticism of theory.  It is a lot more, but I am hoping this
short answer will suffice considering it is Friday evening and time to have
fun.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent:   Thursday, September 07, 2000 4:24 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Hume & the Postmodern Grin without a Cat (was Re: pomoistas)

Sam wrote to Nicole:

>Check out David Hume:
>
>"When we run over our libraries persuaded of these principles, what
>havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or
>school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask Does it contain any
>abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain
>any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No.
>Commit it to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and
>illusion."
>Enquiry Into Human Understanding final paragraph.

One thing that always struck me is that second-generation
postmodernists (& later models) seldom exhibit any familiarity with
primary philosophical texts (Plato, Kant, Rousseau, Hegel, etc.) on
which first-generation postmodernists -- Derrida & Co. -- make
endless marginal comments.  That said, Hume has been seldom commented
upon by first-generation postmodernists, even though Hume probably
stands the closest to the postmodern worldview, especially his
combination of the Separability Principle & the Conceivability
Principle, which leads to the reification of perceptions (in the
postmodern case the reification of discourse): "We may observe that
what we call a _mind_, is nothing but a heap or collection of
different perceptionsNow as every perception may...be consider'd
as separably existent...it evidently follows, that there is no
absurdity in separating any particular perception from the mind; that
is, in breaking off all its relations, with that connected mass of
perceptions, which constitutes a thinking being" (_A Treatise of
Human Nature_, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1978, p.207).  According to Hume,
causes and effects are not necessarily connected (causes and effects
are separable), so it is conceivable that causes exist without
effects *and* effects exist without causes.  Nothing is logically
dependent for its existence on anything else (an effect of commodity
fetishism at its most extreme).  John Cook illustrates the logical
consequence of Hume's position:

"Indeed if we take Hume at his word, we must take him to be saying
that he would see no absurdity in Alice's remark: 'Well!  I've often
seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat!  It's the most
curious thing I ever saw in all my life!"  (John Cook, "Hume's
Scepticism with regard to the Senses," _American Philosophical
Quarterly_ 5 [1968], p. 8).

Hume was, however, not interested in pursuing the logic of his
argument to radical scepticism of the Pyrrhonian kind (and its
recommended attitudes of epoche & ataraxia -- suspending judgement
for the Pyrrhonian sceptics meant living without belief [dogma] and
hence with tranquility).  "Thus the sceptic still continues to reason
and believe, even tho' he asserts that he cannot defend his reason by
reason; and by the same rule he must assent to the principle
concerning the existence of body, tho' he cannot pretend by any
arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity.  Nature has not
left this to his choice..." (_Treatise_, p. 187).  Postmodernists
don't even want to concede this much.  They'd rather go down the
rabbit hole and play with the Cheshire Cat (the world disappears into
discourse, and discourse achieves Platonic independence from the
world and human beings).

Yoshie


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

[Nicole Seibert]

So, how did feminism start?

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent:   Thursday, September 07, 2000 9:48 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1394] Re: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for
Doug)

>(How degrading - naïve relativism, sounds harsh.  Anyway, you answered that
>question yourself with Hume.  Realizing that it is all relative does not
>preclude the fact that we must walk out of our front doors or wear clothes.
>Understanding that this is relative however makes passing judgment almost
>impossible.  And I am not talking about the judgment of whether or not to
>walk off the cliff which so many of you seem to think I am talking about.
I
>am talking about academia and establishment of grand narratives, theories,
>definitive works which so often are passed off as truth.  At least now I
>know to limit my discussions of relativism to the life of the mind.  Lacan
>and Kristeva discussing language, signs and symbols are surely limiting
>their discussion to the life of the mind.
>
>The new question then becomes do pomos actually discuss anything that takes
>place outside of the mind?  This would then automatically limit the
>criticism to the same orientation.  I know Foucault discussed prisons, but
>wasn't this just on how they made people feel?  Kristeva discusses the
>language of science, but not scientific findings themselves...  Well?
>
>-Nico

Theories that refuse to pass judgments & retreat into "the life of
the mind" (whatever is meant by the term) do not further but in fact
hinder political projects that aim at social emancipation: feminism,
socialism, etc.

Yoshie


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: Australia

[Nicole Seibert]

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Rob Schaap
Sent:   Thursday, September 07, 2000 11:29 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Re: Re: Australia

G'day Nestor,

In late August the bastard Niemeyer lent
Scullin's bastard Tories support in their (tediouisly predictable) claim
that Australia's workers had been enjoying too high a living standard,
prescribing 20% cuts in wages and pensions and the cessation of
'unreproductive' public works.

So we duly had an imposed depression, too, mate.

Cheers,
Rob.

Hi All,
Question:  In my own logical fashion, deduced without an economic degree, I
figure that America will have to experience some sort of depression so that
a leveling of some sort between periphery and core incomes and expenses
occurs.  I believe that a leveling and the defeat of capitalism must occur
or the UN, WB, etc. will vanish as we know them or some more economic voodoo
because globalization makes people aware of the plight of other people.
Isolationism to an extreme might occur, but that is highly unlikely.  But as
I understand it in America now the prevalent thought process holds that a
recession is not necessary.  Are we just postponing the inevitable?
-Nico


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: RE: Re: Pomocanadianism

[Nicole Seibert]

So, what about periphery, semi-periphery, and core type divisions like the
one Kicks proscribes?  Surely, we can use these division to make some
comparisons of the nation-states in the middle?
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky
Sent:   Thursday, September 07, 2000 9:44 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: RE: Re: Pomocanadianism

En relación a [PEN-L:1391] RE: Re: Pomocanadianism,
el 7 Sep 00, a las 9:25, Nicole Seibert dijo:

> Hi -
> Has anyone thought to compare Canada with Norway or Taiwan or Austria
> (?) or Ireland or Scotland? -Nico

Comparisons may be a good way to begin a research, and a superior
device when the moment comes to expose results. But I am not quite
sure that they help in _doing_ the research.

The basic difference between First World and Third World countries
is not foreign oppression, which most countries suffer in one form or
another (with the probable exception of the USA).  The difference
lies in the general orientation of the economy: if it is self-
centered you have a First World country, if it is extrovert you have
a Third World country. In a sense, the only economic interest in a
national revolution is to solve this issue.

BTW, there has never existed a Second World: the term Third World was
coined by the French economist -who was to beome an advisor of De
Gaulle for regional economics in France- François Perroux. Perroux,
who was trying to imagine a new imperialist policy for France and was
keenly aware of the great wave of indignation that the United States
were generating with their brutal policies all along Asia, Africa and
Latin America, was in a position to realize that except for the
Western Powers and Japan, the mass of humankind was subject to a
condition that resembled that of the Tiers Etat under the final years
of Borbonic France: they needed a revolution to remain alive and step
ahead. So that he very easily brought the analogy to world
geopolitics and spoke of a "Tiers Monde". His advice was, of course,
that De Gaulle (that is, the French bourgeoisie) should cultivate the
best relations with these countries, in order to debunk the United
States and reconstruct the French Empire on new bases.

Now, as Henry Liu would say: But the Third World could be Christened
by Europeans, not transformed into a neocolony without struggle. This
is what we are at nowadays. The tide is turning, we are witnessing
the beginnings of a new era.

>
>  -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> On Behalf Of Bill Burgess Sent:   Wednesday, September 06, 2000 3:40 PM
> To:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:  Re: Re: Pomocanadianism
>
> In reply to Doug's question, I think it was Kari Levitt who coined the
> term "rich dependency" to describe Canada; others have suggested terms
> like intermediate country, 'go-between' imperialist, advanced resource
> capitalism, etc.
>
> No one disputes there is a big material difference between Canada and
> the Third World, but what is often suggested, particularly in terms of
> political strategy, is that Canada shares to a very significant extent
> the Third World's oppression and superexploitation by US imperialism.
> IMHO what this misses is what is the cardinal distinction -- between
> greater US and lesser Canadian imperialism on one side, and the
> greater and lesser imperialized or semi-colonial countries on the
> other, e.g., Mexico or Argentina to Haiti.
>
> I've been reading about the CPC debate on this issue in the 1920s. At
> its founding in 1921 it was more or less assumed Canada was in the
> imperialist camp; in the mid-1920s the CPC began to claim that Canada
> was a dependent semi-colony; but by the end of the 1920s this was
> rejected and Canada was defined as an independent imperialist country.
> The CP still considers Canada imperialist _in purely formal terms_ but
> has dropped the independent adjective (because Canada is considered an
> adjunct of US imperialism). In practice the  CPC has long been more
> Canadian nationalist than the NDP.
>
> Without being able to provide the details, I think one way of
> answering Brad's question of why Canada and Australia thrived and
> Argentina did not is that the latter was not able to make the
> transition to imperialist status.  Canada and Australia developed the
> economic base and class structure necessary for admission to the
> imperialist club despite their formal political status as colonies
> (later 'dominions'). Argentina did not, despite its formal political
> independence. Many apply to the club. Only a few are allowed in.
>
> I think the (pomoCanadian?) attitude of being "at the margins"
> reflects _envy_ of major imperia

RE: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

[Nicole Seibert]

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Wednesday, September 06, 2000 3:06 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for  Doug)

I was a professional philosopher of science, taught at Michigan, Cambridge,
Kalamazoo College, and Ohio State. Now I am a lawyer.

You present the argument, suggested once by the Harvard phil of science prof
Hilary Putnam, that we should conclude that all of our beliefs are wrong
because all of the beliefs that were once held by people in the past  are
now regarded as wrong.

This argument is actually interesting, unlike your argument from mere
disagreement. The argument from mere disagreement to relativism does not
follow. All that follows from disagreement is that one or both of the
parties who disagree is wrong, not that necessarily both are wrong.

(  Historically this does not pan out.  Is the American government or the
Russian government right about the arms race?  Some people would suggest
that this depends on your location.

However, the "apocalyptic meta-induction on the history of science," as
Putnam calls it, is a promising objection to the idea that science is
progressively closing in on the truth. it is not a knockdown argument. Note
that it does not show that anything in particular is wrong with any actual
belief we hold. It also does not address the reply that the rejection of
previous scientific beliefs allows for their approximate truth.

( This corresponds to the idea in pomo that there is no way of knowing
whether science, or knowledge for that matter, is following a progressive
path.  What are we progressing to?  I think it would naturally follow that
if "all of our beliefs are wrong" then there is something wrong.  Although I
think my line of reasoning that or knowledge is all relative to our time,
place, space and history is saying the same thing.  You are right though it
doesn't mean that we should stop reasoning or searching for knowledge and I
thought I put this across clearly but I guess not.  Eventually you have to
answer the question what are we (and I mean the big collective we) doing?
Why do (big) we do this?  I myself think it is fun and all those other jobs
really ... oh yeah, you are a lawyer.  I can't answer for the guy who picks
up my trash or the woman who stitches Nike tennis shoes.  This is where the
next crash or rebellion just might come from.

 Thus, we reject Newtonian Mechanics for relativistic mechanics, but we do
not put NM in the trash. it turns out to be a special case of RM, false if
taken absolutely but true where spacetime is flat (or treatablea s flat) and
velocities how enough not to show  up reativistic effects. Finally, the
metainduction does not address the many beliefs that have remained constant
over the millenia: the grass is greeen, thunder  prcedes lightning, freedom
is better than slavery, and the like.

( The grass is green unless it is blue.  Thunder proceeds lightning, but
thunder can happen alone.  Freedom may be better than slavery unless you
want to be a slave.  Einstein said that when you are talking about math you
are not talking about the real world and when you are talking about the real
world you are not talking about math.  He was a great relativist.
Ultimately, we do have to work with some accepted truths, but not as many as
we think we do.  Some that we take for granted will be proven wrong.  Ahh...
reading down I see you get to this, too.


But even if we were to accept the metainduction, it is not clear what effect
it should have on ordinary inquiry. Hume, a real skeptic, came up with
powerful skeptical arguments that he saw no reply to, but, as he said, when
he came out of his study, he had to proceed as if he knew all the things he
thought he did prereflectively. He wrote a big and rather good history of
England, did research into political economy, and acrried on in the usual
way. Why indeed should we be paralyzed by skeptical arguments even if they
re good? And, as I say, the meta-induction is pretty good, but not that
good.


For the points you forgot, I have repeated them three times. They are to the
general point that the naive relativism you have been espousing is self
underming because it relativizes its own factual and moral predicates. See
if you can find the specific points in your old mail folder.

( How degrading - naïve relativism, sounds harsh.  Anyway, you answered that
question yourself with Hume.  Realizing that it is all relative does not
preclude the fact that we must walk out of our front doors or wear clothes.
Understanding that this is relative however makes passing judgment almost
impossible.  And I am not talking about the judgment of whether or not to
walk off the cliff which so many of you seem to think I am talking about.  I
am talking about academia and establishment of grand narratives, theories,
definitive works which so often are passed off as 

RE: Re: Pomocanadianism

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi -
Has anyone thought to compare Canada with Norway or Taiwan or Austria (?) or
Ireland or Scotland?
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Bill Burgess
Sent:   Wednesday, September 06, 2000 3:40 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Re: Pomocanadianism

In reply to Doug's question, I think it was Kari Levitt who coined the term
"rich dependency" to describe Canada; others have suggested terms like
intermediate country, 'go-between' imperialist, advanced resource
capitalism, etc.

No one disputes there is a big material difference between Canada and the
Third World, but what is often suggested, particularly in terms of
political strategy, is that Canada shares to a very significant extent the
Third World's oppression and superexploitation by US imperialism. IMHO what
this misses is what is the cardinal distinction -- between greater US and
lesser Canadian imperialism on one side, and the greater and lesser
imperialized or semi-colonial countries on the other, e.g., Mexico or
Argentina to Haiti.

I've been reading about the CPC debate on this issue in the 1920s. At its
founding in 1921 it was more or less assumed Canada was in the imperialist
camp; in the mid-1920s the CPC began to claim that Canada was a dependent
semi-colony; but by the end of the 1920s this was rejected and Canada was
defined as an independent imperialist country. The CP still considers
Canada imperialist _in purely formal terms_ but has dropped the independent
adjective (because Canada is considered an adjunct of US imperialism). In
practice the  CPC has long been more Canadian nationalist than the NDP.

Without being able to provide the details, I think one way of answering
Brad's question of why Canada and Australia thrived and Argentina did not
is that the latter was not able to make the transition to imperialist
status.  Canada and Australia developed the economic base and class
structure necessary for admission to the imperialist club despite their
formal political status as colonies (later 'dominions'). Argentina did not,
despite its formal political independence. Many apply to the club. Only a
few are allowed in.

I think the (pomoCanadian?) attitude of being "at the margins" reflects
_envy_ of major imperialist status.

Bill


>Bill Burgess wrote:
>
>>Actually, Canada has often been compared to Argentina by (some) Canadian
>>political economists and leftists. While they would not deny the _degree_
>>of Canadian dependence is less,  they they often do suggest that Canada
>>is dependent "in the same way" as Argentina - or to take a more recent
>>example, Mexico in the context of NAFTA. The traditional dependency
>>argument is rarely made any more, but its logic persists in the Canadian
>>left-nationalist response to current events. While nationalism in nasty
>>imperialist France or Germany is regarded with suspicion, Canada, you
>>see, is in a different category...
>
>How do they deal with the fact that Canadian incomes are 3 times Mexico's
>(according to the World Bank's PPP estimates) - and a hair higher than
>France and Germany's even?
>
>Doug
>


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

Very cool Carrol.  But *knocking on computer screen* I am here.  *waving
arms wildly* I am here.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Carrol Cox
Sent:   Wednesday, September 06, 2000 2:31 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Pomotismo

The question of whether objective [*gegenstandliche] truth can be
attributed to human thinking is not a quesion of theory but is a
*practical*
question. In practice man must prove the truth, that is, the reality
and]
power, the this-sidedness [*Diesseitigkiet*] of his thinking. The
dispute
over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from
practice is a purely *scholastic* question.

..

 The standpoint of the old materialism is "*civil*" society; the
standpoint
of the new is *human* society, or socialised humanity.

**

The internet is peculiar in that it represents the most perfect
reflection of
the very skeleton of bourgeois society. On the internet we all begin as
isolated individuals coming from nowhere, and strive to create relations

where none existed before. This is the perfect environment for the
wildest sorts of individualist and skeptical thought to flourish. The
banal
question of how do "I" know that "you" exist suddenly becomes real.
How do "I" sitting here know that there is a "you" behind the marks on
the monitor screen?

In objective reality  of course we never find ourselves in such
abstraction
from social relations, which are always already there. We cannot know
that
we ourselves exist as humans unless we know (and not merely think) that
we have social relations with others.

So, Jim, you are both right and wrong that we cannot "prove" that others

exist. You are right in that to ask the question is to deny ourselves.
But
unless we can ask the question we cannot answer it. You are wrong
because we do ask the question but we could not ask it unless we already

*knew* the existence of others. Questions only exist in a web of social
relations.

Nico -- you are claiming you don't exist. Because to exist as a human is

to exist as an aspect of a web of social relations.

Don't have time to make this precise. Have to go grocery shopping.

Carrol


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

Pomo, again! (response to Jim)

[Nicole Seibert]

Jim writes: 
Anyone who embraces such a view is saying that their statements are simply
opinion, a bunch of subjective 
feelings, with no assertion of possible truth. So there's no reason to
respect those opinions. I'll ignore them.

My response:
But, what I am saying is that what any of us say is only an opinion.  And
there is no possible assertion of truth when truth changes depending on
where you are in history and who you study with and what your gender is,
etc.

*
Jim writes:
Clarity of thought (which involves some notion of truth) is necessary to
political action, among other things. 
Besides, I never simply talk to one person in an e-mail discussion. I know
that there are third parties who read these things. My comments aren't
simply aimed at you, but at them. (This attitude helps avoid flame-wars, by 
the way.)

My response:
I would think that a deranged person could have clarity of thought.  Some
mental diseases allow for clarity of thought even though what is being said
we would think is dead wrong.  Manson for example thought that what he was
doing was right and true.
I only response to your emails because I feel the need to discuss this
issue.  I do not mean to single you out.  If you want we can stop.  And no,
I was not ribbing you, just merely stating a fact we could all agree on.
Sorry if it was too simplistic.

*
Jim writes:
This kind of radical individualism may be good for you, but it's not good 
for the world. Taking on this attitude, I should pollute the world, 
grabbing as much as possible of the good stuff for myself (no matter what 
the cost to others) since as far as I can tell, those other people aren't 
real. Since the idea that the world is a shared community is just an 
illusion, I can grab for all the gusto I can. But of course those things 
aren't real, so OM

My ripostes:
You make me laugh out loud.  Okay.   Seriously, I am not suggesting that we
forget there are other truths and realities in the world.  Just the
opposite.  I think we need to recognize that different truths and realities
exist before we go any further.  You could not pollute the world with your
wonderful ideas.  See here's the deal with the type of argument you posit as
I see it: you trying to judge my argument based on right or wrong answers;
or, saying that my type of thinking will lead to almond nut and jelly
sandwiches when in reality I say that all sandwiches are good is reducing
the argument to a level that anyone might say is incorrect.  Maybe I should
say that radical individualism (if that is actually what I am saying; I am
not so sure) in my mind does not mean forget that the rest of the world
exists.  In my academic studies I look at the International Women's Movement
- I can not forget diversity of truths and realities in my work.

*
Jim wrote:
BTW, if you have no pretensions of having a greater grasp of empirical 
reality or empirically-relevant theory than the students do, how can you 
deal with students? if a student wants to turn a class period into a 
dope-smoking section (or something legal but equally distracting), what 
argument can you make without some sort of assertion of truth beyond your 
own personal truth? How can you claim your paycheck (especially since you 
don't know if it's real or not)?

I am a graduate student, a TA/RA type.  

*
I wrote previously:
>Or work to change the situation through networks accessible to you.  Maybe 
>we could work to understand the cultural mechanism behind this act and 
>then work to change the interpretation.  And there are many other options 
>that we have available to us that we just may not be thinking of.

Jim wrote:
how do you know that "networks" exist?  or "cultural mechanisms"? How do 
you know that I or anyone else is "thinking"?

Me:
They are part of my reality and someone gave me a name to call them that we
can all understand as based in our own reality even though we all attach our
own connotation to that word that changes and warps the meaning of "network"
to fit our own needs.  They are only words after all.  Let's try not to
place too much importance in them.

Oops. Sorry.  Maybe there are options that I have not thought of yet.  I
would imagine that the same would be true for other people since
epistemological research points me in this direction.

*
Written previously:
>Agreed.  I never said that just because we are all full of opinions we 
>should not talk about these opinions.

but how do we decide what parts of different people's opinions work best in 
practice, etc.?

Vote?  Practice?  Seek out as many opinions as you can find and test.  Only
none of this has worked in the past: historically, we have not found a truth
that lasted more then a few hundred years.  The time is even shorter in
sociology and economics and political science, etc.  Physical scientific
truths seem to work better then social scientific truths, but who is going
to tell the Aborigines that their minds should not work that way.  Who is
going to tel

RE: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

[Nicole Seibert]

This is what I meant, Doug, when I said that pomoisma encourages bad
epistemology and metaphysics that districts everyone from debating important
substantive issues while failing to advance epistemological or metaphysical
discussion.

And where you are wrong J is that you think academia and the rest of the
world should just continue with its "substantive" work even if it will be
inevitably concluded incorrect later on down the road because we can't
address the issue that truths is relative.  This is an epistemological and
metaphysical question.


Nico--who has not attempted to address the questions I gave
her--finds lack of agreement in the classroom, but apparently has divined
somehow that it is "true" that in other eras and countries not everyone
agrees with what people around her think, and concludes from this that
"truth
is relative," whatever that means, and indeed, whatever can be the basis for
such a statement, given that the apparently factual predicate on which it is
based, the "reality" (as she puts it) of disagreement can only be a matter
of
opinion and not real reality or actual truth.

J - don't remember the question.  What was it?

It is not that I find lack of agreement just in the classroom.  Walk outside
of the classroom.  Look throughout history.  Truth is relative means that
everyone believes fundamentally is different things.  I would venture to
guess that even here on this listserve there are people who may agree with
you on certain things, but most of them would disagree with what you have to
say; just like you are disagreeing with me now.  What we find important,
interesting today may not have been 100, 1000 years ago.  This is what
knowing our history does to us.  We are to learn from the past.  What we
learn is that what J says today is important and interesting will not be in
as short a time as 100 years from now - not only that but it is highly
likely that people will find his work wrong.  So, what do we do?  How do we
correct this problem?  Do you continue to try and find a universal truth or
a grand narrative or the answer to the universe?  Do you limit your research
by announcing who you are, where you come from and what you studied in ad
nausum detail?  Do we denounce our own authority as experts or limit our
expertness by time and space? Or is there another answer that we have not
come up with yet?

No doubt the heavyweight pomos like Foucault  and Derrida are more
sophisticated. They at least know the moves and the pitfalls. But what is
the
point of engaging in this exercise? I enjoy an epistemological dustup as
well
as any and better than most. After all, I did this stuff professionally for
years before I went into law. But at the level at which the present
discussion is carried on, the game is not worth the candle. It's a
distraction.

No doubt they are.  So, what were you a professional at?











Nicole, have you any response to the arguments that your sort of relativism:
(1) undercuts itself by leaving you unable to say that the disagreement on
which it is purportedly based is not real;

Is this real?  Is this truth?
1) "It is one of the most absurd notions derived from eighteenth century
enlightenment, that in the beginning of society woman was the slave of man."
2) " Superficiality is the character of woman, a moving tempestuous membrane
on shallow water."
3) "Man is more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has a
more inventive genius.  His brain is absolutely larger, but whether or not
proportionately to his larger body, has not, I believe, been fully
ascertained."

There are no universal truths.  Truths that have been thought of as true
inevitable diminish over time either by being proven untrue, forgotten,
morphed, or reality changed for a number of people.  What I feel is real.
What I know to be true is real to me.


(2) leaves you unable to engage in criticism of the things that appall you,
such as the subordination of women, because on your relativism their
existence
is just a matter of opinion about which no nonarbitrary agreement is
possible;

Truth varies depending on who you talk to.  We all have our own truths.
Some women would say that women are not subordinate to men; this is their
opinion and it is what they believe.


(3) likewise leaves you unable to say that whatever you don;'t like, such as
racism
or sexism, is wrong rather than just not to your taste; and

I believe sexism and racism is wrong.

(4) in any event do not follow from the premises about disagreement, because
it does not mean, just because two views disagree, that neither of them is
right,
just that both of them cannot be right at athe same time?

But I do believe that two people can be right at the same time.  I believe
that Marx and Ruggie and Baldwin and Foucault and Deleuze and Kristeva and
so on are right.  Contradiction exists all around us.  Contradiction exists
in academia.  Theories are reconciled and can be very very useful when
combined.
--jks

Maybe I am

RE: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Jim,
Cool.  I don't think I got your message, so here goes.

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Jim Devine
Sent:   Tuesday, September 05, 2000 6:36 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1290] Re: Pomotismo

Hi, Nico.

Over the weekend, I posted a message in response to one of your previous
ones (the one with the feminist revolution, the relativist revolution, and
the "brain revolution"). Did my message get Lost in Cyberspace? ("Danger,
Will Robinson!")

Nico wrote:
>If there is no such thing as objective thought then there is no such thing
>as objective reality, since reality is all in our heads anyway.

If it's all in our heads, how do I know that you exist? Might you be a
mirage or simply a Turing-type computer program?

Could be - you never know.

If it's all in our heads, why should anyone listen to you? After all, if my
opinion is as good as yours, why should I talk to you?

Personally, I think that I have a love of communication.  I love debating.
You don't have to talk to me, but you do.  Why do you talk to me anyway?

I think that it's important to separate ontology from epistemology.
Epistemology is necessarily pluralistic: there will always be different
perspectives on the world, since there will always be large numbers of
people. But ontologically, there exists only one reality outside of our
consciousness of it: the laws of physics, those of chemistry, biology, and
other natural sciences exist independent of our knowledge of them, though
at this point in time we don't know them as well as we could. Similarly,
the problem of scarcity and the importance to humans of avoiding hunger
will exist whether we understand these or not.

What happens when physicists and biologists and chemists don't agree?  What
happens when they agree but they are still wrong?

This ontological assertion can't be proved as far as I know, but it's the
only basis I can see for allowing any agreement rather than the persistence
of a welter of discordant opinions. And how can we have opinions unless
objective reality exists for us to have opinions in?

But throughout time people have disagreed on this reality.  For instance, I
think it was here on this list that recently there was some debate on
overpopulation of the world.  Let's say for a moment that in objective
reality there is a population of humans on the planet earth.  What else can
be objectively said about these humans?  Certainly, things like they are
mammals, etc., but not whether or not there is overpopulation.  Not yet at
least.  What objective basis do we have for making this claim?  None.  There
are no objective basises.  There is only opinion on whether or not the world
is overpopulated by humans.  If we disagree on this reality so much and so
frequently historically then how can we claim an objective reality?  I can't
say that I personally won't work within this reality: it is the only reality
I know.  But I can not work in this reality without the knowledge and
recognition that this reality changes and frequently.

>If the context changes then that is subjective.  The context is determined
>within our reality which again is in our own heads.

The context is only partly subjectively determined. After all, I have no
choice but to be on earth (not having billions of dollars to send myself
into space). So the nature of my frame of reference is objectively limited.

Maybe you are on the back of a turtle?

>My reality in the case Barkley is talking about would not change because I
>have no idea how or why measuring the angles of the earth is important.
>Nor would I ever have thought to measure the angles of the surface of the
>earth.  Frankly, it is inconceivable to me.

Something has to be important to be real? This is a strange reduction of
"real" to mean "real to me."

Why is this strange?  This is exactly what I am talking about.  Not
important, but important to my world view.  It is not important that I know
how to measure the angles of the surface of the earth.  I do not need to
know this.   I do not want to know this.  It does not effect my reality.

Also, for some people the fact that they are on this earth does not effect
their reality.  Have one of your freshman classes draw a map of where they
are from.  Every tried this?  The maps that come back may consist of section
of Los Angles.  Maybe the banks of one tributary of the Nile River.   People
do not think of being limited by the planet earth, but their location on
earth.  Maybe they only feel limited by just the west or south side of
Chicago?

>Ahhh... it is exactly these different perceptions that make reality
>contextual.  This is not to say that a contextual reality is unknowable
>either.  Just that we have to work a lot harder then they have in the
>past. For example, if we are to present a different culture we must
>immerse ourselves in that culture.  We must try to learn as many
>perceptions of events within that cult

RE: RE: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

[Nicole Seibert]

Maybe this is better: Academics are in a position of authority.  Authority
that historically does not pan out.  I have never been in a class in which
what a past academic said was taken for truth.  And the reality of the
situation is that we walk around in our nice academic world thinking that we
are actually coming up with something good.  This just goes to prove my
point that truth is relative.  Depending on what country you live in, what
generation you were born during, what point in history we can never actually
have any "truth(s)."  Truth is relative.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Carrol Cox
Sent:   Tuesday, September 05, 2000 5:58 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: RE: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for  Doug)



Nicole Seibert wrote:

>   The problem with acting like we
> know it all is that people then think we know it all.

Nicole, statements like this just make conversation impossible. No in
the history of the world (except possibly Duhring and Wagner) has
even pretended to "Know it All" -- and if you want to argue that
we don't know it all, no one is going to disa gree with you. So all
these posts you are writing simply are wasted, as mine would be
if I posted abou 300K arguing vigorously that I think I live in
Bloomington Illinois.

Now, do you think that *anyone* on this list acts as or believes that
we "know it all" or ever will know it all?

If your answer is Yes, then there's nothing more to say.

If your answer is No, then perhaps we can have a conversation.
But first you would have to rewrite this post leaving out all the
non-sense (literally can't be comprehended) that depends on the
premise that someone is claiming to know it all.

Carrol


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: pomos and out

[Nicole Seibert]

By the way, I like your piece on dialectics.  I have periodically trying to
work through it.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 4:14 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:pomos and out

I hope the long piece on autism I have forwarded
reaches the list.  I had sent it this morning, but to the
wrong address.  Maybe that will happen again when
I try to unsub in a few minutes before I take off for
the day (we had to work here in anti-union Virginia today).
Anyway, if it doesn't make it, or if Doug is bored and
does not reach the bottom of it, let me accept as well
taken his point about the sociology prof's stupidity
not being sufficient to condem pomoism in general.
In the forwarded message I said this would be like condemning
Marx because of Stalin, or because of some stupid thing
a third-rate political economy professor in the USSR said
in the 1970s.
 Nevertheless, that stupid example did show how pomo
thinking can lead to this kind of inaction due to thinking too
hard.  I noted that the prof admitted that he "did not have
any answers."  This, however, did not keep him from ridiculing
any likely actions the students would take because they had
not understood how racist and imperialist they were.  This
was just plain stupid.  I admit I am reacting now to an idiot
to whom I only subtly reacted to at the time for diplomatic reasons,
one of which was not getting into a scene where someone would
start speechifying at me that I was a racist because I did not
agree with what he had said
 Behave yourselves while I'm gone, if I manage to get gone, :-).
Barkley Rosser
http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb
PS:  I do have some new and revised stuff up on my website,
for fans of it, :-).


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Pomocanadianism

[Nicole Seibert]

According to Carrol it is Ottawa.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 4:07 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Pomocanadianism

In a message dated 9/4/00 3:58:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

<< BTW, ever met anyone who didn't know the capital of Canada?
  >>

Canada has a capital? --jks


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: pomoistas

[Nicole Seibert]

Check out James Hillman.  You might just like him.  He wrote A Blue Fire and
The Myth of Analysis.  Also, you could read Kristeva, Lacan, Nicholson,
McNay, Grosz, Deleuze and of course, David Harvey's The Condition of
Postmodernity.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 2:36 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: pomoistas

>We went through this before, but I'd say that the paragraph
>undermines the entire thesis of his article, but he seemed not to
>notice. When Martin Duberman appeared at the Nation's offices last
>year to talk about his collection Left Out - which is all about how
>sexual politics and other kinds of politics are all mixed up -
>Alterman denounced him with a vehemence that embarrassed almost
>everyone in the room. That sex stuff just doesn't matter, you see.
>
>Doug

I'm on the side of Martin Duberman against Eric Alterman.  It seems
to me, however, the kind of politics that Duberman favors does not
benefit from postmodern philosophy, with the exception of some of
Michel Foucault's writings.  I encourage everyone to read _& argue
with_ Foucault; but the rest of postmodernists?

Yoshie


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Wittgenstein, Etc. (was Re: Pomotismo)

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Yoshie,
Sorry to be so late replying to you.  I am moving down the list by date and
time.  I am a little behind; I didn't know this topic would last this long.


 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 2:18 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Wittgenstein, Etc. (was Re: Pomotismo)



If the postmodern obsession is to attack logical positivism,
picture-thinking, "Turing machine functionalism," etc., why don't
postmodernists go for the late Wittgenstein, the late Hilary Putnam,
Gerald M. Edelman, etc.?  Or Justin Schwartz?

Most people that I know of don't like logical positivism and you don't have
to be pomo to feel that way: just ask Hicks, Meyer or Tilly.

If the target of criticism is productivism (as noted in Lou's post on
Beaudrillard), why not go for the Frankfurt School (especially Walter
Benjamin), Jim O'Conner, David Harvey, John Bellamy Foster, Ellen
Wood, etc.?

Now why would the pomos be against critical theory.  Seems to me that is
their (my) favorite past time?

If what is to be criticized is the Hegelian dialectic, why not Althusser?

I find the dialectical way very enlightening.

If the inadequate theory of sexism & racism is the problem, why not
Martha Gimenez, Lise Vogel, C. L. R. James, Mariategui, etc.?

Inadequate because we don't know enough yet.  Inadequate because for so long
we left so many people out.  Inadequate because academia still will not
acknowledge sexism and racism and others in their work.

If unhappiness with the "base/superstructure" dichotomy motivates
them, why not Raymond Williams, E. P. Thompson, etc.?

Now you are talking.  Dichotomy is our enemy.  Binary thought structures are
our downfall as a society.  Unfortunately, I have read neither Williams or
Thompson, so I can not answer to their work personally.

Why do postmodern philosophers insist upon the rhetoric of reductio
ad absurdum, pretending to go "beyond" sensible research programs
variously pursued by writers mentioned above and others?

Yoshie

We have to recognize that there are other things beyond sensible out there
to study.  Things that these scholars may be leaving out of their work or
they may be creating dichotomous answers to questions that need more.  They
may be wrongfully or unnecessarily limiting their study.  In reality the
possibilities are endless.  If peoples "truth(s)" vary so much then why
doesn't academia reflect this variation?  If you don't ask the questions you
will never get the answers.  Inclusive dialectical critical work is an
important goal to strive for.  Sensible does not mean that these things are
taken into consideration.

Besides, who said academic work was sensible?  One colleague of mine will
publish soon on perceptions of pet owners looking like their pets.  And
another will publish on the subculture of vinyl record owners.

-Nico


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug) II

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Rob -
I agree with your assessment of the middle part I wrote here.  I have to
think more about what I am trying to say.

Q: Besides Foucault do any other pomo theorist discuss power relationships?
None right?  Baudrillard maybe, but generally in a kind-of snide
anti-powerful way.

Thinking more of the last part.  Seems to me you make some big jumps between
points, but I am pretty sure I can follow what you are saying.  I will have
to get back to you on that.

By the way, (another question) if the modernist were responding to Nietzsche
who are the postmodernist responding to?
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Rob Schaap
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 1:58 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)


>I find this particularly true if we take the argument outside of
>academia.  The religious right certainly knows "the truth", but then again
>so does the liberal left.  What if both are right about their own truths?

Both world views (if I may collapse a plethora of varied groups into two
'sides') are internally pretty coherent.  Of course, that alone does not
make 'em 'big T' True. For instance, there either is, or is not a god (or
gods) - the fact that an empirically falsifiable answer is apparently not
on the cards doesn't change the fact that at least one of the two parties
is wrong.  Doesn't matter how sound your reasoning is if you're premise
isn't true, eh?

>What if the groups really exist as pressure valves?  The religious right
>becomes more active, and attracts more followers when change happens too
>rapidly in our society?  Then society is bored, ready for change the other
>social organizations within activate themselves.  I can say all these
things
>because they make up my "truth."

None of which changes the fact that what you're claiming is either true or
untrue.  I suspect a fear of change was not the salient fear in medieval
Europe, for instance, and yet it seems they entertained a particularly
conservative and god-centred world-view.  Which allows for the possibility
that the ruling classes (a bunch of comfy high priests and the odd
divine-right-enabled noble) were as responsible for people's unambitious
world view (let's call it hegemony) as they were the beneficiaries of it
(of whom, more below).  Which rather shifts the focus from where you put
it, no?  (I'll admit the peasantry of the time probably didn't enjoy the
luxury of boredom, though.)

Your 'truth' here is, I submit, a falsifiable theory at best.

Anyway, let's turn to one of the more interesting and accessible advocates
of the sort of view you're trying to put: ol' Michel Foucault hisself.
Let's go with a definitive statement of his:

"it is not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which
would be a chimera, for truth already is power) but of detaching the power
of truth from forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within
which it operates at the present time".

I infer that if there were no hegemonic institutions disseminating their
'truths', there would be no 'truths' at all, for there would be no power.
As Foucault holds that there is always already power where there are
humans, there must alway already be 'truth'.  And as that 'truth' is just
so much hegemonic power, so is politics a fight for hegemony, and this
fight the logical equivalent of our search for 'truth'.  So to search for
'truth' is to express nought but that Nietzchian 'Will To Power'.  So peace
can only be attained by our refusing to pursue 'truth'.

Refusing to struggle, in other words!

Now, putting aside the *metaphysical claim to Big T Truth* that is
Nietzche's 'Will To Power', who in our society stands to gain from such a
ridiculous formulation?  Why, today's version of those old priests and
nobles!  And who stands to cop it right in the neck?  Why, today's version
of those old peasants!

So I reckon we shouldn't abandon the notion of 'big T Truth', Nico.

After all, that Foucault quote would have to imply a claim to big T Truth
if it were itself to avoid the charge of social and cultural hegemonic
'enunciation' (in which case a good Foucauldian's 'Will To Power' would
have to resist the power this 'truth' is thus afforded).  Foucault's answer
to that little conundrum?  All he'd ever written, he once said, had been
'little fictions'!  And why would we seek to 'detach the power of truth'
from this hegemonic 'surface of emergence', eh?  After all, his 'truths'
would be as true as any, and his status as truth-teller as truly his as
anyone else's, eh?

Bollocks.

Nihilistic, conservative, tendentious, blame-the-victim bloody bollocks!
And not least so, I submit, because it can't be true!

I mean, if this is the left today, why have a left?

If anyone's still reading, I'd love to know where I'm going wrong.

Cheers,
Rob.


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your

RE: Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Rob (& Doug),
I answered part of your note (with quotes from Doug) below:

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Rob Schaap
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 1:58 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Being serious about Pomotismo (with quotes for Doug)

G'day Nico,

>But isn't that the way the world really is: lots of people saying, "that's
>just an interpretation and it is not mine."  Aren't current academic
debates
>nothing but arguments trying to sway one side or another, debating "the
>truth."

Yep.  You make that sound as if that's bad thing!  And that academic over
there who's arguing 'fish are orange, therefore they smoke' ain't getting
much of a hearing.  Why'd that be?  Maybe it's because his premise is
untrue and his reasoning is wrong, so the deduction's conclusion is rather
likely to be untrue, no?

A dead white conservative man called Stove once said that:

"Much more is known now than was knownin 1580.   This is an extremely
well known fact, which I will refer to as (A).  A philosopher, in
particular, who did not know it, would be uncommonly ignorant.  So a writer
whose position inclined him to deny (A), or even make him reluctant to
admit it, would almost inevitably seem...to be maintaining something
implausible.  Such a writer must make that impression, in fact, unless the
way he writes effectively disguises the implausibility of his suggestion
that (A) is false."

Would you agree with him?


No, I don't think I would agree with him.  The problem with acting like we
know it all is that people then think we know it all.  If we are trying to
reason and give our interpretation then I think we should make it clear that
this is just an interpretation.  For too long academic have acted as if they
"know" what is going on.  From where I am standing I see a long line of
"known" things that actually change with the times and the focus of the
debates (realist/neorealist vs. liberal(?)/liberal institutionalist) changes
depending on the questions being asked?!  Sounds like we are just happy to
playing with our own minds?!

You know why I wouldn't agree with Stove, because who is he addressing?  Is
he addressing a bunch of dead white males?  Or is he addressing me a white
middle-class southern Methodist woman?  Or is he address my friend Souix
living in a south African community?  Or is he addressing the rebel fighters
participating in a jihad in Chechnya?  Who knows what reality he thought he
was living in but it wasn't mine.  I would agree that there is more
information out there.  There is more stuff to put into our reality.
However, there is a lot more misinformation too.  And what does that do to
our reality?  What happens to our reality when all that stuff they "knew" in
the past just isn't true.  What does that say about what we "know" now?
Maybe what we "know" is about to travel down that long byline in forgotten
history, "He came, He saw, He misunderstood."  Do you think this has to do
with knowing too much about our own history?
-Nico


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Jim,
If there is no such thing as objective thought then there is no such thing
as objective reality, since reality is all in our heads anyway.  If the
context changes then that is subjective.  The context is determined within
our reality which again is in our own heads.  My reality in the case Barkley
is talking about would not change because I have no idea how or why
measuring the angles of the earth is important.  Nor would I ever have
thought to measure the angles of the surface of the earth.  Frankly, it is
inconceivable to me.
Ahhh... it is exactly these different perceptions that make reality
contextual.  This is not to say that a contextual reality is unknowable
either.  Just that we have to work a lot harder then they have in the past.
For example, if we are to present a different culture we must immerse
ourselves in that culture.  We must try to learn as many perceptions of
events within that culture as we can to fully explain the contextual
reality.  We can not walk into an African village and assume they follow the
Western model for hierarchy and then not understand after giving all the
money to the men for farmer equipment why the people are starving.  We need
to explore who, what, and how the people do their farming in the first
place.  Then we might have known to give the funds to the women how perform
the farming in that particular village.
-Nico
 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Jim Devine
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 1:00 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo

Barkley wrote:
>   Except of course there are situations where
>2+2 does  not equal 4, such as when one is adding
>angles on the surface of the earth...

this says that the nature of truth depends on the objective context. It
doesn't deny the importance of objective context. On the other hand, the
pomotista epistemology (as I understand it) says that there is not
objective context. It's all in our heads (or in the "text").

Eric notes that with regard to "the 'fact' that 2+2 = 4, 2+2 =11 to someone
using base 3." But 2+2=11 in base 3 is simply 2+2=4 in a different
language; it's a different representation of the same thing. This is a
matter of different perceptions of the same objective reality, not one of
objective reality being utterly unknowable.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: pomoistas

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi All,
I think that there is a general feeling in pomo work that before we pass
judgment, I mean present academic work, we need to consider things more
carefully.  We may need to study the culture or nation-state more closely
before gathering the data or using an existing set.  Pomos are scared of
leaving someone out.  They are scared of becoming, "the capitalist", "the
exploiter", the academic who makes claims like Chomsky, or claims like
__  fill in the blank.  The problem becomes when do you know
something?  What gives me the authority to speak on this matter?  Do I know
this well enough to explain what I know to others.  The criticism that
expressed to improve the world (colonialism, feminism, racism, sexism,
religious prejudices, cultural prejudices) comes back to bite us on the ass.
It is hard to feel you have the right to speak up when there is so much you
may not know, or you might say the wrong thing, and so on.  Realizing that
if you do nothing then maybe nothing will get done is hard to come by.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of J. Barkley Rosser,
Jr.
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 11:25 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1221] Re: pomoistas

Doug,
 Yes, some pomos are politically active.  But here at
JMU a pomo sociology prof told a human rights conference
last spring put on by Amnesty International that instead of writing
letters to Interior Ministers around the world protesting the
treatment of political prisoners, they should think about
how racist and imperialist what they have been doing is.
After all, these are other cultures which must be respected.
The prof is African-American, but about one-third of the
officers of our local AI were from Third World countries.
Barkley Rosser
-Original Message-
From: Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sunday, September 03, 2000 4:36 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:1197] pomoistas


>An interesting excerpt from a column written a couple of years ago by
>The Nation's own neoconservative leftist, Eric Alterman, part of a
>classic pomo-bashing screed:
>
>"But here's the twist. [Labor historian Nelson] Lichtenstein is part
>of a perfectly Rortyite reformist Campaign for a Living Wage at the
>University of Virginia. This campaign is not about ending sexism,
>racism, or homophobia, but about getting janitorial staff a few extra
>bucks an hour. Who are its volunteers? Primarily, says Lichtenstein,
>faculty and graduate students from the pomo literature and theory
>crowd."
>
>Doug
>
>


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

Oh my.
Well Ken, I am going to break up your response into four sections if you
will.


 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Ken Hanly
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 5:08 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1215] Re: RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo

Where do you get the idea that I assume that everyone knows that 2 plus 2 is
4 or that Ottawa is the capital of Canada? I don't. Why should I. It would
be a false assumption, as you point out. Not false for you and false for me
but just plain ordinary false. What significance has the fact that something
is not part of some person's reality to it being true that 2 plus 2 is 4 or
Ottawa is the capital of Canada?  Only a limited number of truths are part
of any individual's reality. So how does any of that show that truth is
individual?

Quoted from a previous message from Ken: "That "the truth" is individual
seems to imply that there is something called "the truth" which is
individual."
What I meant by that statement is that if you are to assume that there is
something called "the truth" then you might assume that all individuals
believe the same thing (religion) or all nations want the same things (IR).
If not everyone believes, knows, understands the same things and their
reality may be (probably is) different from another persons then what a
person believes is true or "the truth" is also different.
Incidentally, "the truth" was used euphemistically earlier in another
conversation about pomo.

My bit about oxymoronic Platonism was a play on "the truth". For Plato
the truth would indeed be individual but an individual form or universal
certainly not some function of individual "truths" whatever they might be.
If you think that what is true is what individuals believe (their reality?)
then there is no such thing as "the truth" except as the class of all
individual beliefs, a class which will no doubt contain contradictory sets
of beliefs. Such a concept of  truth seems to me internally incoherent.


Exactly!  But why does it have to be coherent?  The only reason I can think
of is so that it is then testable or logical as the case may be.

The belief that x is y and the belief that it is not the case that x is y
are
not inconsistent but if the belief that x is y is equivalent to the truth
that x is y and the belief that it is not the case that x is y is equivalent
to the truth that it is not the case that x is y, then the truth is that x
is y and it is not the case that x is y and that is incoherent.
Of course one can avoid this consequence by claiming that we should not
say that 2 plus 2 is 4 is true but only that it is true for a,b, c, 
where these letters represent individuals who believe that 2 plus 2 is 4.
However, this is quite counterintiutive and counter to the way that our
language and others work. When we claim that 2 plus 2 is 4 we are not just
claiming that certain people believe that 2 plus 2 is 4. When a teacher uses
number picture cards to teach this truth he or she does not refer to or use
in the demonstration anyone's belief that 2 plus 2 is 4. There just is no
sensible interpretation of " 2 plus 2 is 4 is true for me" except as a weird
way of saying perhaps that I know or believe it is true. We do claim that 2
plus 2 is 4 period. While everyone may not know that I assume you know it
and everyone on Pen-L knows it. If we know it then it is true. Period.
  Cheers, Ken Hanly


We could avoid the problem of claiming truths by qualifying the answer, but
that doesn't always work.  If we assume that everyone knows something then
people get left behind.  Why don't we find out what people know first?

-Nico




_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Pomocanadianism

[Nicole Seibert]

LOL.  Ummm... think so or something or whatever.  The original question was
posed by Carrol and I don't remember what it was.  It was rhetorical anyway.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 4:07 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Pomocanadianism

In a message dated 9/4/00 3:58:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

<< BTW, ever met anyone who didn't know the capital of Canada?
  >>

Canada has a capital? --jks


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: Re: Baudrillard

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi All,
I never thought of a luxury good as one that was needed.  Or, rather of a
person that was needed.  And children are needed by a community - not
necessarily an individual member.  Can something that is needed also be
abused or exploited?  Yes.  Medication, food  Can I answer yes to all
three of your questions Doug?  At the same time, I would think that there is
more to the relationship then just exploitation, investment and consumption.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Monday, September 04, 2000 10:32 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Re: Re: Re: Baudrillard

In a message dated 9/4/00 5:34:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< >I'll answer you after right after you answer this question. Are children
an
 >exploited class?

 Are they an investment good? A consumption good? I just can't make up my
mind.

 Doug
  >>

An expensive luxury good. --jks


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Rob.
I think that outside of academic terminology we are saying the same thing -
only coming at the same thing from two different directions.  Or, rather, I
fail to see the difference between what you and I are saying.  You allow for
a physical constrictions to ones knowing - I whole heartedly agree.  Maybe I
should have said, "Some people could care less, some things are as of yet
unknowable, we can not fit everything we would like into our brains due to
space and time constraints, and this all effects the reality we create for
ourselves."  ???

I have to do some thinking on this:  Sure, it is tenable to argue that our
notion of being (ontology) is itself a
function of our notion of knowing (epistemology), but I fail to see how one
could convince oneself that there aren't knowers or environments within
which they do their knowing.

1) I have to head to statistics class now (uggh!) and 2) it sounds odd and I
can't figure out why.  I think, for me anyway, there is a step missing
around the "but."  How did the argument get from the first statement (one
that I can agree with by the way) to the second statement in such a way that
you are not agreeing with exactly what I was saying?  Or should I say, of
course physical environment effects what a person knows?

-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Rob Schaap
Sent:   Sunday, September 03, 2000 10:17 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1203] Re: RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo

G'day Nicole,

>You are assuming that everyone knows that 2 + 2 = 4 or Ottawa is the
capital
>of Canada.  Some people could care less and it may or may not be a part of
>what makes up their reality.  If something is not part of a person's
reality
>then it can not possibly influence what they think "the truth" is.  This is
>not dualistic Platonism, but dialectic multiplicity.

We have to remember that stuff we don't know can, and does, still influence
us, Nicole.  I know almost nothing about, say, the electro-magnetic spectrum
or my genetic constitution, for instance.  And then there's an infinite load
of stuff I don't even know I know almost nothing about.  In whatever
circumstances I've come to disclose my reality to myself, whatever language
I speak, however infinite may be the seconday signifiers to which my
utterances here may give rise in however many consciousnesses, however
decentred my subjectivity may be, and whatever my sex, colour and desires,
many of these things do indeed influence me and my apprehensions.  That's an
ontologically realist claim, but it's a hard one to unseat, I reckon.

Remember though, that ontological realism does not logically disallow an
epistemological constructivism.  Just that there are ever material
parameters within which our being does its knowing - affording an ever
dynamic scope on the thinkable, speakable and doable.

Sure, it is tenable to argue that our notion of being (ontology) is itself a
function of our notion of knowing (epistemology), but I fail to see how one
could convince oneself that there aren't knowers or environments within
which they do their knowing.

Can you wear that, or am I still playing the tyrannical WM here?

Cheers,
Rob.


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Dark Days

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Louis,
This movie sounds great.  I wish it was playing here in Atlanta.

Do you happen to know who the author of this piece is?  Do you think this is
a postmodern/liberal reaction by the author of this piece in the Village
Voice?

-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Louis Proyect
Sent:   Saturday, September 02, 2000 10:00 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1150] Dark Days

The perpetually snide Village Voice did not like this ending, stating:
"There are too many shots of the tunnel dwellers gleefully wrecking their
shacks and of their happy faces and glib pronouncements as they take
possession of their new dwellings."

As a socialist, I have a totally different reaction than the
postmodernist/liberal Village Voice. I see the happy ending as one that
embodies the kind of message that socialists put forward. In a world
divided between the super-rich and the countless numbers of those living in
the lower depths, either in train tunnels or in the shanties of 3rd world
countries, we explain that the former condition is tied to the latter. We
also treasure the happiness of the great masses more than we do the right
of the small minority to live like Croesus. Until those conditions are
eradicated, we will not rest for a moment.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: pomoistas

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Doug,
Sounds about right actually.  The point this author neglects to make is that
movements start with small steps just like this one.  Is it so demeaning to
focus on a living wage for a group of workers who are not only thought the
least of by most people (remember the scene from Breakfast Club where the
"delinquent" high school students make fun of the janitor working on the
weekend) and do work all of us generally hate to do (clean house on a huge
scale) but get paid minimum wage to do it.  Talk about a job I would hate to
do and on top of it all they can't even live off of what they make.  Sounds
like a group we could all feel sorry for - good reason to choose them for a
campaign for a living wage.  I would want to become involved in
Lichtenstein's fight myself.  Sounds to me like this writer just wanted to
slur Lichtenstein and happened to know that pomo theory is generally frowned
upon so he threw that in for good measure.  Maybe he thought that this act
would help sway more people to his argument?

-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Doug Henwood
Sent:   Sunday, September 03, 2000 4:25 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:pomoistas

An interesting excerpt from a column written a couple of years ago by
The Nation's own neoconservative leftist, Eric Alterman, part of a
classic pomo-bashing screed:

"But here's the twist. [Labor historian Nelson] Lichtenstein is part
of a perfectly Rortyite reformist Campaign for a Living Wage at the
University of Virginia. This campaign is not about ending sexism,
racism, or homophobia, but about getting janitorial staff a few extra
bucks an hour. Who are its volunteers? Primarily, says Lichtenstein,
faculty and graduate students from the pomo literature and theory
crowd."

Doug


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

Assuming sameness may work well for political motivation.  I can see where
this would be a necessary tool for activism.  But, without the ability to
recognize difference that postmodernism delves into (pomos pointed in this
direction theoretically by feminism) then the activism you portend would not
be necessary.  BTW, ever met anyone who didn't know the capital of Canada?

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
Sent:   Sunday, September 03, 2000 4:32 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1199] Re: RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo



Nicole Seibert wrote:

> You are assuming that everyone knows that 2 + 2 = 4 or Ottawa is the
capital
> of Canada.  Some people could care less and it may or may not be a part of
> what makes up their reality.  If something is not part of a person's
reality
> then it can not possibly influence what they think "the truth" is.  This
is
> not dualistic Platonism, but dialectic multiplicity.

The point of left political discourse is to enable coherent action by
thousands
of units (of
varying size) scattered in place and out of communication with each other.
This
is a long
and torturous process, and capitalist social relations as well as deliberate
activity by the
capitalist state interfere seriously with the project. It is impossible
unless
one can assume
that shared reality predominate over individual reality (whatever that might
mean). "A"
reality that is not shared is trivial and, almost by definition, of little
interest.

Carrol


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: RE: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:   Sunday, September 03, 2000 12:05 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1181] Re: RE: Pomotismo

In a message dated 9/2/00 6:01:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

<< Here's a question: If there are two scholars, one male and one female,
who
 write exceptionally on fundamentalism which would be cited, referenced,
 quoted and read more often in a classroom?  If you can't answer this
 question off the top of your head then some statistics are in order.  I
 won't go there unless you make me.  Are we being objective when we make
this
 decision?  Chances are we aren't.  So then who becomes the leader in the
 field?  W >>


But how, on your line, can you say there is an objective matter of fact
about
whether men are cited, promoted, etc., disproportionately with respect to
men, merely because of their gender? If I accept your view, why can't I say,
well, that's just an interpretation. it''s not mine? And if you cannot say
that there is an objective inequality, how can you say that there is an
injustice, rather than a clash of views about what is going on?

But isn't that the way the world really is: lots of people saying, "that's
just an interpretation and it is not mine."  Aren't current academic debates
nothing but arguments trying to sway one side or another, debating "the
truth."  I find this particularly true if we take the argument outside of
academia.  The religious right certainly knows "the truth", but then again
so does the liberal left.  What if both are right about their own truths?
What if the groups really exist as pressure valves?  The religious right
becomes more active, and attracts more followers when change happens too
rapidly in our society?  Then society is bored, ready for change the other
social organizations within activate themselves.  I can say all these things
because they make up my "truth."


And while we are at it, even if someone were to grant, hypothetically, that
in some sense there is a non-objective disproportion of thes ort you are
talking about, whatever a non-objective disproproportion might be, how could
you say that there was anything wrong with it, rather than just that you
didn't like it?

Again, this is what we currently do in academia.  We just find reasons
within our chosen "truth" system to justify our dislike.  Or, we could be
wanting to impress someone else in the field by using their work, so we use
their "truth" system.  Or, it could be that it is terrifically fun to debate
just as we are doing now.

For reasons I explain in the piece Yoshie mentioned (thanks for the plug,
Y),
I think that antifoundationalism is consistent with truth, objectivity,
realism, and a rejection of relativism and skepticism. I think that
foundationalism, understood as the thesis that there is a certain and
indubitable basis for knowledge, is false, but practically no one maintains
this view nowadays. If I thought it were true, however, I would defend it
even if I thought it ran the risk of being misused for political purposes.

So, how do you understand foundationalism?  I myself thought of
foundationalism in the way you define it along with the concept that there
are building blocks on which knowledge builds itself.  A foundation must be
laid for further learning in a field so to speak.  I think that this
foundationalism is false as well.  I think I could pick up Habermas and read
and understand his writing without knowing Marx, Hegel etc..  I also believe
that there are interpretations of Habermas, Marx and Hegel that we totally
miss out on because it does not fit within the sociological field.  Some
might say that this is because we would then not be practicing sociology or
building the field - I say we are just missing out.

As for essentialism, I don't knwo what you mean by that, but if it is the
proposition that human beings have characteristics independently of what
characteristics they think they have, I think it is obviously true. If you
do
not eat, you will die, for example, no matter what is your opinion or anyone
else's on the subject.

Do humans think they do not have to eat?
--jks
-Nico


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
Sent:   Saturday, September 02, 2000 3:53 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1159] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pomotismo

Brad DeLong wrote:

>>I think people who comment on "pomos" should show some evidence of
>>having read some, and should cite actual texts to make their points
>>instead of impressions. But maybe I'm just being a stick-in-the-mud.
>>
>>Doug
>
>No, but you are being pre-post-modernist. Imposing the grid of
>explicit text-citing on the discursive process privileges a certain
>concept of "reason," after all. To refuse to "question" whether that
>particular concept of "reason" is "reasonable" reveals your true
>colors, after all...

Read a text by an actual "postmodernist," and you will find oodles of
quotes from such DWEMs as Plato, Hegel, and Kant.

Doug

Yes, and we can pull things from many dead white men to help make a point.
-Nico


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

You are assuming that everyone knows that 2 + 2 = 4 or Ottawa is the capital
of Canada.  Some people could care less and it may or may not be a part of
what makes up their reality.  If something is not part of a person's reality
then it can not possibly influence what they think "the truth" is.  This is
not dualistic Platonism, but dialectic multiplicity.

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Ken Hanly
Sent:   Saturday, September 02, 2000 11:13 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1152] Re: Re: Pomotismo

How is the truth that 2 plus 2 is 4 individual, or that Yoshie sent the
reply below, or that Ottawa is the capital of Canada,  or millions of other
commonplace truths? That "the truth" is individual seems to imply that there
is something called "the truth" which is individual. Is this oxymoronic
Platonism?
   Cheers, Ken Hanly

- Original Message -
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 9:25 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:1140] Re: Pomotismo


> >My response is 1) the truth is individual, 2) objectivity is impossible
> >(including in the argument I just created) and 3) accepting our
"man-made"
> >god means accepting ourselves and trusting in our own magic.  Why do
> >academic work at all: 1) because it is fun, 2) it is the healthiest thing
> >for our magical brains, 3) to help us discover our own "truth" and, 4) we
> >might help someone else discover their own "truth" along the way.  For me
it
> >is a very Buddhist way at looking at life.
> >
> >What do you think?
> >
> >-Nico
>
> It seems that your conclusion boils down to individualism (of the
> kind that most American undergrads profess without having read any
> postmodern master).
>
> Yoshie
>


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent:   Friday, September 01, 2000 10:46 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Pomotismo

 From Justin to Nicole:

>I find your objection to essentialsim and foundationalsim confused,
>and not just because you dot say what you mean by these terms. It's
>rather because you seem to fall into a self-reference problem common
>to those espouse pomo skepticism or relativism. You say that
>essentialism and foundationalism, whatever they are, are associated
>with men, who are, as the pomos say, privileged in history. Is this
>supposed to be an objectively true claim about how men have been
>advantaged over women? How does that avoid "foundationalism" and the
>dream of objectivity?

It doesn't, nor did I claim that it would.  I think that we need to
temporarily throw out the concept of foundational ideas; they only get us
into trouble when dealing with a non-western, non-male world.  I think we
need to start anew.  If we must retain the concept of foundationalism then
at least have the guts to admit we are wrong and try to revise (easier said
then done) the canon/fundamental claims/basic assumptions as we know them.
Feminism suggests the same thing.  Is this an objective claim - why no, of
course not.  Is it an objective claim that we can not throw out over a
hundred years of western research on society?  Same answer applies.  Here in
lies the quandary.  Eventually we will debate, question, and persist until
we find somewhat parallel roads to walk on, but even that does not suggest
that we may ever again be able to totally agree on fundamentals.

Here's a question: If there are two scholars, one male and one female, who
write exceptionally on fundamentalism which would be cited, referenced,
quoted and read more often in a classroom?  If you can't answer this
question off the top of your head then some statistics are in order.  I
won't go there unless you make me.  Are we being objective when we make this
decision?  Chances are we aren't.  So then who becomes the leader in the
field?  Why do they become a leader in the field?  Is this an objective
process?  No, couldn't possibly be.  If it was there would be female
super-academic in the field right now along the lines of Derrida, Lacan,
Habermas, Hillman, and Castells etc. etc.  who have minions that "worship"
and follow their every move.  I can think of one female super-academic -->
she is currently frowned upon and doesn't have any minions that I am aware
of.  In my mind this tell me that academia may on some level agree with pomo
and feminist claims that objectivity ain't true, but it isn't willing to be
truly reflexive and responsive.  That's why foundationalism and essentialism
must go: academia can't use them properly.

I recommend that Nicole take a look at Justin's article on the
paradox of ideology -- which includes the self-reference problem in
ideology critique -- in sociology of knowledge: "The Paradox of
Ideology," _Canadian Journal of Philosophy_ 23.4 (December 1993), pp.
543-574.  It is one of the best written articles on the subject, to
my knowledge.  Even those who might not agree with Justin's solution
would get a lot from his discussion of the paradox.
Yoshie

I will check this out.
Thanks.  -Nico


__
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

Ha. Ha. Only it doesn't look I will be getting any pomo anytime soon except
what I can get out of Harvey and Baudrillard laying around the house.

Out.
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent:   Friday, September 01, 2000 10:25 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1140] Re: Pomotismo

>My response is 1) the truth is individual, 2) objectivity is impossible
>(including in the argument I just created) and 3) accepting our "man-made"
>god means accepting ourselves and trusting in our own magic.  Why do
>academic work at all: 1) because it is fun, 2) it is the healthiest thing
>for our magical brains, 3) to help us discover our own "truth" and, 4) we
>might help someone else discover their own "truth" along the way.  For me
it
>is a very Buddhist way at looking at life.
>
>What do you think?
>
>-Nico

It seems that your conclusion boils down to individualism (of the
kind that most American undergrads profess without having read any
postmodern master).

Yoshie


__
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

What about the postmodern texts:
Paige:  Coffee and Power
Castells:  The Power of Identity and others in the series
Held & et al: Global Transformations
Geertz: The Interpretation of Cultures

And don't forget Foucault, Deleuze, Kristeva, Lacan, Hillman and Hegel.

-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On
Behalf Of Louis Proyect
Sent:   Friday, September 01, 2000 3:09 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Re: Re: Re: Re: Pomotismo

>I think people who comment on "pomos" should show some evidence of
>having read some, and should cite actual texts to make their points
>instead of impressions. But maybe I'm just being a stick-in-the-mud.
>
>Doug

I have read lots of this stuff myself:

Lyotard: The Postmodern Condition
Derrida: Grammatology
Baudrillard: Mirror of Production
Deleuze-Guattari: 1000 Plateaus
Callari, Cullenberg, Biewener (editors): Marxism in the Postmodern Age

The last item is a collection of papers presented at the 1992 Rethinking
Marxism conference. This is a good place to start for those with a morbid
curiosity. It has all of the stuff that would expect, from Gayatri Spivak
to Doug Kellner. My favorite is Harriet Frad's "Children as an Exploited
Class" that talks about "emotional surplus" in pseudo-Marxist terms as if
steel or loaves of bread were being discussed. You can't make this stuff up.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

H...nothing like starting a big one on Labor Day weekend.  I will start
with Jim's response first since this (for me anyway) is the easiest for me
to discuss.

Hi Jim,

Agree, agree, and agree.  I think it is helpful to look back at what
influenced the pomo I saw developing during the 1990s:  1) the Women's
Movement, 2) the get to know your neighboring countries culture movement,
and 3) the brain movement.  What follows is just what I saw as a then
aspiring graduate student (still an undergrad) without the help of academic
work.

The Women's Movement was influential in pushing for voice lessons for all
(something J attributes primarily to pomo's - I will discuss this later.)
or, more to the point, allowing everyone to have their say 'cause we are all
worthwhile people.  Our of this came the idea that there are Truths for each
individual and that academia has been a little short-sited as to what these
Truths could be.  The Women's Movement, if I remember correctly, then had to
turn around and apply this bit of criticism to itself - take the log out of
thine own eye comes to mind.  (Biblical truisms work great in pomo by the
way.)  Which is why third world feminism, women of color, etc. cropped up
over the years.  So, just to recap, we have --> Women's Movement = giving
voice = loss of grand narrative or "Truth" = what I refer to as dialectical
criticism

Second, that wonderful, "get to know your neighboring countries culture
movement," which for me as an undergrad meant learning weird and bizarre
things about foreign people and seeing if and how they fit into your life.
Tattoos and body piercing were justified in some circles for this reason.
That way if anyone says how weird it is you can smirk at them saying to
yourself, "you idiot, you know nothing of other people, why in Africa this
is the norm."  There are various response to this, none of which we thought
of at the time, 'cause we just thought we were cool.  One of the major
although often overlooked influence at that time was Asian culture -
particularly their religion as I recall.  Even Richard Greer (sp?)  was
jumping on the bandwagon and visiting the Dalai Lama regularly *whispering*
especially after his divorce.  The idea that God is Dead had a profound
influence during this time: we were looking for something to fill the void
and feeling the void profoundly.  I think this was made especially raw by
the fact that the millennium was approaching and the angst of, "the end of
the world is coming," could be felt but not relieved through religion.
Buddhism with its "let it be" attitude helped for some to calm the nerves.
Meditation helped others.  There is also the idea in Buddhism that the
lesson a particular monk/nun needs to learn depends on their reincarnation.
Rieke I think also holds some belief of this sort.  This idea fit in nicely
with every individual has their own "Truth."   We and the monks/nuns can
take a lifetime to learn our own truth; we never stop learning; when Buddha
hit is big toe on a rock he said shit, etc. etc. etc.  So, --> individual
"Truth" can not be dictated by forces outside of ourselves.

Third and Finally, the brain movement came out of both the previous movement
and psychology.  We would watch PBS and see women rubbing animal fat mixed
with mud and rub it all over themselves and their children to survive in the
deserts of Africa.  We heard of monks sleeping in below zero weather with
nothing but a wet sheet to cover them; they created enough heat internally
to protect themselves from freezing.  We placed responsibility for such
amazements in the brain.  The brain came to hold magical powers.  We became
fascinated with ESP.  We wanted proof that our brains could do wonderful
things that even we were as of yet not aware of as is evidence by the
saying, "We only use about 10% of our brains anyway."  So, powerful brain =
there are magical things we can do that we don't even know we can do.  We
are coming closer to believing what Durkheim said - we, society are the god
we created.

So, when Jim says:

an additional point: it seems to me that pomos confuse "truth" with the
"Official Truth." (This is not an accusation against specific individuals
as much as part of the a _definition_ of what I think of as postmodernism.)

The latter -- the Official Truth -- is the nonsense pushed down our throats
by the white-male-US-Eurocentric-capitalist-heterosexuals (and those trying
to fit in) throughout recent history. That's what leftists and radicals and
Marxists reject -- while hoping to present a more "true" perspective, one
that's more complete, fits perceived data better, and is more logical.

The problem is that the pomotistas get confused and thus reject the very
notions of "truth" and "objectivity." (Again, I'm not saying that getting
close to the truth is easy. Rather, it's a goal.)

My response is 1) the truth is individual, 2) objectivity is impossible
(including in the argument I just created) and 3) accepting our "man-

RE: Re: Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

Hi Barkley,
I must confess that I too got an English degree with a focus in Modernist
Women's Literature.  I find it strange now to be working on "applying" what
I learned from the literature in sociology.  (oops... was that pomo to apply
the quotes?)  Trying to transfer the criticism into action: measuring the
effectiveness of international law concerning women...
-Nico

 -Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  On Behalf Of J. Barkley Rosser,
Jr.
Sent:   Friday, September 01, 2000 1:19 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:1119] Re: Pomotismo

  It should be kept in mind that our good friend
Doug Henwood is somewhat of a dialectical character.
On the one hand he is the ultimate data wonk of the
lists, the supreme datameister.  Just the facts, ma'am.
  OTOH, it is easy to forget that once upon a time he
was a grad student in English lit studying nineteenth
century Romantic poety.  So, he is a regular scholar-
gipsy whose romantic soul must have its fill of literary
obscuranta from time to time, :-).
Barkley Rosser
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Friday, September 01, 2000 11:55 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:1114] Pomotismo


>Hi, Nicole.
>
>As an objectivity groupie myself, I think Baudrillard's a fraud. I don't
care if he's a "real" sociologist, in the sense of having a degree in the
field or publishing in sociology journals. Lots of idiots have and do. B is
not an idiot, but he regularly says foolish and reactionary things without
any plausible support.
>
>Maybe the pomos you know like class analysis. I know a few who respect it:
Iris Young and Nancy Fraser come to mind, and Doug Henwood, but I am not
sure if Doug counts as a pomo, since he exhibits none of the symptoms,
rather than as just someone who likes pomo work for reasons I accnot
understand. He purports to be inspired by Judith Butler, and hard as it is
believe, I take his word for it.
>
>However, far more of the published pomo work attacks class analysis. The
pomo trope of opposing "grand narratives" or "metanarratives" is targeted at
historical materialism: see, e.g., LaClau and Mouffe. The opposition to
essentialism is directed more often than not at any attempt to appeal to the
idea or prospect of objective class relationships. The pomo attack on the
unity of the subject is aimed at the notion that class consciousness is a
desirable goal. The rejection of objectivity is aimed at materialism, at the
idea that there is anything on the other side of ideology. Although I don't
care about labels, and I probably don't qualify as a Marxist myself, I don't
understand how anyone who accepts a large enough subset of this package of
pomo doctrines can be one either--but, as I say, that's not necessarily a
failing. Waht might be a failing is rejection of true views, and I think
most of the targets of the pomo doctrines I listed are true and should not
be abandoned.
>
>I find your objection to essentialsim and foundationalsim confused, and not
just because you dot say what you mean by these terms. It's rather because
you seem to fall into a self-reference problem common to those espouse pomo
skepticism or relativism. You say that essentialism and foundationalism,
whatever they are, are associated with men, who are, as the pomos say,
privileged in history. Is this supposed to be an objectively true claim
about how men have been advantaged over women? How does that avoid
"foundationalism" and the dream of objectivity?
>
>Moreoever, isn't it essentialist to tie the bad notions of objectivity,
essentialism, and foundationalsim to "men"? What men? Shouldn't a pomo say
that there no men, just black men and white men, etc., and indeed, no black
men, but gay Chicagoans three eights of whose ancestors were imported from
Africa in antebellum times, and indeed, isn't that essentialist--what do you
mean "gay" or indeed "Chicagoans," etc.
>
>If I am not understanding, please set me right.
>
>--jks
>
>In a message dated Fri, 1 Sep 2000 11:29:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
"Nicole Seibert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
><< This question is actually put to everyone -->  What are your feelings on
>Jean Baudrillard?  I heard somewhere in my own department that he is not
>even a sociologist!?  I found that amazing, but am not sure why a person
>would hold such beliefs.  I think this is the group to explain to me why
>Baudrillard and other working pomos are looked down on so much.
>
>By the way J, the pomos I know of do not look down on class analysis or
>science.  In fact, they rather like the "coming to terms with its own
>unfirmness" science and the fluidity and f

Pomotismo

[Nicole Seibert]

This question is actually put to everyone -->  What are your feelings on
Jean Baudrillard?  I heard somewhere in my own department that he is not
even a sociologist!?  I found that amazing, but am not sure why a person
would hold such beliefs.  I think this is the group to explain to me why
Baudrillard and other working pomos are looked down on so much.

By the way J, the pomos I know of do not look down on class analysis or
science.  In fact, they rather like the "coming to terms with its own
unfirmness" science and the fluidity and function of class analysis.  Most
pomos I know are actually Marxists.  And in case any of you haven't noticed
neither Tilly nor Meyer have a theory per say.  Objectivity is a fleeting
dream of scholars who think that they can find the Truth, or any truth for
that matter.  The objectivity groupies just want to be held in high regard
like their predecessors --> all those dead white men.

Which brings me back to J original idea: of course pomos don't like
essentialism and foundationalism if for no other reason then at their most
basic level they derive most things to men.  Chew on that before you spit it
back out.  We study history to learn from our past, but the only active
members in history are men.  So, we derive that men are actors, not women.
The economic infastructure was not only manufactured by, but is studied and
predominately maintain by men.  So, we derive that men are not only actors,
but influence all of society at its most basic level.  Women understand this
at a very basic level: Men buy the homes we live in.  Derivative: We (women)
are just here to take care of what they own.  I could go on and on, and you
could too!

-Nico

The tend to put meaning(less) parentheses around parts of words, use terms
like "discourse," "privilege," and "theorize" freely, dispise essentialism
and "foundationalism," "valorize 'difference,'" and think ill of class
analysis, science, or objectivity. They are armed, but not dangerous, or
maybe it is the other way around. --jks


_
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com