Last exit fascism

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2000, Dave Monroe wrote:

> "Hopeless reactionaries"?  How so?  On or off the list, gloves or bare
 knuckles ...
> no, just curious why you'd say so, is all ...

It was related to my question about the continuing possibility of
dialectics when the whole thing of binary opposition has been so thrown
into question leaving everybody vigilant against logocentricsm and all. 
Thesis and antithesis can be thought of as the biggest binary opposites of
them all. Anyway Maxists have to view postmodernism and poststructuralism
with alarm though possiblities for subversion are also evidently
present there. Postmodernism arguably pulls the rug out from under
Marxism. If there are no priviledged ideologies, all are equally
justifiable, what claim can Marxism possibly have.

What I'm outlining very crudely here is not an argument for or against
postmodernism with its progressive or reactionary possibilities but a huge
dilemma which a few years ago people were arguing well into the
night over. People like Jameson and Eagleton.  Don't know what's going on
today.

			P.


> 
> Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 1 Aug 2000 KXX4493553 at aol.com wrote:
> >
> > > Once upon a time there was a writer named Bertolt Brecht who said: "In
> > > special times it's a crime to speak about trees." At that time there wasn't
> > > an ecologist movement, we would say it not in other words, but the message is
> > > clear: in special times you are forced to speak about things that have
> > > priority. It may sound pathetic, but language is the only weapon we have.
> > >
> > > Sorry, dear lit-crits, but now I'm talking about other things.
> >
> > True, language seems to be all we've got. However, the prevailing thought
> > in the land is that language is not much of a weapon with which to change
> > society. Language has these built in  hierarchical binary oppositions
> > we all know so well. Truth be told, therefore, language isn't even
> > adequate to demonstrate the proposition that society can or should be
> > changed. True, language allows us to express things we don't like
> > about the status quo. Language allows us to construct a Them who
> > are the oppressors and an Us who are the oppressees. But don't let
> > any deconstructionists (deconstructors) into the building. Deconstructors
> > are hopeless reactionaries I know but they have made a rather important
> > point, a point many of us felt long before there was a Derrida on the
> > scene. All this being said, when language is percieved to be the ONLY
> > weapon, even though an inadequate one, we can be forgiven for continuing
> > to try to employ it in the service of some vaguely hoped-for justice. I
> > sympathize with kwp for doing so notwithstanding the fact that I also feel
> > totally frustrated in yet another restatement. (I'm not objecting just
> > feeling frustrated)
> >
> > Is language all we've got. Lenin believed in guns. However he also once
> > said something to the effect of what he might be able to accomplish if he
> > only had a dozen Francis of Assisis on his staff. I know the age of Saints
> > and belief in a higher order is long past.
> >
> >                                 P.
> >
> >  The situation
> > > in Germany, Austria and other countries forces me to do so. The news I heard
> > > from the party convention of the Republican party point at the same
> > > direction. Two decades of social-darwinist and neoliberal propaganda led us
> > > in a situation where now new forms of fascim have appeared. It began with the
> > > Pinochet-Friedman-connection in the midst of the seventies and the end of the
> > > keynesian era. So the new form of fascism is a "market fascism". The Nazi
> > > fascism (and Mussolini and Franco and...) was a kind of "right-wing
> > > keynesianism" but nowadays we have a complete different situation. The public
> > > sphere is getting smaller and smaller, everything is more and more
> > > commercialized, and if the development is going on you'll have to pay for
> > > breathing one day... and you cannot emigrate anywhere. There are no longer
> > > "islands of peace and innocence" - if that had ever existed. The new market
> > > fascim is a worldwide phenomenon, and it's everywhere the same - it doesn't
> > > matter any longer if you go to Nea Zealand, Argentina or South Africa. In the
> > > "centres of paralysis" (James Joyce) the "democratic" propaganda in the media
> > > remembers me sometimes at the real socialist propaganda - rising gross income
> > > product, a booming economy, everyone can get rich if he/she really wants - at
> > > the same time rising poverty, rising debts, and a public infrastructure that
> > > is getting worse and worse - the Potemkin villages of the real existing
> > > capitalism. It doesn't matter any longer if you have any political
> > > "legitimation" for your crimes. The runners amok and the young Nazis are
> > > symptoms for the same "social disease" and psycho-pathology. And a society
> > > who begins to make war against its own youth shows only that it has no
> > > future. They need no SS-uniforms or a new "Fuehrer". There may be a lot of
> > > local leaders or local terror activists, but the mob is only the "executive"
> > > part of a decadent society which is full of indifference, ego-maniacs and
> > > money-obsessed.
> > > Again: this may be sound "pathetic" but when I'm looking at trees in the same
> > > moment I must think at "The rise and fall of Mahagonny"...
> > > And isn't Vineland exactly about this subject? 1984, eh? What's about 2004???
> > >
> > > kwp
> > > "Who speaks about fascism cannot be silent about capitalism." (Max Horkheimer)
> > >
>