The "logic' of late capitalism

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

Such a critical distance is, of course, impossible for Jamesonian
totalitarianism.

Late capitalism is for him a night in which America has bought all
cows, and all cows are black.


Heikki

On Fri, 28 Aug 2009, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Syllogism:
> If, just sayin', AtD is a 'subversive' work per my last post.
>
> Or, if there is at least one subversive work written by an American writer
> and available globally, even translated as well,
>
> And it presents a critique of 'late captialism" or American hegemony.
>
> Then, although it is a "product' of that American hegemony, in some literal sense,  it also IS NOT a "product" AT ALL.....
>
>
>
> --- On Fri, 8/28/09, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: IV VL Treatment of Mental Illness & Prison Populations
> > To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> > Date: Friday, August 28, 2009, 8:19 AM
> > Fredric Jameson (1991) 
> > Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
> >
> > two sections from Chapter 1 reproduced here
> >
> >
> >
> > What has happened is that aesthetic production today has
> > become
> > integrated into commodity production generally: the frantic
> > economic
> > urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming
> > goods
> > (from clothing to aeroplanes), at ever greater rates of
> > turnover, now
> > assigns an increasingly essential structural function and
> > position to
> > aesthetic innovation and experimentation. Such economic
> > necessities
> > then find recognition in the varied kinds of institutional
> > support
> > available for the newer art, from foundations and grants to
> > museums
> > and other forms of patronage. Of all the arts, architecture
> > is the
> > closest constitutively to the economic, with which, in the
> > form of
> > commissions and land values, it has a virtually unmediated
> > relationship. It will therefore not be surprising to find
> > the
> > extraordinary flowering of the new postmodern architecture
> > grounded in
> > the patronage of multinational business, whose expansion
> > and
> > development is strictly contemporaneous with it. Later I
> > will suggest
> > that these two new phenomena have an even deeper
> > dialectical
> > interrelationship than the simple one-to-one financing of
> > this or that
> > individual project. Yet this is the point at which I must
> > remind the
> > reader of the obvious; namely, that this whole global, yet
> > American,
> > postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural
> > expression of a
> > whole new wave of American military and economic domination
> > throughout
> > the world: in this sense, as throughout class history, the
> > underside
> > of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror.
> >
> > http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/jameson.htm
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 7:39 AM, alice
> > wellintown<alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Yes, the tone, or attitude toward the subject, is off.
> > Tone is
> > > achieved in several subtle ways, including, diction,
> > punctuation,
> > > rhythm, allusion, plus a bunch of poetic and
> > rhetorical devices,
> > > which, in the hands of butchers and demolition
> > specialists, of the
> > > language, that is, people like me, offends even the
> > ears, not to
> > > mention the crotch. Where does one get off? Why must
> > one persist? Who
> > > crowned you OBA's editor and chief? How do you not see
> > the tomfoolery?
> > >  If only I could write such allusive power! Alas!
> > >
> > > The Golden Fang Procedures Handbook, including Section
> > Eight--Hippies,
> > > deploys  Japonica .... Yes, even Ray-Gun has a soul.
> > almost cut my
> > > hair. But an IOU in California, as those living out
> > there know, is a
> > > special case. Warrant. It's also an Investor Owned
> > Utility.  Now what
> > > has this to do with NY Life's Golden Fang, the Ray-Gun
> > homeless, the
> > > price of water and oil, Enron and JP Morgan Chase?
> > >
> > > You can live without oil. Can you live without oil?
> > So, maybe Enron
> > > should'n't supply it to the people.
> > >
> > > It's a hard rain is gonna fall.
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>