From owner-marxism-international  Wed Apr 16 18:27:06 1997
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 18:26:37 -0400
Message-Id: <199704162226.SAA260168@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU>
From: Keith Alan Sprouse <kas3f@virginia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Buffalo, dialogue, dialectics, etc.

To all:

This has been a pretty hectic week for me, since I'm heading out of here in
the morning to go to an academic conference and have just finished writing
my paper this morning.  In the paper, I am dealing with the Martinican
writer and theorist Edouard Glissant, specifically with the problems his
understanding of Deleuze and Guattari bring to his theory of Caribbean
identity.  After I get back, if anyone is interested, I'd love to discuss
the issue of agency in poststructualist political theory.  This is my
problem with D & G.  It seems to me, and in this I might be too humanist,
that one cannot hope for revolution (or even much change) if one cannot set
forth a theory of agency.  I don't buy into the unified self-apparent
subject, I think the postructuralist critique of that fiction is rather
persuasive.  However, to not allow for *any* agency seems to throw the
subjective baby out with the bathwater and foreclose on the possibility of
revolution (if it is only the "structures of domination" that move subjects,
then we just have to sit around and wait for the structures to lead a
revolution -- doesn't seem too likely at this point, maybe I lack the
patience).  Jon's comments about Althusser seem especially peritnent here,
and I recall Michel Pecheux's critique of A.'s theory of interpellation, in
which Pecheux tried to argue for a more refined notion of agency.  If anyone
is up for it, I would like to come back to this when I, well, come back. 

But, in appreciaction of all the dialogue that *has* been going on here
recently, and in the hope of encouraging others to engage, let me quote
something I was reading last night in a neat new book on the legacy of
Lukacs.  In this collection of interviews, with everyone from Michael Lowy
and Etienne Balibar to Fred Jameson and Roberto Schwarz included, Terry
Eagleton says the following:

"My greatest hope -- although I don't have much hope for right now -- is
that people would understand that one can criticize and affirm
simultaneously, and if one doesn't do that, one is simply not being
dialectical.  I reject the Manichaean demand that is wholly for something or
wholly against it.  To praise and to criticize in the same breath seems to
me the most natural attitude; we do it every day, we do it about people, we
do it about institutions, we do it about critical thought.  But that it
should be thought extraordinary to say:  I think this is a major writer, a
major artist, but look how awful he or she is, too -- the moment that is
seen as extraordinary or slippery or evasive, I will sign off.  The
integrity of intellectual thought to me, and I don't honestly find this much
supported in present radical culture, is that one gives the devil all his
due.  At the same time, one says he *is* the devil, and if you can't do
that, if all you can do is boringly praise or boringly condem, then there is
no possibility for dialectical thought." (page 149).  -- Terry Eagleton,
interviewed by Eva Corredor in Corredor, Eva L. _Lukacks After Communism:
Interviews with Contemporary Intellectuals_.  Durham:  Duke University
Press, 1997).
  
Now, when I was responding to the Buffalo Collective, I tried to point out
the ways in which I agreed with them (mostly on the importance of style),
and disagreed with them (mostly on the importance of style).  In fact, if I
didn't believe in the ideological element of style, I wouldn't be bothered
at all by their prose.  My critique was, and remains, that any group wishing
to see itself as revolutionary and with the working-class must be able to
speak with them, and not lecture at them.  Their style renders this
impossible and effectively cuts them off from any real-world political
action.  Of course, one might say, engaging in cyber discussions IS
real-world political action, and I would agree up to a point.  But when
cyber discussion turns into an almost parodic and certainly hysterical
textual production, I would have to draw a line.

So, to the Buffalos, I certainly agree with you on some points:
1) the idea that all prose stylings are ideologically-inflected
2) the the academy needs to undergo serious critique
3) that anti-intellectualism is dangerous (although here I would caution
what I seem to be a far to quick tendency on your part to confuse
disagreement with anti-intellectualism and further insist that I haven't
seen so much anti-intellectualism here as I have a decided distaste for
non-productive jargon -- see above)  
4) that fascism needs to be fought (although I would question your use of
fascism to refer to your treatment on this list -- once again, disagreement
with or critique of your ideas does not necessarily equal fascism or oppression)

But I also disagree on some points, most of which I have already mentioned
in earlier posts and have just repeated again a few lines ago.  Furthermore,
quite a while ago, I asked you, in the spirit of engagement with your ideas
and program, to please share with me the political activities that you have
thus undertaken.  To date I am only aware of your critique of the conference
poster and the flame wars that have been going on here on this list.  But
have you managed to enter into any sort of productive alliances with anyone
outside of Buffalo or the academy in general?  In an earlier post I
suggested, and in this one I returned to this point, that your presence here
(that is, your textual presence) would seem to foreclose on that
possibility, leading you away from any chance of revolutionary action or
even simple involvement in class politics. Thus, this question is not an ad
hominem (or whatever the latin would be for group), rather, it is a critique
of your position and I would be curious to know how you would respond.  

If you respond quickly, I'll try to write again before I leave
town/computer.  If not, I'll write again when I get back.

Thanks to all and have a good week.

Keith

___________________________________________________________
Keith Alan Sprouse			e-mail:  kas3f@virginia.edu
Dept. of French Language and Literatures	office:  804.924.4626
University of Virginia			home:  804.979.3961
Charlottesville, VA 22903		fax:  804.924.7157



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