On Thu, 19 Nov 1998 16:15:30 -0500 Steve D'Arcy
<darcy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> Now, this wasn't just a particular opinion held by Gramsci. It was
the
> cornerstone of his entire theoretical and political project and
> self-understanding. Moreover, he never -- and could never have, given
> his theoretical/political commitments -- detached the concept of
> "hegemony" from the fact and the irreducible experience of class struggle
> (e.g., from what he learned in his role in the wave of factory
> occupations in Northern Italy in 1920 etc.).
>
> One therefore has to hear the "post" in Laclau/Mouffe's self-description,
> "post-Marxist." They are starting with a rejection of Marxism, with a
> rejection of the working class perspective that animates Marxism, and
> therefore with a rejection of the fundamentals of Gramscian thought.
This is an impostant insight on Gramsci's thought. However I think
what is central in nowadays social sciences and humanities is to try
to approach our contemporaries human problems with new eyes. Laclau
and Mouffe and wrxist tradition: they remain marxist in the
centrality given to antagonism in the constitution of all ifdentity.
This is common to marx and is central in Gramsci's thought. Thye of
course criticizes the centrality given to class. There is no
subjetivity that can validly claim the representation of the whole
society without approaching the very construction of this claim as an
hegemonic strategy. So, I dont think it is important todey to see if
the exact contours draw by Gramsci's theory are exactly repeated
cited-quoted by laclau and mouffe frame of analysis. Of course both
frontiers -the frontiers of theory will not coincide in a 1/1
relationship. In this sense I agree with Leo casey's opinion.
Second: The idea of "BLOC" in Gramsci it is not a concept appliable
only to the macro procresses. I agree with that. Furthermore, the
idea of bloc is related, constructed and supported by "everyday life,
quotidien practices" . the very idea of "popular culture" in Gramsci
in his Cultural Writings is referred precisely to that
micropractices, in the workplace and in the familiy, in the folk and
stories that reproduce and reconstitute the symbolic structure of the
society. Popular culture is exactly the gramscian strategy to combine
micro and macro practices and structures.
Daniel wrote\:
>But
>still I thought that "hegemony" still referred to a larger,
>social-process "thing," and that vis a vis subject-constitution
>Laclau was thinking in terms of Lacan/Althusser/Zizek (i.e.,
>"interpellation" thru ideology)? Why use the term "hegemony"
>instead
>of "subjectivation" or, alternatively, "interpellation"?
Well, there are many differences between Althusser's Interpelation
and Laclau Idea of hegemony. In the latter, through its
psychoanalytic shift, the lack in the subject is correlative to a
lack in the Symbolic Other. The process of suturation of this lack,
"tha lack in the lack" is done by ideology (called "myth" in his book
New Reflections). In althusser there is no lack in the subject. The
Hey, the Voice of the Other assumes that there is somebody there that
turns back he/she hears something and that the Voive itself is
univocuos, is simple and homogeneous. It is no possible echo there!!!!
I think Lac;lau approach, using lacanian-zizeckian insights could go
a step forward Althusser, saying that precicely because there is this
lack -both in the subject and in the Other- a successive and
contingent movements of re-placement (condensation and displacement)
are possible. The nuts and bolts of the strategy that takes place in
this "in between" made possible -I repeat myself- by the two lacks is
the logic of hegemony. I would not say subjectivation but
identification, which is sth different. Identification is reached, in
other words, hegemony is reached when a nodal point fixes -point the
capiton- quilt, masters the constant play that took place in this "in
between". This is the moment of the empty Signifier which logic can
be debated later on in successive mails.
Alex.