> Has anyone on this list thought that maybe the Austrians and the Freedom
> Party are correct, and the EU isn't, on this issue? It was my
> understanding that postmodernity meant resistance to grand narratives, and
> surely this one-world governmental ideology that opposes nationalist
> Austrians qualifies as a concept to be deconstructed.
>
Unfortunately for this thought of yours, postmodernity also means
resistance to the closures inherent in a will to identity and purity. Not
to invoke Foucault as an authority figure here, but the following is
apropos.
Let's take an example that touches us all, that of Poland. If we
raise the question of Poland in strictly political terms, it's clear that we
quickly reach the point of saying there's nothing we can do. We can't
dispatch a team of paratroopers, and we can't send armored cars to liberate
Warsaw. I think that, politically, we have to recognize this, but I think
we also agree that, for ethical reasons, we have to raise the problem of
Poland in the form of a nonacceptance of what is happening there, and a
nonacceptance of the passivity of our own governments. I think this
attitude is an ethical one, but it is also political; it does not consist in
saying merely, "I protest," but in making of that attitude a political
phenomenon that is as substantial as possible, and one which those who
govern, here or there, will sooner or later be obliged to take into account.
("Politics and Ethics: An Interview").
Nathan
n.e.widder@xxxxxxxxx