A friend just sent this to me; I think it's of interest and crucial
relevance. What do you think?
(Steven Best & Douglas Kellner)
http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell28.htm
Our contemporary situation thus finds us between the modern and the
postmodern, the old and the new, tradition and the contemporary, the global
and the local, the universal and the particular, and any number of other
competing matrixes. Such a complex situation produces feelings of vertigo,
anxiety, and panic, and contemporary theory, art, politics and everyday life
exhibit signs of all of these symptoms. To deal with these tensions, we need
to develop new syntheses of modern and postmodern theory and politics to
negotiate the novelties and intricacies of our current era.
Indeed, both modern and postmodern positions have strengths and limitations,
and we should seek a creative combination of the best elements of each.
Thus, we should combine modern notions of solidarity, alliances, consensus,
universal rights, macropolitics and institutional struggle with postmodern
notions of difference, plurality, multiperspectivalism, identity, and
micropolitics. The task today is to construct what Hegel called a
"differentiated unity," where the various threads of historical development
come together in a rich and mediated way. The abstract unity of the
Enlightenment, as expressed in the discourse of rights or human nature,
produced a false unity that masked and suppressed differences and privileged
certain groups at the expense of others.
The postmodern turn, conversely, has produced in its extreme forms warring
fragments of difference, exploding any possible context for human community.
This was perhaps a necessary development in order to construct needed
differences, but it is now equally necessary to reconstruct a new social
whole, a progressive community in consensus over basic values and goals, a
solidarity that is richly mediated with differences that are articulated
without being annulled. Thus, one of the main dramas of our time will be
which road we choose to travel into the future, the road that leads, in
Martin Luther King's phrasing, to community, or the one that verges toward
chaos. Similarly, will we take the course that leads to war or the one that
brings peace? The one that establishes social justice, or ever grosser forms
of inequality and poverty?
Will we stay on the same modern path of irrational growth and development,
of the further expansion of a global capitalist economy (the world of NAFTA
and GATT) that has generated seeming permanent economic, of social, and
environmental crisis, or will we create a sustainable society that lives in
balance with the natural world? Will we chart a whole new postmodern path,
blind to the progressive heritage of the past, with all its attendant snares
and dangers? Or will we stake out an alternative route, radicalizing the
traditions of modern Enlightenment and democracy, guided by the vision of a
future that is just, egalitarian, participatory, ecological, healthy, happy,
and sane?[24] The future will depend on what choices we make, hence we must
intelligently and decisively develop a new politics for the future. In this
way, we can begin to develop a politics of alliance and solidarity equal to
the challenges of the coming millennium.
~Nate
--
"Thought is no longer theoretical. As soon as it functions it
offends or reconciles, attracts or repels, breaks, dissociates,
unites, or re-unites; it cannot help but liberate and enslave.
Even before prescribing, suggesting a future, saying what must
be done, even before exhorting or merely sounding an alarm,
thought, at the level of its existence, in its very dawning, is
in itself an action--a perilous act."
-Michel Foucault
relevance. What do you think?
(Steven Best & Douglas Kellner)
http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell28.htm
Our contemporary situation thus finds us between the modern and the
postmodern, the old and the new, tradition and the contemporary, the global
and the local, the universal and the particular, and any number of other
competing matrixes. Such a complex situation produces feelings of vertigo,
anxiety, and panic, and contemporary theory, art, politics and everyday life
exhibit signs of all of these symptoms. To deal with these tensions, we need
to develop new syntheses of modern and postmodern theory and politics to
negotiate the novelties and intricacies of our current era.
Indeed, both modern and postmodern positions have strengths and limitations,
and we should seek a creative combination of the best elements of each.
Thus, we should combine modern notions of solidarity, alliances, consensus,
universal rights, macropolitics and institutional struggle with postmodern
notions of difference, plurality, multiperspectivalism, identity, and
micropolitics. The task today is to construct what Hegel called a
"differentiated unity," where the various threads of historical development
come together in a rich and mediated way. The abstract unity of the
Enlightenment, as expressed in the discourse of rights or human nature,
produced a false unity that masked and suppressed differences and privileged
certain groups at the expense of others.
The postmodern turn, conversely, has produced in its extreme forms warring
fragments of difference, exploding any possible context for human community.
This was perhaps a necessary development in order to construct needed
differences, but it is now equally necessary to reconstruct a new social
whole, a progressive community in consensus over basic values and goals, a
solidarity that is richly mediated with differences that are articulated
without being annulled. Thus, one of the main dramas of our time will be
which road we choose to travel into the future, the road that leads, in
Martin Luther King's phrasing, to community, or the one that verges toward
chaos. Similarly, will we take the course that leads to war or the one that
brings peace? The one that establishes social justice, or ever grosser forms
of inequality and poverty?
Will we stay on the same modern path of irrational growth and development,
of the further expansion of a global capitalist economy (the world of NAFTA
and GATT) that has generated seeming permanent economic, of social, and
environmental crisis, or will we create a sustainable society that lives in
balance with the natural world? Will we chart a whole new postmodern path,
blind to the progressive heritage of the past, with all its attendant snares
and dangers? Or will we stake out an alternative route, radicalizing the
traditions of modern Enlightenment and democracy, guided by the vision of a
future that is just, egalitarian, participatory, ecological, healthy, happy,
and sane?[24] The future will depend on what choices we make, hence we must
intelligently and decisively develop a new politics for the future. In this
way, we can begin to develop a politics of alliance and solidarity equal to
the challenges of the coming millennium.
~Nate
--
"Thought is no longer theoretical. As soon as it functions it
offends or reconciles, attracts or repels, breaks, dissociates,
unites, or re-unites; it cannot help but liberate and enslave.
Even before prescribing, suggesting a future, saying what must
be done, even before exhorting or merely sounding an alarm,
thought, at the level of its existence, in its very dawning, is
in itself an action--a perilous act."
-Michel Foucault