INTELLECTUALS & THE DIVISION OF LABOR--SARTRE ET AL

[Scott Johnson]

It struck me as I read Ralph's post on the Enlightenment and
postmodernism that postmodernism also owes much of its appeal to its
emancipatory potential. I really appreciate Ralph's position, but I
would qualify it by noting the emancipatory thrust of postmodernism; I
understand the appeal of postmodernism, but I have to tweak the noses of
those pomo's who can't see that they represent the self-criticism of the
Enlightenment. When the chips are down, I'm with Ralph: postmodernism is
a self-indulgent illusion of real criticism, a diseased outgrowth of a
deceptively smug liberalism. Liberalism itself was (and is)
emancipatory, but in pursuing emancipation from each other we have
become enslaved to systematic forces ARISING OUT OF OUR
FRAGMENTATION.    Someone once suggested that postmodernism be
considered a technology, since it is put to the service of so many
emancipatory projects while committing itself to none. A revealing
observation, one that shows how much postmodernism is part of this
tradition it so dramatically rejects in gesture, and one that also
suggests what is so annoying about it. Postmodernism is used in this way
notably in the context of race and gender. What is so new about concern
for inequalities of race and gender? Isn't this quintessentially
liberal? As far as I'm concerned, mouthing trendy platitudes about race
and gender amounts to fiddling in a burning Rome. This all sounds really
critical, but meanwhile our fate slips farther out of our hands as the
systematic forces that Habermas does so well at identifying do the real
steering. Funny, the more freedom as envisaged by liberalism is
realized, the less we feel at home in the world.
-- 
                     Scott Johnson

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