Deleuze & Air-Guitarri: Subpop of the 70s

[Doug Henwood]

Dennis R Redmond wrote:

>Lacan's Imaginary, Kristeva's semiosis, Derrida's tympan, even Foucault's
>panopticon stand at the very beginning of this process: such concepts
>were, in this sense, the intellectual versions of the Eurodollar market --
>neo-national speculations, which picked up where the American Empire (or
>at least its reigning pragmatisms) left off.

But they were, especially Foucault, attempts to deny the historical
specificity of capitalism (as my friend Bob Fitch puts it). Pomo political
theory, and its focus on surveillance and domination, has little to say
about the disciplinary mechanisms of money and competitive markets, nor the
social mechanisms of exploitation. Certainly the sorts of institutions that
Foucault was obsessed with - prisons, clinics, armies, etc. - have
something to do with forming subjects and societies, but they do so at
extremes. For most people, the need to earn a buck or a bague is a lot more
relevant a discipline than the risk of being thrown into a Panopticon
(which was never built, anyway).


Doug

--

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217 USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice  +1-212-874-3137 fax
email: <mailto:dhenwood@panix.com>
web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>