Postmodernism: Materialist?

[Jim W. Jaszewski]

Rauno Huttunen wrote:
 
> On Mon, 21 Feb 2000, Ralph Dumain wrote:
> 
> > Historical materialism refers to the social origins and social structures
> > that presumably bear a causal relationship in the generation of human
> > behavior, cultural institutions, beliefs and ideas, etc.
> 
> Does this mean that "basis" (economy) have causal relationship with
> berbau(superstructure). If it, does who said so? Marx and Lenin certainly
> did not. Both of them used hegelian logic.

Hegelian logic does not mean non-causal. Explain.



> Althusser didn't like Hegel(he
> did like Durkheim and Saussure) so he constructed the concept of
> overdetermination which has nothing to do with causal laws.

I know little of this, but if the world is not dialectical and
materialist -- thus causal -- then millions of marxists have been
completely wrong.

IMO it is the theoretical muddle created by all such academic marxists
(right or wrong, they've resolved nothing clearly AFAIK) that is in huge
part responsible for the nihilism and demoralization we find on the Left
today -- and thus the rise of bourgeois PostModernism (and its bastard
child: identity politics) to fill the ugly void...


 
> Maybe in the tradition of analytical marxism they conceive social order
> in the terms of methodological individualism and causal laws.

This is meaningless to me.


Jim W. Jaszewski.