FS & Praxis

[Ralph Dumain]

At 11:10 AM 4/5/2003 -0500, Neil McLaughlin wrote:
>Calling American society today totalitarian is an example of the problems
>with the followers of the critical theory tradition. Can we pull out and use
>the insights the tradition holds for understanding the propoganda apparatus,
>media system and culture and the social psychology of capitalism and
>imperial systems in ways that avoid some of the problems in mainstream
>social science? Can we do this without falling prey to exagerations,
>rhetorical overkill and the relative weakness of critical theory in terms of
>putting their ideas to empirical tests (and by empirical, I do not mean
>simply quantiative data, but also rigerous historical/comparative and
>qualitative research)? Can we use the insights of the various critical
>theorists, without insisting on making them in "intellectual heroes" whose
>work we use uncritically?

Apparently we can't.  And it would be a very telling enterprise to 
determine just why not?

>  And can we be philosophically sophisticated, while
>doing a critical analysis of the world (as opposed to doing analysis of
>various texts about texts, writing about the world?).

As I've complained over the years, this is very much at the heart of the 
problem of the appropriation of the primary ideas of the FS by the American 
academy.

>I have not seen all that much evidence on this list discussion (although
>there is some!) that critical theorists today are up to the task that the 
>world very desperately
>needs. This is an even more serious problem with our discussion that the
>various "spam" wars that wasted serious people's time...

As you've already indicated, "spam" is the least of our problems.

Obviously, "totalitarianism" in a market economy with institutions of 
liberal democracy functions quite differently from classic fascism and 
Stalinism.  Repression can be just as effective, but it works according to 
the specific mechanisms of its institutions, in addition to extralegal 
shenanigans.

I think a re-reading of Bertram Gross' FRIENDLY FASCISM (1980) is in 
order.  How did things get to be the way they are today?  My motto in these 
matters is: It's the '70s, stupid!