[FRA:] Marcuse question

[FREDWELFARE at aol.com]

Matt, The PoMo works of people like Foucault, Rorty, Lyotard, Baudrillard,  
Derrida and the thousands of feminists must still address the time worn  
differences between liberals and conservatives, that is, between those who  believe 
in human rights and that the state's purpose is the protection of the  
individual's rights, and those who believe that the everyday state of affairs in  our 
commuities and internationally is not what ought to be.  This dispute  by 
these parties does not address the awful pressure from a growing status quo  that 
blindly dominates the individual and coerces each individual into behaving  
without regard to other's rights nor in terms of how one ought to morally  
behave. For instance, there is no rationalization for the everpresent  
sexualization of everyday life as economic incentives, methods for exploitation,  or 
domination and coercion into restrictive contracts and contexts. The  difference 
between sexuality and reproduction is still not understood by the  status quo 
regardless of the expectations generated by positons like Murrays'  Bell Curve. 
 This state of affairs is also complicated by the other set of  relations, 
that between conservatives and socialists/marxists who each have  confounded the 
meaning of equality but who have also been doing most of the real  military 
fighting.  This latest round of neo-con versus fundamentalist is  an exercise 
in who can instrumentalize the status quo to their advantage.   In the obverse 
dispute, between liberals and marxists, the role of the state is  at issue: 
should the state become totally interventionist in order to protect  every 
individual or should the state be minimalized and by implication  anarchically 
provide for a normative rule by the status quo.  These three  positions are unable 
to address the position of tolerance or libertarianism  because the economic 
conditions related to crime and anomie loom so large.   Pomo has simply 
brought out this trilemma and is pounding away with their  criticism of the results 
of modernism's values (which are not necessarily  motives for engaging in 
violence) of equality, freedom, and rights. FrdW
 
 
In a message dated 2/19/2006 10:45:28 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
mpiscioneri at hotmail.com writes:

Fred,
If yes, then its the ongoing negative dialectics of subverting  the dominant 
paradigm, at least until such time as the subversion of the  dominant 
paradigm, becomes -- well, er -- the dominant  paradigm.
-----------------------------
Recently found p/t employment in  a coterie of PoMo-ists -- and I like a lot 
of PoMo theory -- but i was a  little shocked at just how dirty a word 
"modernist" or "modernism" had  become.

After an enlightening discussion of the supposedly  now-discredited 
right/wrong binary in terms of "error" correction theory,  I thought how come 
everything that is modernist can be so *wrong* and  everything PoMO, so 
*right*. Not very much of a spectrum of values when it  comes to the 
PoMo/Modernist binary  :-).
-----------------------------
Lately, recognition of the unbearable  persistence of negative being a.k.a 
the status quo a.k.a the will to power  a.k.a the world of suffering has led 
me away from too much masochistic  fretting about all the noble concerns of 
Critical  Theory.

cheers,
MattP