[FRA:] Totalizing critiques

[Ralph Dumain]

Much of the theory industry has deteriorated to the level of 
silliness, as it becomes more and more narcissistic feeding off its 
own footnote-whoring banality instead of doing real thinking.  It is 
the perfection of intellectual alienation, creating ever more 
products of artificial intellectual pseudo-labor as the prospects for 
social improvement recede into oblivion.  Academic feminism is none 
of the greatest culprits, though certainly not alone in its malfeasance.

Some of your statements lack clarity, however.  What does totalistic 
vision mean?  Deducing reality in a self-enclosed world of 
metaphysical concepts inevitably elides and distorts empirical 
reality.  This is certainly true of Dialectic of Enlightenment. The 
best critiques I've seen are those of Stephen Eric Bronner.  I'm not 
sure what you are referring to in Marcuse, though you could be 
right.  As for the "classic marxist theory of class relations and the 
sanctity of the proletariat as the revolutionary subject of history" 
you need to be specific because this is empty verbiage to me.  If you 
are referring to Lukacs, for example, he is a metaphysical thinker, 
so your ascription of totality might be apropos, but he at least--if 
I am not misremembering--highlighted the notion of "concrete 
totality", which could be opposed to the mystical holism of objective 
idealism. Even Althusser, as bankrupt as he was, criticized the 
notion of "expressive totality".

But you must be more precise about the nature of theoretical 
abstractions and their relation to concrete reality before you lump 
all different kinds of thinkers together.


At 09:36 PM 12/30/2007, matthew piscioneri wrote:

>one of the criticisms Habermas levels against H&A's critique of 
>instrumental reason is that it rests on a "totalistic" vision of an 
>entirely administered society. A sense of totality is present in 
>Marcuse (altho to a lesser extent) and Foucault (altho otherways 
>understood), as well in classic marxist theory of class relations 
>and the sanctity of the proletariat as the revolutionary subject of history.
>
>A similar sense of dare i say *silly* totality still persists in 
>much feminist theory's (vulgar or otherwise) hysteria (sic) about 
>the big, bad, hegemonic and very total patriarchy. The trouble with 
>critical totalities (and this is what I would like to discuss with 
>the List) is that unless you adopt a very pessimistic position 
>(H&A), appeal to the liberatory potentials of Eros (Marcuse), invoke 
>the inevitable dialectical logic of history's movement (M&E), 
>radically reunderstand power's total hegemony (Foucault) you appear 
>to be in a bit of a mess especially when advocating *resistance* to 
>one or other hegemonic totality.
>
>To illustrate this through the example of much feminist totality 
>thinking, if the patriarchy really is so hegemonic:
>
>1) how could the patriarchy ever be recognized as "unnatural" in the 
>first place
>
>2) surely resistance is entirely futile
>
>If anyone could direct me to more specific discussion of issues such 
>as these (not just in relation to feminism, but critical "totality" 
>thinking) I'd much appreciate it.
>
>mattP