McKenzie Wark on 25 Feb 2001 23:57:39 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> In Defence of a Modest Proposal |
Dialectical thinking is clearly not as dead as one might wish. in arguing that the political significance of, say, Debord is over rated, i don't mean to imply that i have some great and grand alternative to put in its place. Rather, its a question of refusing the intellectual meglomania to which Debord is an eccentric subscriber. One's role is modest and tangential to politics. The world is not there to be remade in our image. The Napoleonic grandeur of radical thought from Marx to Debord has an intrinsically anti-democratic cast. Its a question of making the masses into a tool for a mission not of their making. People's actual wants and desires are to be discounted in favour of what the intellectual desires that they desire. Of course there is always a 'theory' or a 'method' to legitimate this divergence on the part of the self-appointed vanguard from any notion of consensus in politics. One would think after a century of folly and disaster flowing from one radical scheme after another one would not need to point this out. At best, detournment; at worst, the gulag. No, we really must concentrate all our critical intelligence and rhetorical derision in attacking social democracy. Universal health care -- what a bad idea! Free school education -- terrible! Unemployment benefits -- bah! Child care and maternity leave -- tosh! Consumer protection legistaltion -- who needs it! State funding for the arts -- never! It all counts for nothing without a philosophy of history more grand than taking your chances, and getting the best out of a conjuncture for as many of one's constituencies as one can. It is history itself which is incoherent, Ted, a situation theory cannot remedy. _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold