Neo vs. The Neoneocons
Oct. 28th, 2004 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistThis entry started out as a response to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
never_the_less, who was wondering if this election falls more accurately into the category of "modern" or "postmodern." My immediate reaction was: it's neither, it's the forces of Modernism (John Kerry, neoliberalism, George Soros and his Open Society) battling it out with Postmodernism Gone Bad (the neocons, who have truly earned the postmodern crown with the Agent Smith-like wille zur macht, setting themselves apart from the "reality-based community"--that's us, by the way, and our virtual reality ain't got nothing on theirs. We've got screen handles, they've got Baudrillard).
Asnever_the_less pointed out, intuitively you'd think the left would be pomo, and the right would be...well, mo...I suppose. But that intuition, while inductively substantiated (although mostly by the points of intersection between academia and politics either in the 1960s or in France), does not apply to the Current World Order. Partially this has to do with why the current administration has nothing to do with the Republican ideology. As Noam Chomsky put it, "these are not conservatives. These are radical reactionaries." And face it, the radicals are going to win on the pomo tip in this day and age.
Furthermore, we need a distinction between the retroneocons and the neoneocons. The first category includes peeps like Francis Fukuyama, who backpedaled from his endorsement of BushCo as the agents of The End of History. Because ultimately, retroneocons are still Modernist. The End of History is, after all, Applied Hegel--applied, perhaps, with vision, but without imagination, to the trajectory of American Empire, but it's still Hegel, it's still a paradigm where history, dialectically plopping along, as it is wont to do, does eventually come to an end. That end being the American Empire, here & now (in theory). Let's call it Hegel with Hubris. People like Henry Kissinger, I would argue, are among the retroneocons, and it's no coincidence that Kissinger and the rest of the Carlyle Group (together with George Soros) split with Halliburton & Co right around the time Putin cashed in his card blanche from soulmate Bush and in an atavistic coup dethroned and imprisoned the largest Russian oil tycoon. Retroneocons have their Neocon Visions, but are grounded in realpolitik, or some circa-millenial version thereof. Basically, empiricism, like politics, makes for strange bedmates, and they, too, are a part of the reality-based community.
The neoneocons are the self-professed "history's actors." As Suskind among others points out, they share both cosmology and praxis with their core base--the Christian Fundamentalists. This absolute faith is rescued from being hubris within the parameters of its own discourse through tautology: how can it be hubris if you are really doing the will of God? While the symptomatic, neoneocon signatures (like Donald Rumsfield's mysterious and almost transcendental "interactions with the press") are good if you need anecdotal case-in-points, it's the overarching metanarrative of Policy that truly illuminates the neoneocon logic. While Linda Hamilton's unconscious carved "no fate but what we make" in Terminator 2, as she tried to prevent a nuclear holocaust from happening, the neoneocon approach is "no reality but what we make." Obviously any attempt to point out the problem with this...uh...philosophy leads to an Onion-style point-counterpoint: Iraq Is Really Fucked-Up vs. Really Is What We Tell You Really Is. Otherwise known as Empiricism vs. Empire.
If anything, this administration has been a case for modernism, at least in the "real world." Tranformation of reality hasn't been particularly succesful, temporary concealment is where it's been at and it's starting to unravel. I hate to keep mining The Matrix for satisfying parallels, but really, if you made a Venn Diageram, you'd have Agent Smith and BushCo in the same sector, with activists trying to shove the red pills down the throats of swing-state undecided voters in the shape of the new Eminem video.
But back to the intuitive/counterintuitive question. The lesson here is the same one I unsuccesfully tried to impart to my ex-boyfriend for years: postmodernism, as a "condition" derived from poststructuralism, is a deconstructive paradigm, and you can't use it proactively, in a project, as a project. It's a critical lens, not a lifestyle. That's why you have your Good Postmodernists (like Roland Barthes with his indictment of contemporary mythologies), who are really building on what the very modernist Adorno did with negative dialectics, and then you have your Bad Postmodernists like Stanley Fish with his from-the-ivory-tower OpEd that will explain to you why academics and politics shouldn't mix. But at the apex of postmodernism, the pomo converges with the fundie, much like fascism and communism converge in those little political diagrams that make you feel like you are doing math and politics at the same time. The Fundamentalist Christian tenets, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Bible, are identical to the Pomocon project--the deeds (good or otherwise) and the facts (substantiating or contrary) do not matter. The idea is reified to the point where it is the signifer and the signified, it is the only thing that matters. The superstructure not only informs the base, it shapes the base, and any inconsistensy from the base side of things does not matter because it is impossible. That's, like, a Text that cutely but unwisely insists on having a Likely Interpretation, or, God forbid, a Single Meaning. The Text isn't there to be interpreted, it's there to be written.
In conclusion, there is an old Russian joke about a "Chukcha"--the Russian ethnic group that figures most prominently, along with the Georgians and the Poles, in Russian ethnic jokes:
A Chukcha is applying for admissions to the Literature Department of Moscow State University (the Russian equivalent of Harvard). The admissions committee asks:
-Can you say a few things about the underlying themes in Dostoyevsky's works?
-I haven't read any Dostoyevsky.
-Well, can you reflect on the Russian character as it emerges in Pushkin's narratives?
-I haven't read any Pushkin.
-Would you say that Lermontov's stories set in the Caucases are critiques of the Tsarist Imperialist policies?
-I haven't read any Lermontov.
-Well, what have you read?
-Chukcha isn't a reader, Chukcha is a writer.
And if we need to be more explicit, here's another one:
-What is socialism?
-Socialism is like trying to catch a black cat in a dark room.
-What is communism?
-Communism is like trying to catch a black cat in a dark room, except that there is no cat in the room.
-And what is the dialectical approach to building communism?
-The dialectical approach to building communism is like trying to catch a black cat in a dark room, except that there is no cat in the room, and somebody keeps yelling that they caught the cat.
Now try it with neoliberalism, the Neocon Project and the Pomocon Empire. How did that work out for you?
And on that note, I hope against hope that this is the last tirade I write about this administration. At this point nothing would make me happier than trashing Kerry's neoliberal hawkish politics for the next four years because, dude, whatever it takes to dispatch The Apocalypse back to the Metaphorical Realm.
never_the_less, who was wondering if this election falls more accurately into the category of "modern" or "postmodern." My immediate reaction was: it's neither, it's the forces of Modernism (John Kerry, neoliberalism, George Soros and his Open Society) battling it out with Postmodernism Gone Bad (the neocons, who have truly earned the postmodern crown with the Agent Smith-like wille zur macht, setting themselves apart from the "reality-based community"--that's us, by the way, and our virtual reality ain't got nothing on theirs. We've got screen handles, they've got Baudrillard).As
never_the_less pointed out, intuitively you'd think the left would be pomo, and the right would be...well, mo...I suppose. But that intuition, while inductively substantiated (although mostly by the points of intersection between academia and politics either in the 1960s or in France), does not apply to the Current World Order. Partially this has to do with why the current administration has nothing to do with the Republican ideology. As Noam Chomsky put it, "these are not conservatives. These are radical reactionaries." And face it, the radicals are going to win on the pomo tip in this day and age.Furthermore, we need a distinction between the retroneocons and the neoneocons. The first category includes peeps like Francis Fukuyama, who backpedaled from his endorsement of BushCo as the agents of The End of History. Because ultimately, retroneocons are still Modernist. The End of History is, after all, Applied Hegel--applied, perhaps, with vision, but without imagination, to the trajectory of American Empire, but it's still Hegel, it's still a paradigm where history, dialectically plopping along, as it is wont to do, does eventually come to an end. That end being the American Empire, here & now (in theory). Let's call it Hegel with Hubris. People like Henry Kissinger, I would argue, are among the retroneocons, and it's no coincidence that Kissinger and the rest of the Carlyle Group (together with George Soros) split with Halliburton & Co right around the time Putin cashed in his card blanche from soulmate Bush and in an atavistic coup dethroned and imprisoned the largest Russian oil tycoon. Retroneocons have their Neocon Visions, but are grounded in realpolitik, or some circa-millenial version thereof. Basically, empiricism, like politics, makes for strange bedmates, and they, too, are a part of the reality-based community.
The neoneocons are the self-professed "history's actors." As Suskind among others points out, they share both cosmology and praxis with their core base--the Christian Fundamentalists. This absolute faith is rescued from being hubris within the parameters of its own discourse through tautology: how can it be hubris if you are really doing the will of God? While the symptomatic, neoneocon signatures (like Donald Rumsfield's mysterious and almost transcendental "interactions with the press") are good if you need anecdotal case-in-points, it's the overarching metanarrative of Policy that truly illuminates the neoneocon logic. While Linda Hamilton's unconscious carved "no fate but what we make" in Terminator 2, as she tried to prevent a nuclear holocaust from happening, the neoneocon approach is "no reality but what we make." Obviously any attempt to point out the problem with this...uh...philosophy leads to an Onion-style point-counterpoint: Iraq Is Really Fucked-Up vs. Really Is What We Tell You Really Is. Otherwise known as Empiricism vs. Empire.
If anything, this administration has been a case for modernism, at least in the "real world." Tranformation of reality hasn't been particularly succesful, temporary concealment is where it's been at and it's starting to unravel. I hate to keep mining The Matrix for satisfying parallels, but really, if you made a Venn Diageram, you'd have Agent Smith and BushCo in the same sector, with activists trying to shove the red pills down the throats of swing-state undecided voters in the shape of the new Eminem video.
But back to the intuitive/counterintuitive question. The lesson here is the same one I unsuccesfully tried to impart to my ex-boyfriend for years: postmodernism, as a "condition" derived from poststructuralism, is a deconstructive paradigm, and you can't use it proactively, in a project, as a project. It's a critical lens, not a lifestyle. That's why you have your Good Postmodernists (like Roland Barthes with his indictment of contemporary mythologies), who are really building on what the very modernist Adorno did with negative dialectics, and then you have your Bad Postmodernists like Stanley Fish with his from-the-ivory-tower OpEd that will explain to you why academics and politics shouldn't mix. But at the apex of postmodernism, the pomo converges with the fundie, much like fascism and communism converge in those little political diagrams that make you feel like you are doing math and politics at the same time. The Fundamentalist Christian tenets, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Bible, are identical to the Pomocon project--the deeds (good or otherwise) and the facts (substantiating or contrary) do not matter. The idea is reified to the point where it is the signifer and the signified, it is the only thing that matters. The superstructure not only informs the base, it shapes the base, and any inconsistensy from the base side of things does not matter because it is impossible. That's, like, a Text that cutely but unwisely insists on having a Likely Interpretation, or, God forbid, a Single Meaning. The Text isn't there to be interpreted, it's there to be written.
In conclusion, there is an old Russian joke about a "Chukcha"--the Russian ethnic group that figures most prominently, along with the Georgians and the Poles, in Russian ethnic jokes:
A Chukcha is applying for admissions to the Literature Department of Moscow State University (the Russian equivalent of Harvard). The admissions committee asks:
-Can you say a few things about the underlying themes in Dostoyevsky's works?
-I haven't read any Dostoyevsky.
-Well, can you reflect on the Russian character as it emerges in Pushkin's narratives?
-I haven't read any Pushkin.
-Would you say that Lermontov's stories set in the Caucases are critiques of the Tsarist Imperialist policies?
-I haven't read any Lermontov.
-Well, what have you read?
-Chukcha isn't a reader, Chukcha is a writer.
And if we need to be more explicit, here's another one:
-What is socialism?
-Socialism is like trying to catch a black cat in a dark room.
-What is communism?
-Communism is like trying to catch a black cat in a dark room, except that there is no cat in the room.
-And what is the dialectical approach to building communism?
-The dialectical approach to building communism is like trying to catch a black cat in a dark room, except that there is no cat in the room, and somebody keeps yelling that they caught the cat.
Now try it with neoliberalism, the Neocon Project and the Pomocon Empire. How did that work out for you?
And on that note, I hope against hope that this is the last tirade I write about this administration. At this point nothing would make me happier than trashing Kerry's neoliberal hawkish politics for the next four years because, dude, whatever it takes to dispatch The Apocalypse back to the Metaphorical Realm.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 05:32 pm (UTC)All things and readings pomo were really getting me down until I realised this a few years back. (Still doesn't help with the "where to go to grad school" question)
...On a side note, do you know where the "coalition of the reality-based" tag originated? I think I first heard it via Atrios...
no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 05:41 pm (UTC)this blog here lists where it's popped up on the internet.
http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/the_widening_re.html
I went to grad school in anthropology partially because of the aforementioned realization. As an undergrad I majored in English.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 07:10 pm (UTC)Ditto with the English undergrad; I'm pretty sure I want to stick with it, but hopefully at a place that has a yen for cultural studies, pop culture, and doesn't throw a hissy fit whenever you try to introduce anyone who didn't write in English.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 06:29 pm (UTC)Life is so comfy that way.
Er, more seriously? a bit? Thank you. This was illuminating. And it fits together neatly with J. Scott's thing, in Seeing Like a State, about how high modernist art and state-friendly leftism are so related in the early 20th c. Why not now, too?
no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 06:40 pm (UTC)no really, it is the ballot symbol of the Indian Communist party, for illiterate voters. And this here is the symbol of um ...er ... I think it's a feminist party.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 06:54 pm (UTC)And look here! another Indian political party. presumably, on the Mexican model, this would symbolize the Party of the Great Big Government Handouts Right Before the Election.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 09:20 am (UTC)Here are some oldies but goodies for you, and think about how many could be used for the US today (this goes back to my Sovietization theory):
The shortest joke ever: communism
-What is the longest joke in the history of the world?
-74 years of communism in Russia.
Alexander the Great, Caesar and Napoleon observed the army parade in Red Square, as honorable visitors.
'If I had Soviet tanks,' Alexander said, 'I would have been invincible!'
'If I had Soviet planes,' Caesar speaks, 'I could have conquered the whole world!'
'And if I had had the Soviet media,' Napoleon said, 'the world, even now, would not have found out about Waterloo!'
-Is it true that under communism groceries can be ordered by phone?
-It's true. But they will be given out by the TV.
-Will there be KGB under communism?
-No, by then people will have learned to arrest themselves.
In a madhouse there was a propagandist highly praising the Soviet Authority. When he finished everyone applauded except for one man standing off to one side.
'And why aren't you clapping?' asked the propagandist.
'I'm not a lunatic, I'm the hospital attendant!'
A call goes out to Soviet Cosmonauts. 'Comrades! The Americans have landed on the Moon. We here have consulted and have decided that you will go to the Sun!'
'But we will burn up!'
'Be not afraid, comrades, the Party has thought of everything. You will leave at night.'
-Is communism a science?
-No. If it were a science, it would have been tested on dogs first.
-What's the difference between socialism and capitalism?
-Under capitalism one person exploits another person, and under socialism - the opposite.
What's the difference between a pessimist and an optimist?
A pessimist thinks that things can't get any worse. The optimist thinks they CAN.
-When did the first Soviet elections take place?
-When God put Eve before Adam and said: 'Choose yourself a wife!'
During a meeting with a psychiatrist:
-Doctor, I have different personalities: I think one thing, I speak another, and I do a third.
-So? That only proves you are quite normal!
-Why did the Soviet Regime decided to invade Afghanistan?
-They decided to begin alphabetically.
Under the specified theory of historical materialism between Socialism and Communism the intermediate stage is inevitably-alcoholism.
An Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian are praising their wives.
'When my wife goes for a ride,' the Englishman says, 'her
legs drag on the ground. Not because the horse is small, but
because my wife has long beautiful legs!'
'I embrace my wife around the waist with only two fingers,' says the Frenchman, 'not because I have a big hand, but because my wife has a slim waist!'
'Before leaving for work,' says the Russian, 'I slap my wife's behind. And when I come back from work, her behind is still shaking. It's not because my wife has a big flabby ass, but because in the USSR we have the shortest working day in the world!'
no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 10:38 am (UTC)-Is communism a science?
-No. If it were a science, it would have been tested on dogs first.
Now I'm trying to imagine dog communism.
I already posted this but it didn's show up
Date: 2004-10-30 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-28 08:59 pm (UTC)Anyway, I'm fairly tired and am looking to crawling into bed with Herr Habermas whom I hope will enlighten me (or not) a bit more on this matter, but in the meantime, do you have any non-60s non-Frenchy (non-Frankfurt School) reading suggestions for me? You are so right to point out that this how I argue pretty much everything.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 03:39 pm (UTC)Sure, but the lapses in ethics that this propositon implies has to be addressed simultaneously.
do you have any non-60s non-Frenchy (non-Frankfurt School) reading suggestions for me?
Can you be more specific? I have lots of suggestions, but do you have a particular topic or cluster of themes or approach in mind?
no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 10:16 am (UTC)As for the bad pomos: they paved the way for disaster when they slowly killed empiricism and deduction and replaced it happily with relativism and induction. i have to say that i've long thought postmodernists who get too heady would be the first to be re-educated in my goulag...if i had a goulag.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 03:37 pm (UTC)"goulag"...I like it, it´s so French. I always accused my boss that he would send me to a gulag to die after The Revolution, but he told me that he would give me an AK-47 and make me his personal bodyguard.
"If I had a goulag"...I think that has Reality TV potential.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 01:27 pm (UTC)You always make me think.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-09 09:51 pm (UTC)I really appreciate this post. Well thought out and argued. Brilliant, in fact, and thought-provoking.
I encountered you through the stolen election community, and added you as a friend.
Tell me, have you read Michael Taussig?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 08:02 am (UTC)I don't see how it could be anything less than amazing! Wow!