Despite its highly developed political consciousness and its analysis of, and sympathy for, the marginalized and dis-empowered, poststructuralism is not a mass movement with a direct impact on the vast majority of people. Post-structuralists are mostly sequestered in the ivory tower, the
“tenured radical” phenomenon.The authorities both within academia and outside it don’t worry much about post-structuralists disrupting the status quo. In fact, an ironclad status quo has developed within poststructuralism. Ironically, poststructuralism is ruled by the works of (mostly dead) authors.The writings and ideas of the poststructuralist canon are continually recycled inside a closed hermeneutical system (see Butt box).
The causes of this situation are not difficult to locate.
Once the “disturbances” of the 1960s were snuffed out, many defeated radicals returned to, or took refuge in, academia.
There they won in theory what they could not in the streets.
Addressing other like-minded professors and their students, poststructuralist writing grew complex and arcane, cleaving a bigger and bigger space between the movement and the larger public. Even as the range of subjects studied expanded – including all aspects of popular culture – direct contact with ordinary people – even professionals and other academics – decreased. Upon graduation, most students left post-structuralism behind. The few who continued to hold the torch became young professors.What had started as an effort to change society ended as an academic “tradition” dependent on the aforementioned canon of anti-canonical authors.These authors continue to inform, if not wholly drive, cultural studies and performance studies. Given this situation of more or less self-imposed isolation, neither corporate boards, government, nor university officials messed with what was happening.Why bother? Unlike the disruptions of the 1960s, the new radicals keep their activities mostly confined to
“discourse” – writings, seminars, petitions, artworks, well-regulated protests, and so on.These are all cultural products that make the universities appear “liberal” and open to the Michel
Foucault
Threshold, rupture, break, mutation, transformation
And the great problem [. . .] is not how continuities are established, how a single pattern is formed and pre-served, how for so many different, successive minds there is a single horizon, what mode of action and what substructure is implied by the interplay of transmissions, resumptions, disappearances, and repetitions, how the origin may extend its sway well beyond itself to that conclusion that is never given – the problem is no longer one of tradition, of tracing a line, but one of division, of limits; it is no longer one of lasting foundations, but one of transformations that serve as new foundations, the rebuilding of foundations. What one is seeing, then, is the emergence of a whole field of questions, some of which are already familiar, by which this new form of history is trying to develop its own theory: how is one to specify the different concepts that enable us to conceive of discontinuity (threshold, rupture, break, mutation, transformation)? By what criteria is one to isolate the unities with which one is dealing; what is a science, what is an œuvre [work]? What is a theory? What is a concept? What is a text? How is one to diversify the levels at which one may place oneself, each of which
possesses its own divisions and form of analysis? [. . .]
In short, the history of thought, of knowledge, of philosophy, of literature seems to be seeking, and discovering, more and more discontinuities [. . .].
1972, The Archeology of Knowledge, 5–6
?
widest diversity of opinion.An increasingly totalizing global system can easily tolerate or even exult in displaying the products of its liberalism – as long as the radicals remain in their proper places. In fact, the more liberal the academic system, the more easily it keeps radical impulses within known bounds. Meanwhile, at the level of governance, power is increasingly centralized in deans, presidents, and boards of trustees. Universities – public as well as private – are increasingly adopting the corporate management style.
Absorbed into academia with its strict rules of tenure and promotion, or tormented by the insecurities of part-time adjunct positions, the revolution of thinking envisioned by the poststructuralists has largely been reduced to and transformed into performative play.
Furthermore, while the Right was forming think tanks and developing policy papers designed to impact government and business, the radical Left took up permanent residence as outsiders, the opposition – an “alternative” lacking strategies to move back to the center of social decision-making (see Lakoff box).Thus, even traditional moderate Left parties, such as British Labour or the US Democrats, moved further and further to the Right. Even when egregious policies – such as the second American invasion of Iraq in 2003 or the failure of the USA to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Accords on global warming – gave the Left opportunities for mass movements, only relatively few people could be mobilized.
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement that began in 2011 protests wealth inequality (the 99 percent versus the 1 percent). OWS encampments and street demonstrations counted far fewer numbers than the millions who opposed
the Vietnam war in the 1960s–70s.Why was this so? In a way, ironically, the performative replaced performance. The internet was the global forum. People blogged, petitioned, and gathered online rather than putting bodies in the streets.
When people did demonstrate – against the invasion of Iraq or the meetings of the World Trade Organization, for example – the police were well able to control the situations.The near absolute freedom of internet expression led to lots of excellent ideas and analyses that had little effect on policies.
The many opinions served more to blow off steam than to form a united front. But if this was true in the USA, it was not the case elsewhere. In December 2010, Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself to protest the police seizure of his fruit and vegetable stand. Soon hundreds of thousands took to the streets across the Middle East in what became known as the Arab Spring. First Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and then Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak were chased from their countries. It took civil war and NATO bombs to eliminate Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.The outcome in Syria remains in doubt. And other regimes – in and out of the Middle East – have taken fearful notice of events.
Am I nostalgic about actions many on the Left no longer consider effective or possible? Or is the sleeping giant of “the people” to be awakened again under the right conditions of desperation and hope? The 1960s–70s brought many thousands of bodies into the streets, while the new millen-nium works by means of digital imaging, the internet, clon-ing, and related phenomena.These are the performatives of the Left. But not only the Left. Fundamentalists of all stripes are not averse to using the most advanced technologies – even as Gavin
Butt
When theory constrains rather than enables
When referring to “theory” [. . .] we usually invoke a melange of theoretical paradigms and perspectives which have now come to be dominant in the Western humanities: semiotics, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and post-structuralism. But the problem seems to arise when such hermeneutic tools – originally deployed to critique various forms of power and authority within cultural and artistic representations – have come to be credited with a kind of authority of their own. The final paradoxical twist comes about when a body of work renowned for its deconstruction of authorial value comes to be accredited with precisely such forms of authority. What does the [. . .] student do in order to substantiate his argument about, for example, the representation of masculinity in contemporary art? Answer: he cites the proper name Derrida (or similar), and the authority of his body (of work) [. . .]. It is precisely in this way that post-structural theory (perhaps above all) has come to operate both as criticism’s chief enabler whilst simultaneously marking its limit point [. . .] working to constrain the production of new concepts and/or methods [. . .].
2005, “The Paradoxes of Criticism,” 4
?
they also employ direct action, which is what terrorism, suicide bombs, ethnic cleansings, honor rapes, and the rest are. I will discuss these difficult matters in terms of interculturalism and globalization in Chapter 8. For now I ask:
Hasn’t much of the poststructuralist program been accom-plished? Isn’t there more acceptance of diversity in European and North American cultures? Haven’t women, gays, people of color, Muslims, Hindus,Animists, and Jews gotten further in these societies than ever before? Aren’t unpopular opinions
heard more often? Haven’t school curriculums been thoroughly revised and expanded? How many AIDS walks, Gay Pride parades,Trinidad-style Carnivals, and many other manifestations of minoritarian and multi-cultural values and desires are there? Community-based performances give voice to those who were not previously heard. Much of this can be credited to the long-term impact of poststructuralism. But be careful about confusing “tolerance” and “good management”
with actual change. In the United States, at least, the diversity of behavior and opinion has not yet been tested against a serious economic recession or depression. In Europe, when minorities rise above a certain number, or move out of their enclaves, the “native” population resists. It’s easy to be
“generous” when times are good. It takes hard times to bring out the need for scapegoats.
Hard times need not be economic. They can also be psychological, an induced state of mind.The events of 9/11 reinvigorated American xenophobia, dubbed “homeland security.” For those old enough to remember, the War on Terror resembles the Cold War. The threats then and now were/are real – Soviet and American missiles were armed and aimed (mostly not yet disarmed); terrorist bombs are exploding and more horrific biological and nuclear attacks are possible. During the Cold War leaders on both sides aggravated and exploited the mutual hostility. From the late 1940s, US ideological zealots hunted for communists or communist “sympathizers” in the arts, government, education, and entertainment. Many people were “character assassinated” and/or blacklisted, losing their jobs and often their friends. Ever-increasing defense expenditures fattened the military-industrial complex. Even as the Soviets promised to bury the West, citizens of the NATO alliance were put on notice that the Cold War would go on indefinitely because the USSR was a ruthless, “godless enemy.” The demon of the War on Terror is, if anything, worse than godless – Al Qaeda worships the wrong god. For its part,Al Qaeda regards George
Lakoff
How the Right got it right
Back in the 1950s conservatives hated each other. [. . .]
A group of conservative leaders [. . .] started asking what the different groups of conservatives had in common and whether they could agree to disagree in order to promote a general conservative cause. They started magazines and think tanks [the Heritage Foundation, the Olin Institute at Harvard, and others]. These institutes have done their job very well. People associated with them have written more books than the people on the left have, on all issues. The conservatives support their intellectuals. They create media opportunities. They have media studios down the hall in institutes so that getting on television is easy. Eighty percent of the talking heads on television are from the conservative think tanks.
Eighty percent. [. . .] In 2002 four times as much money was spent on research by the right as by the left, and they got four times as much media time. They get what they pay for. This is not an accident. Conservatives, through their think tanks, figured out the importance of framing, and they figured out how to frame every issue. They figured out how to get those frames out there, how to get their people in the media all the time. They figured out how to bring their people together. [. . .] They work out their differences, agree to disagree, and when they disagree, they trade off. The idea is, This week he’ll win on his issue. Next week, I’ll win on mine. Each one may not get everything he wants, but over the long haul, he gets a lot of what he wants.
Nothing like this happens in the progressive world, because there are so many people thinking that what each does is the right thing. It is not smart. It is self-defeating.
2004, Don’t Think of an Elephant, 15–16
NATO: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in 1949 as a military alliance among ten European nations plus the USA and Canada designed to confront and “contain” the Soviet Union whose forces during and after World War II had occupied Eastern Europe. In 1952, Greece and Turkey joined NATO and by 2004 – fifteen years after the end of the Cold War – ten Eastern European nations, former Soviet satellites, had been admitted to NATO.
NATO’s core provision is that an attack on any member nation would be regarded as an attack on all. This clause of the treaty was invoked in 2001 in response to 9/11. Previously, in 1995 and 1999, NATO forces intervened in the civil wars of the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Croatia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Serbia).
the West, and the USA especially, as the Great Satan, the ultimate infidel. As during the Cold War, the ideological enemies need each other, cooking their core followers a repast of fear and hatred.