"Post"-Ing Marxism : a Totalizing Critique of Fredric Jameson And
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
"POSTw-INGMARXISM: A TOTALLZING CRITIQUE OF FREDRIC JAMESON e AND ERNEST0 LACLAU Beverley Best B. A., University of British Columbia, 1989 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF / MASTER OF ARTS in the School of Communication O Beverley Best 1997 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY All rights reserved. Th~swork ma? not be reproduced m whole or in part, by photocqy or &er means, without perrmssion of the author National Library Biblioth&que nationale 1+1 .cad, du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques Your hle Votre reterenca Our bk Norre reference The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Libraq of Canada to Bibliptheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, preter, dlstnbuer ou copies of hsthesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format klectronique. The author retains o~nershpof the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in ths thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial errtracts from it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent itre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. APPROVAL NAME: Beverley Best DEGREE: TITLE: "Post"-ing Marxism: A Totalizing Critique of Frederic Jruneson and Emesto, hclau EXAMINING COMMITTEE: CRAIR: Prof. Robert Anderson, Chair v - Prof. Richard Gruneau Senior Supexisor School of rnrnunication, SFU Supervisor: =Schoolof Communication, SFU . - i Prof. Richard Cave11 Supervisor Department of English, UBC - Dr. Lianne McLarty Examiner Assistant Professor and Director of Film Studies Program, University of Victoria Date: 25 3-11 L~/ iqq 7 i i ABSTRACT First, this thesis is a comparison of the critical positions of Fredric Jameson and Ernesto Laclau, specifically, of Jameson's dialectical criticism and Laclau's social logic of hegemony. Second, the evaluation of the relationship between Jameson and Laclau represents an attempt to reframe contemporary debates between the theoretical discourses of Marxism and post-Marxism The dysis concludes with the argument that it is possible to conceptualize the relationship between tiese two schools of thought as something other than one of opposition or mutual exclusivity To set the stage for the comparison of Jameson and Laclau, a history of the debates between Marxism and poststructuralism (the latter as the intellectual tenor in terms of which most of Laclau's post-Marxist arguments are oriented) is sketched, followed by close, exegetical readings of the critical formulations of Jameson and Laclau, respectively Despite several epistemological distinctions between Jameson's Marxism and Laclau's post-Marxism, a common set of theoretical dilemmas and configurations are demonstrated to exist between them, undermining an "either/orWrepresentation of their work >- DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to Darren Phillips, and to Joan and, Hugh Best for showing me the old cartwheel trick ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS t Heartfelt thanks go to Dr. Rxhard Gruneau, Dr. Gail Faurschou and Dr. kchard Cave11 for their irisights, advice, encouragement and support (intellectual and moral) with regards to this thesis and many other things. CONTENTS .. Approval . , , . , . , . , . , . , . ,II .-. Abstract . , . , . , . , . ,111 Acknowledgements . .. .v .. Quotation... , . :. , . :. .WII -, Introduction . , . , . , . I Chapter One ., The Crisis of Marrism, or, a History of the Poststructuralist Challenge to the Traditional Left . .. ... ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..7 Existentialism, Humanism and Soviet Marxism .... .. .. 9 De-Stalinization and the New Subjects of History .. .. .. .. .I5 Structuralism, Anti-humanism and Psychoanalysis . .20 Poststructuralism . .26 May '68 and the New Philosophy . -36 Conclusion . .. ... , . .38 Chapter Two From Individual to Totality and Back: Mapping Fredric Jameson's Dialecticd Criticism . :. .41 Describing the Ihalectic ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .43 Form and Content . .46 Totality, or, 'Thought to the Second Power' ... ... .. .. .48 Dialectical Mediation . .52 The i)lalectical Reversal, or, Dialectical Thought as d auto lo^^ DecentringfHistoricizing the Subject . Conclusion. Totality, Once Agam . .63 Chapter Three Necessarily Contingent, Equally Different, and Relatively Universal: the Antinomies of Ernesto Laclau's Social Logic of Hegemony .. .. .... ... %- The Ins and Outs of Identity . .. Antagonism and the Impossibility of Objectivity . Necessary Contingency: Antinomy # 1 . Articulation, or, the Transgressing of Contingency . Equal in Merence: Antinomy # 2 . .. .. .. .. Dwourse and bscursivity . .- Dislocating the Sodand Instituting the Political: Antinomies # 3. 4 and 5 .....................................................................................80 "Minding the Gap": Hegemony as Filling the Empty Place of Power ................. 86 Particular Universality: Antinomy #6 ................................................................ 90 Configuring the Relationship Between Structure and Agency ............................. 95 The 'Last Instance' Never Arrives .......................................................................98 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 100 Chapter Four i Strangers in the Night: the Unlikely Conjunctioo of Fredric Jameson and Erncsto Lactau .................................................................................................... 102 Dvergences I ................................................................................................... 104 Convergences ................................................................................................. 109 i) Immanence and Utopia ..................................................................... 109 ii) Structure and Agency ....................................................................... 113 iii) Hauntology, or. Spectral Lopc ..................................................... 116 iv) The Universal and the Particular .................................................... 119 v) Totality or Contingency? ........................................................... 125 Divergences I1 ............................................................................................. 130 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 136 ~onclusion:The Politics of Intellectual Production ........................................138 vii "...where...it is asserted ... that this or that mode of looking at thjngs is now definitively outmoded, we may confidently expect the putatively extinct specimens to reappear in the lists in the near future." , Fredric Jameson, Late Marxism Introduction This thesis attempts to provide grounds for a re-evaluation of the relationship between the critical positions associated with Marxist and post-Marxist discourses.' More specifically, it represents a rudimentary attempt to shake up an almost conventionalized opposition between an intellectual and political Marxist tradition and the theoretical interventions of what might more precisely be called poststructuralism. One of my concerns over a reified Manrism-poststructuralism opposition is that the two sides have since come to represent a whole host of theoretical dichotomies which line up roughly under the banners 'universalism' vs. 'particularism' (i.e.,collectivity-individual, global-local, essentialist-antiessentialist, necessary-contingent, centred-decentred, etc.). I am in accordance with Seyla Benhabib who denounces this situation as a form of intellectual division of labour and calls for a more subtle understanding of the relationshps between theoretical positioris before they are reduced to sets of no longer compelling dichotomies.' This reification of the terms of the debate has caused instances of stagnation in social/political/cdtural theory, as well as, a superfluous antagonism amongst theorists I The template for this sentence can be found in a book by Asha Varadharajan called, Exotic Parodies: Su bjectiwv in Adonto, Said and Spivak, Minneapolis: Universrty of Minnesota Press, 1995, p.xi. My project bears rudimentary sirmlarities to Vadharajan's, except that she is investigating the critical positions occasioned by postcolonialism through a comparison of Adorno's dialectics and Derridean deconstruction. 2 Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self Gender, Community and Postm&rnism in Conternparry Ethics, New York and London: Routledge, 1992, p.26. 1 'speakmg fiom' different traditions and alliances whose ideas might otherwise be fruitfblly brought into contact with each other. My strategy, therefore, for shaking up said reified opposition consists of a "staged confrontation"' between the ideas of one Marxist and one post-Mamist, namely, between Fredric Jameson's dialectical criticism and Ernesto Laclau's theory of hegemony. My reason for choosing to look at one theorist associated with the Marxist' and post-Marxist "schools of thoughtM,respectively, seems obvious. I have more specific reasons, however, for choosing to look at Jameson and Laclau. Because I want to argue both for maintaining the substantial strengths of the Marxian analytical framework and for the importance