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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 10:34 pm Post subject: "Marginal Returns": Jacoby on Postcolonialism... |
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Russell Jacoby is (or was) Professor of History at UCLA. I recently read his response to postcolonialism (Said and co.) and thought I'd pass it on in summary form as it very much relates to current Middle Eastern affairs and the views of leftist critics in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West upon which many on this board base their own views...
See Lingua Franca (Sept./Oct. 1995): 30-37.
Jacoby gives poscolonialism a failing grade:
| Jacoby wrote: |
| ...the preliminary report is not positive. While postcolonial studies claims to be subversive and profound, the politics tends to be banal; the language jargonized; the radical one-upmanship infantile; the self-obsession tiresome; and the theory bloated. |
On the poscolonialists in general:
| Jacoby wrote: |
| They...challenge whether any knowledge of postcolonial society by outsiders is possible -- and this leaves them exactly nowhere...the scholars see themselves as outsiders subverting the imperialist legacy...[they believe] that they are more radical than other academics...postcolonial theorists are cracking codes, smashing paradigms, blasting hegemony...Yet as they sometimes observe, they are also successful academics at major universities in the West; they operate within mainstream institutions, collecting paychecks -- sometimes quite handsome -- from the imperial state they attack in professional [establishment] journals. To bite the hand that feeds you is nothing new -- following Mark Twain, that is the difference between a man and a dog..."Marginal" is their favorite word; they not only study it, they are it...[they] enthusiastically saw away at the branch they sit on. Knowledge is power. The West invents the "Orient" through texts and writings. From here it is hardly a leap to wonder whether the postcolonial theorists invent postcolonialism. Might their own theories be part and parcel of a new imperial domination...do the postcolonial theorists live off the colonies they decry? |
Their discourse is allegation- and complicity-driven...and all show:
| Jacoby wrote: |
Sara Suleri offers "life in Pakistan" as an example of postcolonial "lived experience." She reports that in 1980 the Pakistani military dictatorship enacted the Hudood Ordinances, a series of harsh laws inspired by Muslim notions. In part they dealt with rape and fornication committed by nonMuslims and unmarried Muslims. A fifteen-year-old was raped by her aunt's husband and son and because of the Hudood Ordinances and the prevailing Muslim rules of evidence, the young woman herself was sentenced to one hundred public lashes. Suleri's conclusion: "Let me state the obvious...It is not the terrors of Islam that have unleashed the Hudood Ordinances on Pakistan, but more probably the United States government's economic and ideological support of a military regime."
Perhaps. Yet everything is left out. Nothing is explained. This is not political, social, or literary analysis. This is show politics. |
Of special attn is Columbia's Gayatri Spivak and her article "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (and behind her Foucault and Derrida):
| Jacoby wrote: |
| Like her teacher, Derrida, she is the master of broken sentences, brackets, parentheses, and equivocations. Of course, this does not set her apart from other postcolonial theorists. It is not news, but I am going to observe something that for some reason only bothers conservatives. Spivak, like most postcolonial theorists, cannot write a sentence. |
Here is an excerpt of Spivak's writing...
| Spivak wrote: |
| Some of the most radical criticism coming out of the West today is the result of an interested desire to conserve the subject of the West, or the West as Subject. The theory of pluralized "subject-effects" gives an illusion of undermining subjective sovereignty while often providing a cover for this subject of knowledge...It is only if we recognize that we cannot not want freedom of expression as well as those other normative and privative rational abstractions that we on the other side can see how they work as alibis. It is only then that we can recode the conflict as Racism versus Fundamentalism, demonizing versus disavowal. |
I apologize for not producing a link to this article on the internet. However, I have hit the high points of Jacoby's thesis here (while leaving out the details of his analysis and examples for spatial considerations). Needless to say, I did cheer when I read this... |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:26 am Post subject: |
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Her writing reminded me of the 'postmodern essay generator'.
Try it out!
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo
Every hit generates a new essay of junk.
Anyhow, about the topic Gopher brought up. The big question is if they are actually leeching off the former colonies and are, in an interesting way, the new imperialists.
| Quote: |
Might their own theories be part and parcel of a new imperial domination...do the postcolonial theorists live off the colonies they decry? |
The answer is an absolute "Yes". And their work is meaningless. Weird for the sake of weird (to quote Moe). And horribly frustrating to read.
| Quote: |
| the radical one-upmanship infantile; the self-obsession tiresome; and the theory bloated. |
Typical academic stuff... Not unique to this batch of douchbags but certainly including them.
To paraphrases our resident can't-type-a-normal-sentence eslcafeer DD,
It reminds me, latently, of that late-er, great jogger and physicist, Henry Kissinger, who remarked ([un]remarkably) that 'politics in academia are so fierce (much like Bolivian tea, drank upside down in the snow) because so little is at stake [unlike me (the I in insolence), where my every \in\action renders our globe better off(ten).
BB. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:06 am Post subject: |
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Gopher, FYI...you don't have to be "postcolonialist" or "pomo" to be liberal/left. I'm not saying you are saying that...just that as a liberal/left type I think a lot of it is nonsense too.  |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:11 am Post subject: |
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| With the name "postcolonial studies", it really ought to be about understanding how societies behave after being liberated... you'd think they might might study post-Japan Korea.. post-Roman Gaul.... but no. Bit misleading, that. |
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cwemory
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
Location: Gunpo, Korea
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:19 am Post subject: Re: "Marginal Returns": Jacoby on Postcolonialism. |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Of special attn is Columbia's Gayatri Spivak and her article "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (and behind her Foucault and Derrida) |
Even Noam Chomsky is dismissive of many of these "intellectuals".
Chomsky on Anarchism
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| try asking somebody to explain to you the latest essay of Derrida or somebody in terms that you can understand. They can't do it. |
Understanding Power
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| when I read, you know, Derrida, or Lacan, or Althusser, or any of these � I just don't understand it. It's like words passing in front of my eyes: I can't follow the arguments, I don't see the arguments |
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yoda
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Location: Incheon, South Korea
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:51 am Post subject: |
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A very good essay by George Orwell written in 1946. He criticizes the use of vague speech to hide the fact that the writers are speaking out their a$$. If you make what you say vague enough, how can anybody criticize you?
I am sure Orwell would add the quoted passage to his "catalogue of swindles and perversions".
The thing I don't get about that kind of writing style, is that the style is directly in opposition to the writers' supposed aims, so why bother with it? These Pomo/Poco writers want to liberate people from the established hierarchies that keep the people controlled, yet the language these writers use tends to make them inaccessible to people and establish these writers as the top of their own intellectual hierarchy and impossible to challenge. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:29 am Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Gopher, FYI...you don't have to be "postcolonialist" or "pomo" to be liberal/left. I'm not saying you are saying that...just that as a liberal/left type I think a lot of it is nonsense too. |
Good man, Manner.
Actually, from your writing and argumentative style, and our disagreements from time to time notwithstanding, I never doubted this.
I am also pleased to see that Chomsky feels the same as I do about postcolonials' writing: When I read Spivak's article on the Subaltern voice, I read it three times in a row, painstakingly, with a dictionary, checking tertiary meanings even, over a period of six or seven hours one Sunday afternoon...and I could not decipher it or translate it into plain English. I recently read it again, hoping that I might have become smarter and thus be able to grasp it. (I do want to comprehend what she has to say, incidentally; she is an Indian woman speaking on colonialism, and I think she must have a valuable perspective to contribute.)
No. I have never been able to figure out "what's the point?" to this article or anything else she has written.
Look at this, by the way, you have to study her personal glossary just to have any kind of discourse with her...
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Glossary.html
Here is her web-page, too, FYI. Apparently it's an older one. I understand she is currently at Columbia and not Emory.
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Spivak.html |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Gopher, FYI...you don't have to be "postcolonialist" or "pomo" to be liberal/left. I'm not saying you are saying that...just that as a liberal/left type I think a lot of it is nonsense too. |
I am also pleased to see that Chomsky feels the same as I do about postcolonials' writing: When I read Spivak's article on the Subaltern voice, I read it three times in a row, painstakingly, with a dictionary, checking tertiary meanings even, over a period of six or seven hours one Sunday afternoon...and I could not decipher it or translate it into plain English. I recently read it again, hoping that I might have become smarter and thus be able to grasp it. (I do want to comprehend what she has to say, incidentally; she is an Indian woman speaking on colonialism, and I think she must have a valuable perspective to contribute.) |
LOL! Thanks Gopher, that was my laugh for the day. If a world-renowned professor of linguistics can't figure out what you're saying, something's wrong somewhere!
Actually I find Chomsky a little hard to follow at times as well. His interviews at least. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
When I read Spivak's article on the Subaltern voice, I read it three times in a row, painstakingly, with a dictionary, checking tertiary meanings even, over a period of six or seven hours one Sunday afternoon...and I could not decipher it or translate it into plain English. I recently read it again, hoping that I might have become smarter and thus be able to grasp it. (I do want to comprehend what she has to say, incidentally; she is an Indian woman speaking on colonialism, and I think she must have a valuable perspective to contribute.)
No. I have never been able to figure out "what's the point?" to this article or anything else she has written.
Look at this, by the way, you have to study her personal glossary just to have any kind of discourse with her...
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Glossary.html
Here is her web-page, too, FYI. Apparently it's an older one. I understand she is currently at Columbia and not Emory. |
I have often thought that multiculturalism per se is important, but unfortunately there is not enough of what I would call "intelligent multiculturalism" out there. She probably gets away with writing nonsense like this because people are afraid to call her on her BS, because she's an Indian woman from a 'postcolonialist' country. It wouldn't be politically correct to do so...even if it would lead to a clearer and better understanding of the experience of colonialism, postcolonialism, and the experience of cultures that were colonized.  |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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Gopher, you quoted postmodernists who are not in the mainstream left.
They write in a way that is anti-establishment and there manner of writing is far removed from the writing of their forebears who gave some dignity to the English language. These people write in a complicated style which only gives them access to readers among among their own group. People do not generally take them seriously. They claim to want to speak for the voiceless, the oppressed. However, their use of language, choice of words, produces an English that degrades the language and leaves the reader struggling to make sense of the words.
I haven't seen posters blaming all the problems of the Near East or
South Asia on the West. They say many of the current, continuing, and past problems do come from planners in the West, and they should re-evaluate how they deal with the various parts of the world they deal with. Many moderates on the right are saying the same thing, if you've noticed.
Anyway, I loathe reading post-modernists. Their right is so abominable, horrible, and belong in a literary dustbin. |
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