[csaa-forum] Re: everyone is leftwing today (except the right)

[langley timmy]

a very quick response to the left/right paradigm:

everyone knows this paradigm is simplistic and
(almost) useless for analyses and identifications of
contemporary political/economic systems (after,
arguably, the down fall of the 'second world' in
1989). but, paradoxically, this is where the political
power of the paradigm lies (in both senses of the
word): like other notions used by neo-conservatives
(the new right), such as political correctness,
anti-americanism and un-australianness, it places
every position outside (primarily american)
neo-conservatism as left-wing. so, for example,
someone who may support free-market capitalism but is
also an ardent secularist is (just like an ardent
marxist) left-wing, while a working class subject who
doesn't question capitalism and is a fundamentalist
christian nationalist is not left wing, but a
necessary (and implicit) citizen of neo-conservatism.
for many postcolonial, primarily marxist, theorist,
binary notions like left/right and colonized/colonizer
remain necessary (but temporary) political paradigms
underlying liberation movements. even within these
theoretical perspectives there is much debate and
difference.

cheers tim


Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com