Attack Evolution
is the strategy of a movement that wants to overturn materialism in the name of metaphysics. So let us deal with this on a more serious note. Reason has been entirely instrumentalized as engineering, and science reduced to positivism: the poor teaching of science and the lack of an education in philosophy have led to the commonly held assumption in the US that one can either "believe" in evolution or in creationism. No one knows how to reason and no one values reason.
Proponents of Intelligent Design have not emerged from nowhere. The Center for Science and Culture has "transformed the debate [over evolution vs. intelligent design] into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion." Once again, the Right has been disciplined on their talking points. Because we cannot remember or teach our students to remember the legacy of religious opppression and the positive aspects of being liberated from fear, tyranny and superstition, and we have replaced "grand narratives" with "self-interest" we are indeed left to inherit the wind.
Proponents of Intelligent Design have not emerged from nowhere. The Center for Science and Culture has "transformed the debate [over evolution vs. intelligent design] into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion." Once again, the Right has been disciplined on their talking points. Because we cannot remember or teach our students to remember the legacy of religious opppression and the positive aspects of being liberated from fear, tyranny and superstition, and we have replaced "grand narratives" with "self-interest" we are indeed left to inherit the wind.
4 Comments:
Well said. The call for the return of “grand narratives” seems to have been gathering steam in the last few years. I recall a Harper’s article from about two years ago that included a statement to the effect that radicals today don’t need action, they need theory – they need to spend a long time in the library like Marx did and produce a 21st century Capital. Last year, Doug Henwood, Liza Featherstone and Christian Parenti made a similar point when they called for the end of “activistism” and a return to intellectualism among American activists (http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featfeatherstone_activistismp.shtml). Likewise, Eagleton has said that it’s time to tackle “big questions”; he suggests Aristotle as a good starting point. Zizek seems to want everybody to start telling the same story as well.
So a lot of people say they’re eager to see grand narratives make a comeback, but there have actually been very few recent attempts (at least that I’m aware of) to develop said narratives. With the exception of Hardt and Negri’s books and maybe Badiou’s ethics there isn’t a whole lot out there. That’s a damn shame. Is the academy too hostile to attempts to develop grand narratives? Are individual scholars afraid that history will (gasp) prove them wrong and make them look a little silly -- like Francis Fukuyama?
We all have to stop calling for a return to grand narratives and start actually developing them. How about this: October, 2005 shall be “grand narratives” month. Everyone interested in the intersection of emancipatory politics and theory is required to electronically publish a speculative essay that proposes a “starting point” for a new grand narrative. The author may publish her essay with a disclaimer that states that as soon as the essay is published, she will not be required to defend it unless she wants to – this is to avoid any nervousness people might have about damaging their professional reputation. For the really nervous, anonymous publication is acceptable. After October, anyone who complains about the lack of a decent grand narrative shall be told to shut up until he publishes his own speculative proposal… Sounds good to me.
Nick,
October may be a good month for this project, but I think that instead of individually all trying to work out some narrative, we each write up a reading of one work on the Enlightenment that has been shunted aside by the New Left and the Cult Studs and discuss (without assuming any kind of consenus) why it offers a necessary re-engagement with the values of reason beyond instrumental.
I am trying to finish a book on a critique of the Cultural Studies equation of immanence and activism vs. scholarship and I have been reading Dialectic of Enlightenment as well as Minima Moralia and I could propose either one of those. I would also suggest Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, or the Future of an Illusion.
The other serious problem with the way in which cult studs did science studies was that they had no idea about the history of science, so all specialists and experts were just bad...Scientific reason and expertise were treated like ready-mades -- that needed to be bashed in the name of "deeply felt" suspicions. Well Christians feel deeply about their suspicions regarding science as well. This is why Andrew Ross can arrive at the same position of pseudo-skepticism regarding global warming as Dick Cheney's energy commission.
Scientific reason was inaugurated by thinkers who were able to articulate doubts about their own feelings no matter how deep...This is not to discount feelings, only to submit them to the kind of skepticism the Right and Cult Studs populists want to reserve for "elitists."
I like your proposal. Reexamining texts like the Dialectic of Enlightenment (which I am overdue to re-read) sounds like a good approach to take. But it seems to me that the academy needs 1) a serious and widespread conversation about the value of “grand narratives” generally and 2) a “tolerance,” if you will, for proposals that are, seem like, or could become “grand narratives.”
How can we spark such a conversation and also (thereby?) create a “breeding ground” for ambitious theories? I could be wrong, but if momentum built around some version of “Grand Narrative” month, maybe that could do the trick. You propose a reexamination of texts on the Enlightenment that have been “shunted aside by the New Left and the Cult Studs.” Eagleton wants us to take another look at Aristotle. No doubt a lot of people would advocate a “return to Marx.” Maybe there are some Hardt&Negri-ans out there who would argue that most of the answers are buried somewhere in Empire… In any event, it seems to me that this is a conversation that is urgently needed. Let’s start it.
How does one oppose Right-wing Evangelical authoritarianism? And monopoly capitalism? How do we deal with illegal parliamentarism? The questions might be as basic as this.
We might be able to hammer out a real consensus instead of a fake one if we actually have a conversation with each other about these issues.
Adorno and Horkheimer wrote a long time ago that liberalism tends toward fascism.
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