By Iain Aitken
Lisa Macdonalds's response (GLW #146) to the argument that postmodernism can be a useful critical tool illustrates the pervasiveness of straitjacket "either/or" thinking in our culture. She reads the argument as a polemic, of the form "either Marxism or postmodernism", obfuscating its most basic point: that leftists should utilise more than one strategy against capitalism.
Postmodernism is not, as was made clear, something "new and radical"; it is part of the logic of modernism itself, something which has been around for over a century. As she herself writes, Marx developed a concept of ideology to explain domination more comprehensively than economics alone; what she does not acknowledge is that postmodern approaches can be, and are being, used to extend this basic critique of "meaning", which was developed in an age without radio, television, computers.
"Meaning" is not static; hence neither are the ways of understanding and criticising its production and consumption — ways facilitating effective resistance and radical action. This does not mean that Marxism as a scientific mode of analysis is useless. On the contrary, it means that its scientific force can be strengthened, for science, as we all know, derives its explanatory power from the very fact that it does not become dogmatic and static.
Furthermore, science is full of "unbelievably obtuse and inaccessible language" (eg, mathematics). Marxism, as a science, relies on jargon — perhaps Macdonald has forgotten what it was like when she first read Marx or Engels (let alone any others).
But this is not a bad thing. Jargon, while often overused, is necessary in that it provides a shorthand to facilitate the linking of concepts which would otherwise be rendered impossible by pages of explication. The jargon-riddled nature of scientific discourse does not prevent science from informing radical politics (if it did her "strictly scientific approach" would be dead in the water). The same stands for certain positions we might term "postmodern".
I do not want to enter the somewhat absurd debate over whether Marxism is, or can be, scientific, for it obviously is. But it is also clear that while oppressed groups must use whatever strategies work best in their particular situations, and this will include orthodox Marxism, science — "the scientific method" — has moved on since Marx.
Notions such as chaos theory and complexity provide ways of understanding both cognitive and economic structures of domination. A dialectic between "strictly scientific" Marxism and these "other" sciences is more progressive than sticking our heads into the sand and/or confining ourselves to one approach or the other.
It is also problematic to assume that a "strictly scientific" approach alone will lead to the sort of comprehensive understanding that will make possible radical change. "Science", like "postmodernism", is just one facet of understanding; the sort of faith in science on which her article is premised lapses easily into a one-sided view of the world. To understand and attack oppression and domination requires anything but such a dogmatic view.
It was not even a point of contention in my original article that Marxism offers practical means to fight environmental degradation, exploitation, the Third-World debt trap, patriarchy etc. What was, and is, a point of contention is the dogma that Marxism alone is sufficient and that postmodernism "contributes nothing". My argument is simply that postmodern approaches be considered as they can be useful in formulating active resistance.
While it is true that a "critical stance is not the same thing as a politically radical stance", it is also true that ignorance and dogma reduce the range and effectiveness of politically radical stances.