{"id":802,"date":"2016-11-13T20:57:01","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T01:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/?p=802"},"modified":"2016-11-17T15:11:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T20:11:56","slug":"no-longernot-yet-jameson-on-the-need-for-big-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/2016\/11\/no-longernot-yet-jameson-on-the-need-for-big-ideas.html","title":{"rendered":"No longer\/Not yet: Jameson on the need for “big ideas”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The LeftEast interview with the American Marxist cultural theorist Fredric Jameson<\/a> appeared a few days before the election, and its title \u2014 \u201cPeople are saying \u2018this is a new fascism\u2019 and my answer is \u2013 not yet!\u201d \u2014 has a different resonance now. There\u2019s no indication of when, where, or how the interview was conducted, although some problems with the text suggest it was transcribed from a recording. In particular, there is the puzzling comment on the ideological maneuvers of one \u201cMrs. Teacher.\u201d Presumably what Jameson actually said concerned a certain former British prime minister.<\/p>\n

\"jameson-2016-11-13-20-57.jpg\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Jameson seems to indicate that identity politics led to the decline of the American labor movement, which I sure hope is another transcription error \u2014 because seriously, no, just no. The remarks on Ernesto Laclau make me hope that he\u2019s written something substantial about him, or will. Otherwise, the only passage that\u2019s made any impression over a couple of readings is the concluding exchange:<\/p>\n

FB: Finally, do you think that the time of \u201cbig ideas\u201d is over? <\/strong><\/em>
\nJameson: No! This goes back to the 1960\u2019s and the conviction that \u201cbig ideas\u201d tend to be oppressive and undemocratic. It\u2019s true that we don\u2019t have any \u201cbig ideas\u201d right now, but that doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t be looking for them. Adorno had an excellent analysis of the spread of empirical thought, especially American and British empiricism and he compared it with nominalism where you cannot see things dialectically. I think this is also a feature of post-modernity, but what I noticed is that people who don\u2019t want to talk in terms of post-modernity or Marxism just say \u2013 that\u2019s telling historical stories. I would conclude the other way around. The way to come back to \u201cbig ideas\u201d is to look at the world historically. In this respect, history is a big idea. Calling for new ideas is calling for \u201cbig ideas\u201d. Practice \u201cinstrumental thoughts\u201d, as the Frankfurt School called them, is fixing little things, but not innovating. Whatsoever, nominalists and empiricists won\u2019t be able to fix even the little problems that they claim to be interested in fixing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This probably bears supplementing with a little Griemasian diagram with room for what we face now: the sudden, massive systemic convulsion of capital\u2019s death drive on steroids.<\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The LeftEast interview with the American Marxist cultural theorist Fredric Jameson appeared a few days before the election, and its title \u2014 \u201cPeople are saying \u2018this is a new fascism\u2019 and my answer is \u2013 not yet!\u201d \u2014 has a different resonance now. There\u2019s no indication of when, where, or how the interview was conducted, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions\/807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}