Apologies

[larbaud <larbaud@mandic.com.br>]

John King wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 10 Mar 1997, Thomas Friese wrote:
> 
> > > Sorry, but I think you minimize the phenomena. Political correctness
> > > goes far beyond the university world. Its main weapon is the mass media
> > > and tends to control the whole ideological production, not only the
> > > academic discourse. And its centre is not the university, but the
> > > political and economic power.
> > > power in the world, unfortunately.
> > > I agree with you that it's "an object of ridicule for most people
> > > outside it", but the problem is how to go out of it. It's not easy.
> > >
> > You are right - difficult indeed. Exactly the kind of problem that faces
> > the anarch and that challenges him to find a personal solution! No?
> > Thomas Friese
> 
> Thanks for bringing the discussion back to the person and works of EJ. We
> ought at least to retain that perspective - there are plenty of other
> fora for general political discussion.
> 
 O, I've just replied to your post, Mr. King. All the merits of the new
issue are yours.


> However, I am not sure how "political correctness" and the "mass media"
> phenomena coincide. "Bild Zeitung", "The Sun" - mass media, but
> xenophobic, sensationalist, mysoginist. PC? The link to technical and
> ecomomic production sounds on the other hand like a Marxist account of
> ideology as an attempt to conceal by various strategies the true nature
> of the conditions of production and thus deceive the proletariat.
> 
> On the contrary I would suggest that (post)-modern society quite easily
> contains a whole variety of conflicting discourse, ideologies, value
> systems, whatever. Hence, the comments I made drawing on Baumann, that PC
> discourses circulate essentially unheard in the "mainstream". I would
> seriously question the notion that there is a single common denominator
> to be detected behind all these multiple voices which can as such be
> resisted - unless it is an increasing medialisation of experience.
> 
> Thus, the idea of the "Anarch" seems to be superfluous as a specific
> programme. If there is no "mainstream", no "metanarrative", then the
> "Anarch" merely becomes another voice in the cacophony of the present,
> yet another alternative. Is the retreat to "Innerlichkeit" any more than
> a deeper internalisation of previously existing structures of subjectivity?
> And thus not an escape?
> 
> John King.

        I don't want to divert the literary discussion on your list, Mr.
King,
because literature is my only concern here.
       I agree with most of what you said about Baumann's criticism of
the narrowness of some academic discourses. My only point was that
political correctness goes far beyond the university world, as your post
seemed to suggest. I know that PC doesn't "coincide" with the mass
media: I've said that PC's main instrument is the mass media and not the
academic classrooms. Just that.
	My apologies.
        
Larbaud Jr.

PS: I'm not anarch and I don't think that they can be "yet another
alternative". I'm just a reader of Bertrand de Jouvenel's great book "Du
pouvoir", so close to some Juenger's positions, in my opinion.