tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post4412833156263877503..comments2024-03-11T02:18:33.966-05:00Comments on Kritik: All About The WestAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200566567765991464noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-77903233966752152612010-05-06T00:05:25.994-05:002010-05-06T00:05:25.994-05:00I have been visiting various blogs for my term pap...I have been visiting various blogs for my term papers writing research. I have found your blog to be quite useful. Keep updating your blog with valuable information... RegardsTerm Papershttp://www.usatermpapers.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-17824300262769124332008-03-16T00:03:00.000-05:002008-03-16T00:03:00.000-05:00This is an excellent and useful debate. Michael is...This is an excellent and useful debate. Michael is absolutely correct in saying that the categories east and west, especially in their hardened geo-political forms, need to be critically revisited. The processes of globalization in our time make this an imperative. Today we witness Ukraine, Romania, and Georgia push for NATO membership. In terms of development, one could perhaps increasingly think of a new metropolitanism that dominates societies of globality. What is coming to the fore is a new transnational ruling consensus that gives rise to what Arif Dirlik has called the ‘Astronaut class.’ The financializations of the globe and global information networks have created infra-statal portals of metropolitanism that make positive east west distinctions of yore redundant to a certain degree. This has perhaps been obfuscated, in an affective level, by post 9/11 US militarization, neo-conservatism, and the right wing resuscitation of the ‘War of Civilizations’ debate. However, once we look beyond the Middle East, matters are different. The Brave New India for instance (projected to be one of three biggest economies of the world in the not so distant future by Goldman Sachs), has its own Silicon Valleys and Cyberabad (for the ‘powered’ creation of which the then Andhra Pradesh state government yanked electric supply from the countryside), but it also, according to a Newsweek article last year, hides three Somalias. We are reminded of a new metropolitanism when we see the right wing government in the state of Gujarat, as well as the ‘communist’ government of the state of Bengal adopt similar repressive, genocidal policies to clear the countryside for dogmatic neo-liberal development. Planetary capitalization thus reminds us of Ernest Bloch’s telling theorization of the ‘non synchronous’. It has created a landscape of infra-national temporalities rather than a positive spatial east-west cartography (we live in an epochal moment; for the first time in the history of the world, more people will be living in cities than in villages). This is attested further by the fact that many theorists are talking about the global order in terms of ‘new medievalisms’. This is precisely why I think Bruce’s suggestion that the west should be understood in terms of historicity is a very valid and frankly, quite brilliant one. Spatial distinctions between the east and west have been virtualized. The astronaut class roams the cyberspace, which, as Lev Manovich points out, is a space without gravity (precisely why it takes nanoseconds to affect the Tokyo share market if there is a crash in New York). Increasingly thus, when we think about the ‘west’, when we think about empire, and when we think about capital, entities, as they say, are up in the ‘air’. The west does not have a ground beneath his feet. <BR/><BR/>Anustup BasuAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-33598095881822440832008-03-13T13:20:00.000-05:002008-03-13T13:20:00.000-05:00Sharif, Yes, you are right. I didn't mean to sug...Sharif,<BR/> Yes, you are right. I didn't mean to suggest that this type of explanatory method would only apply to the 'West.' But, that it could possibly apply to many so-called big-picture concepts or narratives.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-29821271074878830312008-03-13T10:36:00.000-05:002008-03-13T10:36:00.000-05:00Joe, I don't get Wittgenstein but I like this idea...Joe, <BR/>I don't get Wittgenstein but I like this idea of 'family' resemblance. The narrative of 'the West' comes with the family from 'the East'. The smaller narratives you mention, such as racism, is not solely a matter of 'the West'. And this could be said for other narratives like democracy and secularism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-42945554003649250372008-03-12T22:02:00.000-05:002008-03-12T22:02:00.000-05:00I’m not sure if this is a helpful point of departu...I’m not sure if this is a helpful point of departure but one way to think about why we hold onto a grand narrative like ‘the West’ is because it allows us to make linkages between the smaller narratives that we really do care about such as: racisms, colonialism, a certain metaphysical picture of human beings and the world, a certain view of history, etc. And it is because we want to show that these are not discrete problems but that they share certain underlying assumptions, exploitations, and the like that we place them together into a grand concept that then serves as a critique of the linkages we find connecting all of these problems. Take, for example, the exploitation of a certain people for capitalist gain compared with the exploitation of natural resources for capitalist gain. While these are different forms of exploitation one might argue that they share linkages with one another that reveal something about a general attitude of instrumental exploitation. Traditionally, we then claim that it is an assumption or attitude or theoretical predisposition of ‘the West’ that underlies or generates the subject of our critique. But the abstract concept of the ‘West’ might be just a spinning wheel that does no real work in this type of explanation. <BR/>To borrow a concept from Ludwig Wittgenstein, one might claim the narratives of ‘the West’ share a family resemblance with one another. While none are identical to one another, we can isolate shared features and link them together in much the same way that I can see that I have my Mum’s eyes, my uncle Larry’s nose, and my aunt Gertrude’s propensity to be a poor dancer. I share some features but not others with those individuals. This does not mean, of course, that we are all participating in some Super-being that gives us those qualities—it just means that there are properties that we meaningfully share and that linking those properties in relation to one another is generally helpful by way of explanation. <BR/>Could the ‘West’ be re-conceived along similar lines? Yes, there are many narratives that make up what we traditionally call the ‘West’ and it is important to note the linkages between those narratives. But to reify the term beyond an acknowledgment of the many linkages between various narratives does no more good than to try and explain me and my Auntie Gertrude’s features in terms of some Super-relative. And I think the linkages found between persecution, exploitation, transcendent metaphysical assumptions, instrumental reason, history, and the like are far more important than the grand concept they supposedly add up to. If one were to focus on the ‘family features’ of various narratives perhaps one could remain moderately local while also going beyond mere particularity by acknowledging that the so-called big problems of the ‘West’ are actually linkages between the various types of problems, narratives, and injustices still worthy of critique.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com