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"Passion: Regular or Decaf?"
Slavoj Zizek, In These Times
Reviewing Mel Gibson's film, "The Passion of the Christ"
Those who virulently criticized Mel Gibson's "The Passion" even before
its release seem unassailable: Are they not justified to worry that
the film, made by a fanatic Catholic known for occasional
anti-Semitic outbursts, may ignite anti-Semitic sentiments?
"Twilight of the Neocons:
Richard Perle Has Begun to Panic"
Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke
Reviewing An End to Evil by David Frum and Richard Perle, Random House, $25.95
Since 9/11 a cascade of books purveying instant analysis on the ramifications has hit the bookstores. A deep fault line runs between them. Those with "evil" or "jihad" in the title lie on one side of the divide; those with "empire" or "lies" are found on the other. Their mutually antagonistic readerships snarl at each other across the chasm. So it is with David Frum and Richard Perle's new book An End to Evil: What's Next in the War on Terrorism, in which they reinforce the thesis -- now usually described as neoconservative -- that American interests and values are best pursued with a maximum of military stick and minimum of negotiating carrot. It makes little difference whether the issue is Libya, Iran, or North Korea. The authors believe market-democracy is best delivered on the back of a Tomahawk missile.
Here Now Next: Paul Goodman and the Origins of Gestalt
Therapy
Taylor Stoehr
Reviewed by William Hoynes
The libertarian impetus in modern times has often
taken somewhat peculiar ways of resisting and
countering domination and exploitation.
Psychotherapies provide some interesting examples,
often with striking parallels to earlier heresies
within mainstream religious contexts. Among the
dominant psychologies in mid-twentieth century America
were various behavior controls, usually of reductive
positivist cast and medical dressing, in which
authority figures psychomedically defined and
manipulatively treated "abnormalities" and other
deviations which included much primarily tabooed and
dissident. Leaving aside therapists as associate
jailers for psychiatric wards and military and other
totalitarian institutions, and "crisis" coping and
more overt psychopathologies which therapists mostly
tried to restrain, they were, in the language of half
a century ago, insistently enforcing "conformity" by
inculcating "adjustment." Therapy was often lessons in
subordination.
"Bakhtin as Anarchist"
Caryl Emerson
[An excerpt from "Bakhtin After the Boom: Pro and Contra," Journal of
European Studies, March 2002 v32 i1 p3(24).]
[T]he question of Bakhtin's Russianness is highly contested, and in
closing I will touch only on two areas where I think he partakes of a recognizably
mainstream Russian tradition.
First, there is much in Bakhtin's thought that is anarchist. By which I mean:
if Bakhtin can dispense with an institution, an impersonal norm, a mechanical
causality, he will do so. For all his formal style as a professor and for all
the reverence with which he approached the culture of the past, he had a
powerful animosity against 'official life', 'officialese', lobbying for
hierarchical recognition, all of which he perceived as cowardly alienation
and
irresponsibility. This animus fed both his fondness for carnival and
sustained
him during his long years of not being read and not being heard.
An anonymous coward writes:
"Open Marxism?"
Tadzio Mueller
Reviewing Holloway, J., Change the World Without Taking Power,
London: Pluto Press 2002.
A spectre is haunting Marxism: the spectre of
anarchism. Anarchists, whether self-described or
called thus by the media, have been reaping most of
the publicity that the radical wing of the
globalisation-critical movement has been able to
generate, and Marxists are both excited and dismayed
by this. Excited, because for the first time in many
years there is a recognisable anti-capitalist protest
movement on the streets of advanced capitalist
countries; dismayed, because this relative resurgence
of anti-capitalist radicalism has not been accompanied
by a resurgence of Marxism.
"Did Somebody Say Slavoj?"
Carlos Pessoa
Reviewing Slavoj Zizek, Did somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a Notion. London: Verso, 2002.
Slavoj Zizek has become known for writing on the 'postmodern condition' and its implication for a radical political project. Although Zizek's Lacanian analysis (with a Hegelian impulse) can intimidate certain readers, his comical and entertaining writing enables a reading of key contemporary political issues. Although taking a critical stand to postmodern thought, I would argue there are postmodern aspects in Zizek's work that in the end make it postmodern radical chic.
"Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory"
John-Michael Bodi, H-Net
Reviewing Marxism against Postmodernism in Educational Theory, Dave Hill, Peter McLaren, Mike Cole, and Glenn Rikowski, eds.
Revised
edition. Lanham and New York: Lexington Books, 2002. x + 341 pp.
Notes, bibliography, index. $90.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-7391-0345-8;
$34.95 (paper), ISBN 0-7391-0346-6.
It is always a uniquely rewarding experience to read current ideas
about philosophy and the human condition especially as they relate
to education as it is affected by capitalism. Most readers will
appreciate this book for its attempts to shed light on the evolution
of thought past postmodernism although the connections to education
are few.
O.K. writes
"A Surrealist Phone Book"
Oliver Katz
Reviewing Franklin Rosemont's
An Open Entrance to the Shut Palace of Wrong Numbers Chicago: Black Swan Press, 2003. Illustrated with drawings by Artur do Cruzeiro Seixas. Available through Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1740 West Greenleaf Avenue, Chicago, IL 60626. In the seldom-seen late-Cold War thriller "Miracle Mile," (1989), a young man in Los Angeles answers a ringing telephone in a booth out of pure serendipity on an empty street at 3 AM. The call turns out to be from a frantic USAF technician employed at some remote Midwestern missile silo. The caller announces that he’s just launched his thermonuclear payload at an enemy state, and that an apocalyptic retaliatory missile strike directed at the US will come with full force in about an hour. If I remember correctly, the young man who answered the phone responds to this awful news by taking his girlfriend on a late-night date to the La Brea tar pits.
Anonymous Comrade writes
This review evidences the attempts by the spirit-minded (aka New Age) (dis)establshment to come to terms with the necessity for political change. It's an intriguing perspective, from Lapis Magazine
Lessons Still Unlearned:
"The Weather Underground," Thirty Years Later
Jay Kinney
Every now and then, a film appears that has special resonance with the issues of the moment. The recent documentary, "The Weather Underground," is such a film.
At first glance it might seem unlikely that a film about a cult-like '60s New Left sect that fell apart by 1976 would have much light to shed upon the present. Yet, it is hard to walk away from seeing this film without reflecting on the curious parallels (and differences) between then and now.
From http://lapismagazine.org
Lessons Still Unlearned:
"The Weather Underground," Thirty Years Later
BY JAY KINNEY
Every now and then, a film appears that has special resonance with the issues of the moment. The recent documentary, "The Weather Underground," is such a film.
At first glance it might seem unlikely that a film about a cult-like '60s New Left sect that fell apart by 1976 would have much light to shed upon the present. Yet, it is hard to walk away from seeing this film without reflecting on the curious parallels (and differences) between then and now.
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