Mamta Kalia

catastrophe and progress together’. He
again (1991) talks of a new concept of
‘cognitive mapping’, that is a code word
for ‘class consciousness’- thus he shares
Marxist representation of history as a
story of class struggles, hence issues
of gender, race and ethnicity are not
significant in his theorizing. He borrows
conception of semi-autonomy from
Althusser, notion of schizophrenia from
Lacan, Deleuge & Guattari, concepts of
‘ intensities’ and ‘sublime’ from Lyotard,
idea of ‘simulacrum’ from Deleuge and
Baudrillard, and idea of ‘homeopathic’
strategy ( a version of ‘fatal’ strategies)
from Baudrillard. He rightly says that
under post-modernism feelings become
‘intensities’ (Lyotard) in that these“ are
now free-floating and impersonal and
tend to be dominated by a peculiar kind
of euphoria”.
Later Jameson followed E. Mandel’s
‘Late Capitalism’ (1978) regarding
periodisation: the first period, dominated
by market capitalism and by its aesthetic
corollary ‘realism’; second period of
monopoly or imperialist capitalism that
gave rise to modernism; third period
(current one) of late capitalism that
corresponds to post-modern aestheticthere
is expansion of capital into hitherto
uncommodified areas, especially in the
west late capitalism has penetrated and
commodified representation (media)
itself. To him, current technologycomputer,
TV set and other ‘ machines
of reproduction’ rather than productionno
longer possesses ‘ the capacity for
representation’ that charaterised the
technologies of earlier stages of
capitalism. But disagreeing with him, Mike
Davis is of the view that modernism,
at least in architecture, remained the
functional aesthetic of late capitalism.
Second, Jameson’s focus on class struggle
as the centre of political struggle- working
class as the agent par excellence of
progressive change- has not been proved
true in many situations ranging from
factories to nation-states going beyond
class struggle. Third, he has not given
due focus on feminist, ethnic and
ecological politics that has been of
primary significance in both developed
and developing countries.
J. Derrida talks of ‘difference’
‘decentering’ and ‘deconstruction’ as there
is no universal and final truth. Hence
a text has several interpretations,
meanings, by the readers, independent
of author’s intention- thus there is ‘death
of author’, as interpretation by the reader
is a different species of production.
Therefore, there are multiple local
possibilities, no absolute, universal,
objective, permanent, homogenous and
single possibility. Second, knowledge goes
beyond the parameters of scientism
(western science and technology) as there
are indigenous narratives (stories and
fables invented by people to give meaning
and significance to their everyday life
world) that exist in local, personal and
social contexts. Derrida rejects
metaphysical premises- the transcendent
signifier – upon which empiricism is built.
April-June 2010 :: 79