Between Postmodernism and Nowhere the Predicament of the Postmodernist

Between Postmodernism and Nowhere: The Predicament of the PostmodernistAuthor(s): Mike Cole, Dave Hill and Glenn RikowskiSource: British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Jun., 1997), pp. 187-200Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Society for Educational StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3122011 .

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BRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES, ISSN 0007-1005 VOL. 45, No. 2, JUNE 1997, pp 187-200

BETWEEN POSTMODERNISM AND NOWHERE: THE PREDICAMENT OF THE POSTMODERNIST

by MIKE COLE, University of Brighton, DAVE HILL, Tower Hamlets College and GLENN RIKOWSKI, University of Birmingham

ABSTRACT: This paper counters Blake's (1996) claim that educational neo-Marxism 'died' in the 1970s through demonstrating that there has been a substantial output of neo-Marxist educational writings since 1980. Blake also promotes postmodernism as a resource for reju- venating educational theory. The paper demonstrates that postmodernism is inadequate as a basis for rethinking educational theory and

for forging a radical educational politics.

Keywords: educational theory, neo-Marxism, postmodernism

1. INTRODUCTION

Nigel Blake (1996) has recently claimed that 'educational neo- Marxism' is now effectively 'dead', and offers postmodernism as an alternative for a 'radical' politics of education. As Marxist educa- tionalists, we wish to put the record straight and to point towards a revival in Marxist educational theory and research. This is the primary aim of our article. Our second aim is to challenge the notion that postmodernism has any progressive potential.

In an Editorial to this Journal a few years ago, David Halpin (1994) argued that educational studies needed to respond to theoretical developments emanating from post-structuralism and postmodernism and to assess their usefulness for the analysis of educational institutions and policy. Blake also raises the issue of how we ought to respond to the postmodern challenge - 'to decide whether it is to be celebrated or deplored, promoted or resisted' (1996 p. 43). We would go further than resistance. In our view, 'postmodernism' is a theoretical virus which paralyses progressive thought, politics and practice. Worse, it bolsters destructive forces in contemporary capitalism - in particular Radical Right' ideology and political practice - which have wrought such havoc on social life in Britain and else-

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BETWEEN POSTMODERNISM AND NOWHERE

where in the last twenty years. In this spirit, we turn the critical heat on educational postmodernism in this article from two perspectives. First, we provide a critique of the politics of educational postmodernism through a case study of Lather's (1991) 'postmodernism of resistance'. For us, this 'Left-wing' educational postmodernism offers the most serious challenge to Marxist educational theory. The inadequacy of a 'postmodernism of resistance' as a base for developing a radical educational politics rests partly on some deeper anti- epistemological and de-ontological commitments. Returning once more to Blake's (1996) paper, we use it as a second case study to illustrate how the nihilism and relativism entailed by his 'radical' theoretical stance precludes an educational politics fired by the search for social justice and equality.

In the final section of the paper we argue that, far from Blake's form of postmodernism yielding anything in the way of 'radical Left' politics, postmodern educational theory in fact has reactionary political consequences. It has a tendency to curtail thought and practice which challenge the rule of capital and creates a 'road to nowhere' for those seeking greater social and educational equality.

2. EDUCATIONAL NEO-MARXISM IS DEAD

According to Blake (1996), educational neo-Marxism is dead, and has been for some while. Before addressing this assertion directly there is a need to raise a prior question: what, according to Blake, is the current status of Marxism? His answer is pertinent because it leads him into mis-reading the history of neo-Marxist educational theory.

On Blake's analysis, thinkers of the new Right too often underes- timated the radical disenchantment with Marxism that crystallised during and after the events of 1968, when Left radicals came to share with the Right an abhorrence of 'actually existing socialism' (i.e. Soviet-style state capitalism). Humanist Marxism offered hope for a more liberal and human socialism, and it was within this neo- Marxist movement that most radical thinking in education proceeded in the 1970s. This, according to Blake, was 'a kind of last gasp Marxism' (p. 53). However, Blake has surely mis-read the history of Marxist educational theory here. The book which nurtured a growing interest in Marxist theories of education in the 1970s did not come out of the 'humanist' half of the Marxist project. Its structuralist and functionalist features were some of its defining (and most heavily criticised) features. Bowles and Gintis' (1976) Schooling in Capitalist America made the biggest single impact on

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Marxist educational theory in the 1970s. It did much to revitalise Marxism as a strong current within educational theory and policy critique in the 1970s, but it can hardly be described as an example of 'liberal and humanist Marxism'. Indeed, 'liberalism', 'liberal education' and 'liberal education theory' were prime targets throughout the first half of Schooling in Capitalist America.

Blake did not point towards any representatives of the 1970s 'liberal and humanist Marxism' he invokes, but he may have had the radical curriculum theorisers, flowing from Young's Knowledge and Control (1971), in his sights. This theoretical current was what Chun (1986) called 'phenomenological Marxist' educational theory, which incorporated a radical approach to the social production of school knowledge. Chun argued that this body of work only ever had a tenuous connection to 'Marxist' educational theory, though it played an important role in terms of putting it on the theoretico- educational map. What Blake's inadequate historical account of educational neo-Marxism does is to construct a false trail which leads towards a dead-end 'humanist Marxist' destination when most of the real action was elsewhere, in more structuralist-oriented approaches.

Leaving these historical deficiencies aside, is Blake correct in asserting that educational neo-Marxism was 'buried for good' in the 1970s (p. 62)? The following analysis of developments within educational neo-Marxism in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrates that this claim is patently false.

Far from witnessing the death of educational neo-Marxism, the 1980s was, in fact, a decade of intensive neo-Marxist educational scholarship. Many writers2 - especially those drawing on the cultural implications of the work of Antonio Gramsci, but also on the work of the structuralist Marxist, Louis Althusser - engaged in a debate with what many saw as the mechanical ways in which reproduction theorists (such as Bowles and Gintis, 1976) viewed the role of schools and education in general; as reproducing existing patterns of social inequality. These writers of the 1980s stressed resistance to the dominant hegemony and sought to reinsert questions of human agency, of space for resistance and counter-hegemonic struggle. This work, while retaining the central importance of social class in understanding the dynamics of schooling in capitalist societies, also recognised the significance of gender and 'race'.

In the 1990s, Marxist analysis of the relationship between the capitalist economy and schooling continued unabated, with theorists and researchers such as Apple (1996), Brosio (1994), Cole and Hill (1995), Green (1990), Hill (1990, 1996), Livingstone (1995),

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Margonis (1993), Rosenberg (1991), Whitty (1992) and University of Birmingham (CCCS) Education Group II (1991) all making valuable contributions to the neo-Marxist educational corpus. Indeed, as Michael Apple noted, far from pushing Marxist analysis of the economy and its relationships with other elements within the capitalist social formation off the map, 'the current neo-liberal attempts at reorganising schooling around its ideological and economic agenda has stimulated a return to an emphasis on economic arguments' (1996 p. 135). As the rule of capital was deepened by an increasingly powerful 'marketisation' (exacerbating an array of inequalities) of education, on the one hand, and with more thoroughgoing attempts (especially in Britain) to weld education to the perceived labour-power 'needs' of capital, on the other, it was no surprise that some resisted the temptations of postmodernism and focused upon education from a Marxist perspective.

Currently, within Marxist educational theory, there is a bifurca- tion between writers of the culturalist-humanist tradition (e.g. Apple, Whitty) and those (e.g. Hill, 1990; Hatcher and Troyna, 1994; Cole and Hill, 1995, 1996a, 1996b; Hill and Cole, 1995), who, while taking note of the developments in neo-Marxism since Althusser, are returning to a more structuralist analysis of the relationships between capital, state and education. This latter group, while recognising that the requirements of capital are not effected in an uncontested and deterministic way, propose an economistic correction to post-Althusserian relative autonomy theory. Whilst continuing to stress the ability of social actors to resist forms of sociality structured by the capital relation, such theorists recognise the over-arching power of capital. As Hatcher and Troyna have put it: 'the level of the economic does not merely provide a context, a set of limits; it actively intervenes in and shapes the political, the social, the cultural, the ideological' (1994 p. 159).

Others are attempting to work outside the two forks of the social reproductionist-resistance paradigm flowing from Bowles and Gintis (1976) and Willis (1997). Such theorists seek to break down debilitating dualisms - such as agency/structure, autonomy/solidarity, micro/macro perspectives - but through Marxism rather than postmodernism. Theorists and researchers in this group include: Rikowski (1995, 1996), who is developing a perspective on capitalist education and training based on an analysis of labour-power; Thorpe and Brady (1996), who are exploring the relationships between the labour process, labour-power, forms of labour and restructurings in education; and Hodgkinson (1991), who has theo- rised the institutional fragmentation of post-compulsory education

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and training and provided a model for understanding educational change using social form analysis. What unites these theorists is that, in various ways, they have been influenced by debates on Marxist theory within the Conference of Socialist Economists and/or have rethought capitalist schooling and training using theoretical resources from the 'Open Marxist' writings of theorists such as Bonefeld, Gunn, Holloway and Psychopedis and their collaborators (see Bonefeld et al, 1992a,b, 1995).

A fourth path, most obviously taken by Freeman-Moir (1992), involves going 'back to basics' in order to by-pass the theoretical and political problems thrown up by the old social reproductionist-resistance paradigm. Freeman-Moir does this through rethinking 'historical materialism'. However, he does not start out from the most obvious places within Marx's writings - The German Ideology, or the Preface and Introduction to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy - but from his Theses on Feuerbach. Freeman-Moir takes this route as he believes that it offers greater potential for welding theory to practice (peda- gogic and more broadly political) in ways in which the 'old' historical materialism (resting on the 'base/superstructure metaphor'), and the educational Marxism attached to it, deny, or at least make problematic.

Finally, an important neo-Marxist ethnographic literature devel- oped in the 1980s: on class, gender and 'race' (e.g. Walker, 1988; Wolpe, 1988); and specific learning practices in schools, communi- ties and families (Willis, 1990; Wexler, 1992; and others - for a summary and discussion see Livingstone, 1995). This work con- tinues to grow and also constitutes a valuable resource for many non- and anti-Marxists.

What should be clear by now is that it is totally inaccurate for Blake to claim that educational neo-Marxism was 'buried for good' in the 1970s. Having said that, we have to acknowledge that some neo-Marxists (such as Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren) have been seduced by notions that the modern era has ended and that we now live in postmodern times. It is, therefore, to the challenge heralded by a 'Left' 'postmodernism of resistance' that we now turn.

3. THE CHALLENGE OF 'RESISTANCE POSTMODERNISM'

Postmodernism, we believe, albeit unintentionally for many postmodernists, serves the interests of the current Radical Right hegemonic project. Its denial of the possibilities of mass structural change is conducive to the Radical Right's attempts to discredit socialism. This is apparent when the most 'Left/radical' strand of postmodernism is examined; the so-called 'postmodernism of resistance'.9

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A number of postmodernist writers have distinguished two oppos- ing strands of postmodernism, one reactionary, the other progressive (McLaren and Hammer, 1989; Aronowitz and Giroux, 1991; Zavarzadeh and Morton, 1991). The perceived differences have been outlined by Patti Lather (1991), who describes a 'postmodernism of reaction' and a 'postmodernism of resistance'. The former, she argues, is concerned with the collapse of meaning, with nihilism, and with cynicism. 'Postmodernism of resistance', on the other hand, Lather defines as participatory and dialogic and as encompassing pluralistic structures of authority. It is, she claims, non-dualistic and anti-hierarchical and celebrates multiple sites from which the word is spoken. Here, the subject is 'in-process' and capable of agency. Unlike the 'postmodernists of reaction' - who stress increased normalisation and regulation - 'postmodernists of resistance' see difference without opposition, personal autonomy and social relatedness. Whereas the former accept the inevitability of multinational hyperspace, the latter are into ecopolitics (Lather, 1991: 160-161). While we would agree with Lather's resume of some of the characteristics of what she describes as 'postmodernism of resistance', we would like to evaluate her claims about a separate 'postmodernism of resistance', one by one.

First, she states that it is 'participatory and dialogic', encompasses 'pluralistic structures of authority', is 'anti-hierarchical' and 'celebrates multiple sites from which the word is spoken'. Now, whilst the celebration of multiple voices (op cit. p. 112) has its strengths (letting everyone have a say, without intimidation), it also has its weaknesses. Assuming that these voices will sometimes conflict, should we confront their status and validity or simply assume that they are equally true (or false), equally revealing (or opaque) (Beyer and Liston, 1992 p. 385). In addition, an emphasis on making sure that the voices of the 'Other' become heard has made some postmodernists suspicious of or hostile towards 'community', which is seen as 'necessarily oppressive, patriarchal and limiting' (op cit. p. 380). This limits any possible socially transformative action to increasingly small and homogenous groups (ibid. - Apple, 1996, is among many who make similar criticisms).

This takes us to the second observation. The subject is 'in process' and 'capable of agency'. While 'agency' can have progressive implications, the fact that the agency advocated by the 'postmodernists of resistance' relates to localised action only renders it, over all, reactionary. Its rejection of the Enlightenment project of 'emancipation in a general sense' means that no major emancipatory changes in society are possible and it thus plays into the hands of those whose

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interests lie in the maintenance of national and global systems of exploitation and oppression.

Third, it is 'non-dualistic' and sees 'difference without opposition, personal autonomy and social relatedness'. It is indicative of the contradictory nature of postmodernism that Lather includes 'personal autonomy' here, since it is a concept clearly associated with the Enlightenment, an enterprise considered by postmodernists to have been superseded by postmodernism. As far as 'non- dualism' and 'difference without opposition' and 'social relatedness' are concerned, these are general features of postmodernism and some of its major problems. In particular, postmodernism is unable to recognise a major duality in capitalist societies; that of social class (for an extended analysis, see Cole and Hill, 1996b and Hill and Cole 1996).

Our three observations on the 'postmodernism of resistance' suggest that its usefulness as a resource for combating the politics of the Radical Right is negligible. Its relativism and apparent non- judgemental attitude make the notions of 'struggle' or 'resistance' either mis-directed, inappropriate or indeterminate ('resistance' against whom, or what - though 'where' has an answer in the local). These political deficiencies are underpinned by deeper epistemological and ontological aporias and abysses which shift postmodernism still further away from any kind of 'radical', 'Left' and especially collective politics through which progressive educational change could be effected. To build on this point, we need to return once more to Nigel Blake.

4. ROAD TO NOWHERE

In this section, we examine some of the debilitating consequences of Blake's mode of theorising. His postmodern 'attitude' is fairly common in the rising educational postmodernist literature. We would argue that Aronowitz and Giroux (1991) and Usher and Edwards (1994) take a similar stance. Thus, Blake's paper can be viewed as a case study of a wider tendency within the genre.

Blake utilises a 'mixed mode' of theorising where a dominant sceptical and deconstructive moment - a 'game of despair' (Cole and Hill, 1995) - runs counter to a 'rhetoric of hope'. The latter is tagged on at the end, in an attempt to redeem the situation and rise forth from an abyss containing nihilism and relativism resulting from prior postmodernist excesses.

Let us first set out the iconoclastic 'game of despair' that Blake constructs with such relish. There are several strands to this. First,

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Blake argues that postmodernism is not a new theory but pinpoints 'new developments in both society and culture and the relations between those two spheres' (p. 43). However, these 'new developments' in society are usually taken as the 'object' of discourse known as postmodernity within many accounts of postmodernism. As Usher and Edwards (1994) note, postmodernism can be viewed primarily as involving taking on a certain 'attitude' (sceptical, ironical, aesthetically inclined) towards the momentous social, economic and political changes of recent years. Fielding and Rikowski (1996) have made a distinction between postmodernism as 'subject' (how individ- uals 'feel' towards and experience these changes) and postmodernity as 'object'. 'Postmodernity' involves an acknowledgement of an agglomeration of concrete economic, social and political trends: the breakdown of Keynesian Welfarism; new modes of economic and social regulation and associated forms of industrial organisation - post-Fordism, neo-Fordism - following the demise of Fordist production regimes: the globalisation of capital; and the 'marketisation' of society, including increased privatisation and the establishment of quasi-market mechanisms and a 'contract culture' in a slimmed-down public sector.

Blake refuses to get involved in distinctions between postmodernity and postmodernism (examined by Hartley, 1994), and also between modernity, modernism and modernisation (p. 44). In doing so he fails to spell out the concrete social, economic and political changes that, earlier, he had argued were the key constituents of postmodernism. Blake's silence on the social concretisation of postmodernism leads him towards conflating postmodernity and -ism. The excuse he gives is that postmodernists typi- cally resist attempts to provide settled distinctions of postmodernism, postmodernity and related concepts. The upshot is that we have only a vague idea of what Blake means by 'postmodernism'. On the above analysis it seems that he is more interested in adopting the postmodern 'attitude' than bothering with grounded social analysis of postmodernity. The adoption of this cool, 'radical' stance towards social 'reality' and 'theory' is a prelim- inary softener for more daring manoeuvres.

Blake's next move is to throw a series of 'radical' post- ontologi- cal, epistemological and theoretical claims into the wash: following Lyotard, he argues against 'the universal validity of any single narrative, or theoretical 'story' concerning any human affairs' (p. 44); he questions the 'value' of any narrative on human affairs on the basis that they all represent certain social interests, whilst failing to provide any criteria or standards of value through which narratives

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might be judged (p. 45); the possibility or desirability of settling on any terms within a narrative are brought into question (ibid.); knowledge is always 'corrupt' as it rests on a power relation 'between the subject of knowledge and its object' (p. 55) - which is perhaps why Blake had earlier disdained to make the subject/object distinction for postmodernism/ity, for a postmodernist would not wish to 'dominate' the object under scrutiny.

The third part of Blake's view of postmodernism comprises certain radical social de-ontological claims concerning the 'self' or the 'ego'. He spurns concepts which draw upon notions of a self- contained ego, a unitary self and the 'stability of personal identity' (p. 59). The 'self' is constructed through and by 'discourse' and is 'indefinitely protean' (ibid.).

Finally, Blake takes a sceptical view towards any sort of moral project, noting that 'postmodern theory proper has had little to say about ethics, indeed seems pervasively sceptical of it.' (p. 59). It is this final move, the scepticism towards any reconstructive ethical project, which makes it impossible for the huge hole into which Blake has dug himself to be filled in. Only through forging new values, providing criteria for guiding judgement and the ability to rank actions and forms of behaviour, can get Blake, or anyone, get out of the subjec- tivist, relativist and nihilist position that he is in towards the end of his paper. Whilst arguing that he is not following a 'vulgar relativist' or nihilist route (p. 45), it is difficult to understand how Blake has failed to notice that he has taken himself on an intellectual journey of disso- lution from which there can be no recovery, no redemption.

Thus, near the end of this paper, when he attempts to take a different tack, and talks about a 'project of governing one's life ... by reference to ... a personal conception of a good life as a beauti- ful life ...' (p. 60), and grounding this in 'inter-subjectivity (when the 'subjects' participating in such dialogues have been dissolved into/through the molecules of 'discourse'), it is possible to see a feint yearning for something solid on which to ground a new project in educational theory. For Blake still holds fast onto something called the 'philosophy of education' - when previously casting severe doubt on the legitimacy of narrow, stifling intellectual disci- plines (see Blake, 1996 p. 43 and pp. 61-62 for his anti-disci- plines/re-engagement with philosophy of education shift).

Blake provides the perfect case study for indicating why we should resist/attack postmodernism. On his account, it has nothing positive to offer educational theory, or those attempting to effect radical change in education, or, finally, those attempting to rethink educational politics.

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5. CONCLUSION: COOL THEORY, INTEMPERATE EFFECTS

In this paper we demonstrated the falsity of Nigel Blake's claim that educational neo-Marxism died out in the 1970s. This was done through providing a brief history of Marxist educational theory for the 1980s and 1990s which highlighted the quantity, range and diversity of contributions. We could have cited many more texts and authors in support of our contention that it was not 'end time' for Marxist educational theory in the 1970s, but we wished to avoid 'bibliographic overload'. Bibliographies in our published texts (especially Cole and Hill, 1995, 1996a and b; Hill and Cole 1995; and Rikowski, 1996) provide readers with further evidence on the extent of the contributions by Marxist educational theorists from 1980 to the present day.

Secondly, we argued that 'Left' 'postmodernism of resistance' is a poor vehicle for combating the politics and practice of the Radical Right. It is a politically naive 'movement', involving inef- fectual (individual, small group and small scale) action at a time of increasing globalisation, internationalisation and marketisation of social relations. Furthermore, its reactionary and inappropriate practice (through celebrating localism) rules out any mass, class- based politics which would provide a substantial challenge to the rule of capital in contemporary social life. However, it is its relativism and 'non-judgemental' attitude - which paralyses efforts to rethink a politics for reversing social inequalities - that we find particularly debilitating.

This last point brings us to our third argument. Through a return to Nigel Blake's (1996) article, we revealed that postmodernism incorporates both relativism and nihilism. On Blake's account of postmodernism, ethical grounds for evaluating perspectives (political, epistemological or any other) are also denied. Thus, his broad rendering of postmodernism moves on a 'road to nowhere'. Attempts to provide a 'rhetoric of hope' near the end of his article, with references to 'dialogue', 'intersubjectivity' and a 'project of governing one's life', are utterly unconvincing. Blake's article can be read as a 'case study' which indicates why attacking postmodernism is the only option for those still interested in framing an educational politics aimed at effecting radical educational change.

Whilst Blake's theoretical 'position' appears to be 'cool' and daring - with its iconoclasm and undercutting of dualisms - it is

intemperate in its effects. As an intoxicating theoretical concoction, postmodernism fails to provide the basis for a sober analysis of existing social developments. The paralytic effects of its heady nihilism

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insulates the dominance of capital in contemporary social life from serious and challenging analysis.

Postmodernism is not just an immobiliser for forging theory and practice which challenges capital and its social forms and effects. Incorporated within it are the bad seeds of Nietzsche(anism) which bring with them a commitment to the establishment of a permanent 'order of rank' (particularly within education) which does not balk at human slavery (Waite, 1996). Such horrors lurk within the 'cool', chic and 'radical' underbelly of postmodernism, a theoretical virus which thrives within the conditions of capitalist technoculture (ibid). From this, it should be clear that in attacking postmodernism we are simul- taneously engaged in mortal combat with Nietzsche's program(me) for the establishment of the 'eternal return' of the rule of the 'herd' by the 'enlightened few'. Connections between Nietzsche's project, Nietzscheanism, postmodernism, Nietzsche's educational views and educational postmodernism will be explored in future work (Cole, Hill and Rikowski, 1997). For now, we hope that the arguments of this paper make some supporters of postmodernism think twice about its value for educational politics and practice.

6. NOTES

1 We prefer the nomenclature 'Radical Right' to 'New Right' as we believe that the Radical Right is not a new phenomenon. For an analysis of Radical Right thinking see Cole (1992, ch.6) and Hill (1989).

2 See, for example, Anyon (1983), Apple (1985, 1989), Arnot (1981), Aronowitz and Giroux (1986), Brosio (1985), Cole (ed) (1988), Collins and Gillespie (1983), Dale (1989), David (1980), Giroux (1983, 1989), Gordon (1984), Harris (1982, 1984), Hill (1989), Liston (1988), Price (1986), Sarup (1982), Sharp (1980, 1986), Smith (1984), University of Birmingham (CCCS) Education Group I (1981), Whitty (1985) and Wolpe (1985, 1988).

3 The following analysis draws heavily on Cole and Hill (1996a).

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Correspondence: Dr Glenn Rikowski School of Education University of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham B15 2TT email: [email protected]

Received: 28 August 1996 Accepted for publication (after revision): 8 October 1996

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