Anders, I think it was, asks for someone to discuss the advantages of post-modern conceptual frameworks. My ignorance is boundless and my time limited (gotta go teach intro micro to business students -- not what I call high theory :) though my critique of NC theory, which highlights all the "standard" lefty/Marxist critiques, is basically a critique of NC theory as modernist) but let me try briefly to suggest a few post-modernish efforts to intervene in important and concrete political struggles. Part of the problem here is that people are using words loosely. Post-modern means a lot of different things to different people. Folks around Rethinking Marxism, for example, which I basically consider a kind of post-modern Marxism, do not all consider themselves post-modernists. One, in particular, said that, for him, overdetermination as a conceptual tool and post-modernism as a social phenomenon are distinct. So let's just be clear that we have not been clear about this. That is why it is a good idea, if we are serious about having a productive discussion and not just beating our chests and seeing who can thump louder (alpha male, alpha male!), to discuss specific ideas, as both Steve Cullenberg and Anders (?) have suggested in slightly different ways. That said, I want to refer to three relatively recent works: BREAKFAST OF BIODIVERSITY, by John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto, from Food First, 1995 DEVELOPMENT BETRAYED, by Richard Norgaard, Routledge, 1994 THE COMING PLAGUE, by Pulitzer Prize winner Laurie Garrett, 1994 All of these books are written in a thoroughly accessible manner, all of them engage in important current political struggles, and all of them are more or less explicitly arguments based on post-modern concepts and logical relations. BREAKFAST OF BIODIVERSITY is a great, short, very readable book about rainforest destruction. THE COMING PLAGUE is "one of the best science studies books I have ever read, and one of the most radical," according to a friend who is competent to judge these things (and decidedly anti-post-modern), about the political economy/ecology of public health. And DEVELOPMENT BETRAYED is a book-length critique of modernism (NC theory comes in for repeated attacks on just that basis) in the form of development theory and practice, and a post-modern analysis of the need for and possibilty of sustainable development. I have to go now but I'm going to send this out now as a teaser. I'll be back later this weekend with more about my take on post-modernism and what's valuable about these three books. Blair Blair Sandler [EMAIL PROTECTED]
