摘要
美国左翼文化理论与批评在20世纪80-90年代达到了一个高峰:杰姆逊的马克思主义文艺理论、萨义德的东方主义批判以及后现代主义、后殖民主义、女性主义理论与批评在美国人文学术界掀起了左翼知识界反思西方现代性、批判当代资本主义文化的浪潮。这股左翼思潮来源于60-70年代西欧(特别是法国)激进的左翼社会与思想运动,在美国80年代的学术界产生了广泛影响,并在全世界广为传播。西方左翼文化理论对西方现代性的文化维度作了深刻的剖析与批判。推动了西方知识界对现代性的反思以及对当代西方资本主义文化现象的认识。但是,左翼文化理论与批评在批判资本主义文化商品化的同时,无法避免学术理论自身被商品化的怪圈,从20世纪90年代开始,日益走上精英主义的道路,跟当代社会实践与大众越来越脱节;而且,在右翼文化政治越来越支配西方社会的氛围中,西方左翼知识界的否定性立场也日益失去具体实际的对象而趋向空洞化,缺乏社会变革的参与感,没有任何建设性方案,从而使左翼文化批评越来越边缘化,陷入深刻的危机之中。
This essay comments on the crisis of western intellectual Left through the case of American academic left, especially in the fields of cultural theory and criticism. The U. S. academic left cultural theory and criticism boomed in the 1980s and the 1990s, as a result of Edward Said＇s monumental work on Orientalism and Fredric Jameson＇s neo-Marxist theory of postmodernism. Poststructuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism and feminism became dominant critical models in the humanities, through incorporation of French and Frankfort critical theories inspired largely by leftist social movements in the 1960s. The trend of American academic left has had a widespread, global impact. The Western left＇s critique of capitalist modernity, particularly on its cultural dimensions, has undoubtedly left an enduring legacy for understanding modernity and seeking changes for a more just and democratic world. However, the western intellectual left finds itself caught in the very vicious circle of commodification which it critiques most vehemently, unable to resist its own metamorphosis from an interventionist endeavor to an intellectual elitism, divorced from social practice and popular movements. Under the current right wing ideological domination, the western intellectual lef＇s negative critique become increasingly vacuous and marginalized, as its exclusive, jargon-ridden academic discourse invites ideological foreclosure rather than social engagement.
出处
《学术月刊》
CSSCI
北大核心
2008年第2期37-43,共7页
Academic Monthly
关键词
西方左翼知识界
学院化
体制化
精英化
Western intellectual Left, commodification, institutionalization, intellectual elitism
