a mode of intervention that takes the form of attacking academic conventions (precisely ‘the writing and arguing styles, the manner of speaking in the classroom and at conferences’ Wickham mentions, which I argue are symptomatic of a wider structure of power and inequality) can’t be recognised in this schema.

The work of Nikolas Rose is very good on this.

Glen, you’ll be happy to hear he draws heavily on Deleuze in his recent publications!

Hi sq! Dealing with the State as an institutional apparatus normally entails some form of representation, which is problematic in light of Spivak’s argument. ‘State’ here is a State power manifest and embodied in bureaucracies and filtered through media institutions… This is what I think Mark was calling the monolithic State??

To add to the above points from Chris:

1) Taking Faucault’s governmentality thesis on board we very well may have the ‘State’ running through our veins right now due to our biopolitical constitution.
1b) The withdrawal of the State from running bureaucracies and our exposure to privatised ‘public’ enterprises. So they are still governmental (for example, insurance companies), but they are not representations of the ‘State’. These are going to have to be engaged with at some point…
2) Brett’s paper on the argument between Agamben and Negri over ‘constituted power’ versus ‘constituting power’ (potential) is interesting.
3) Josh raises the problem of ‘resistance’ having to signify ‘politicalness’ for it to be taken as ‘political’. I agree this is problematic when acts or events may not be explicitly ‘political’, in the sense of trying to bring about political ends, but may be politicised (TJ Hickey event) or stem from stem from other problems that should be politicised (MacqFields riots).

Ok, to return to Mel’s original post.

Anyone see the new Hitchhikers Guide yet? Cult Stud intellectuals are the anti-Vogons of the universe! haha! Yeah!

It is patently absurd to suggest that there is such a thing as a ‘cultural studies intellectual’ that is not a number of other subject positions at the same time. I think I agree with Wickham’s (rhetorical) point that somebody who was a (pure) cult studs intellectual would never be able to work within the State or any other governmental apparatus. Indeed, but I can certainly mix with governmental types (eg road safety people). I just occupy a slightly different subject position and speak in a such a manner that uses simpler words (and less swearing;).

Surely what Wickham needs to also separate (beyond the multiplicity that is the subjectivity of the cult studs intellectual (or postgrad!)) are the different modes of academic practice and the forms that such practices take when engaging with the State or other governmental institutions.

Mark, it seems to me that you are arguing for a form of politics derived from a contestation over who ‘owns’ the hegemonic order, yes? Are you suggesting that cult studs people are useless in this regard because we seem to run around saying “Hegemonic order is bad, mm’kay?” no? and then we discover all these other contestations that distracts us from the ‘real’ task at hand because they seemingly pale in comparison to the hegemonic title fight, yes?

I should also clarify that I’m not trying to defend NSM theory per se, nor Gary’s article, which as I noted, I haven’t read for some years.

But I still do think there’s a Leviathan in the room.

As I was saying, you’re conflating social movements and social interaction. The example of Peanuts is a reductio ad absurdum, and quite frankly is absurd. Some things - indeed anything - can be politicised, but it’s hard to see offhand how comic books could be. If however, a comic for kids were to feature a lesbian couple as parents, Dr Nelson et al would be screaming if it were in school libraries. There’d then be a relation to the State - it’s potential. That’s not to say it’s omnipresent.

It’s a mistake as well to see the State as a bloc. This is one of the canards of neo-Marxist state theory - which was demolished not just by Foucault but from within a Marxist position by Poulantzas. If you see State power as monolithic - either to be ignored, resisted or submitted to, then that’s how you trap yourself in a binary.

I have no idea what agenda I’m supposed to be pushing. So perhaps, then, Chris, I’m being “conceptually lead footed”. But I remain to be convinced of that.

As to the cultural practices of queer people, my friend Michael made the point on a thread recently that:

I have had the experience for the greater part of my life knowing that every time I had sex I was committing a criminal act. It wasn’t until gay law reform in Qld back in Nov 1990 that I could say “free at last free at last”

There are people around - Family Firstians and the like and people like Tony Abbott - who if they thought they could get away with it, would like to recriminalise queer sex. Have a look at what’s happening all over the US and tell me that queer practices are not the object of attention by the State.

Friends of mine, to their cost, have also suffered vicious and violent attacks for their queer cultural practices in public. To some degree again this is an illustration of the fact that subcultural practices do not exist in isolation, but in relation to a multiplicity of social and political power structures. There’s a clear and direct link between State-sanctioned homophobia and the subcultural practices of police (if you like) and suffering and death. Again, this is more stark in the US where hate crimes are rife and it’s part of the Republican agenda to actively resist seeing them as such.

I’m wholly in agreement with the slogan “get your laws off your bodies” and part of making it real is to act as if the laws themselves were irrelevant, but that doesn’t make them go away. That’s what I’m trying to get at - to argue that the State is not the only legitimate site for political activity and agency easily slips into the State doesn’t matter as a legitimate site for political activity.

I don’t at all argue that the State is an inescapable site of political engagement in the sense that any cultural practice is only political if it consciously sees itself in relation to the State. That’s a total misunderstanding of what I’m saying. My point rather is that the State is part of the political field, and while power may indeed be capillary, that doesn’t mean that all action has the same potential to achieve its ends. It’s a difference - in Spinozan terms if you like - between potential and power. Foucault distinguished between power and domination, and was well aware that domination is the archetypical model of State power. There is still space for resistance and power is still relational when domination is at work, but that space is incredibly narrow.

Josh writes:

This reaffirms the binary, again locating the State as the only legitimate site for political activity and agency. Not only does it absent queer and feminist activities, but it conversely depoliticises the culutral activities of the mainstream by valorising resistance. Thus, it puts the weight on cultural activities to ‘be’ political in the same way it suggests that political action must engage with the State as a power bloc.

I’m not quite sure if I’ve grasped the meaning of this, but I’m certainly not in the business of devalorising feminist and queer culture and politics. I don’t follow the logic, there, I’m afraid, and would be happy to be enlightened.

To take another example to make my point more concrete, Glen linked on his blog to a post on another blog about an attack made by Andrew Bolt on a commercial tv programme where the recent bod-mod conference at Macquarie was denigrated. It’s reasonable, eminently reasonable, particularly in light of things like the attacks on Negri’s right to speak at Sydney Uni and Nelson’s overturning of ARC Grant decisions last year, as well as the increasing intervention of DEST directly in curriculum and course decisions at universities, to suggest that such an intervention might lead down the track to all sorts of unwelcome consequences for people who want to do such work. The intellectual Right in Australia, as in the US, are practising their own Gramscianism in seeking to hegemonise academia. And in this the State is a very powerful actor. In my eight years of teaching in Universities, I saw people afraid to speak out. It’s now gone beyond budget cuts to direct and indirect policing of what people can research and teach and say, and it’s only going to get worse.

My political point is that if you ignore the State, it won’t go away.

Anyway, Chris - your comments seemed rather hostile. I don’t recognise what I wrote in what you wrote. If you think I’m pushing some sort of agenda, I’d prefer that you articulate that more openly so that I can respond. Potentially this could continue to be an interesting discussion but it might be helpful if some of the affect, if you like, were expressed.

But I have the feeling that both you and Josh have attributed to me views which I don’t hold and which aren’t actually there in what I’ve written.

But, hey, intention, author and all that!

No - except in a very broad sense. That’s a caricature of my argument. Your conflating social movements