The postmodern left: part two

We think Hamilton should come clean at his next confession and admit that he’s been trying to pull a fast one for quite some time now, by pretending to be left. But in this he’s not alone. While Hamilton may not be officially aligned with the ALP, his call for what amounts to a negation of the spirit of democracy associated with Marx is all too typical of a left that dares not speak its name - a left that isn’t even “centrist”, but conservative. The left that is right.

This left doesn’t want us to go on daring to know; it wants us to go to church.

Marxism, Derrida reminds us, and by “Marxism” he means the promise of democracy, of democracy to come, is “heir to a spirit of the Enlightenment which must not be renounced” (Specters of Marx). Through its cowardly renunciation of that spirit, the postmodern left puts the future at risk of returning to the past.

In the event of that happening, what would be left to say?

Read part one here.