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From: John Ransom <ransom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 22:13:52 -0400 (EDT)
I know that Connolly doesn't *say* he likes the repressive hypothesis. My
point--without a doubt clumsily made--was that Connolly was perhaps
committed to a backdoor version of the repressive hypothesis with his
version of the "politics of difference." If what's bad about power is
that it creates/suppresses difference and otherness, then the kind of
polity we should endorse, the kind we can go on to make normative claims
about, the kind that is particularly well-suited to the postmodern
condition, is the kind that refuses to suppress difference and goes
beyond merely tolerating it to actively encouraging it. I quoted from p.
144 of Connolly's _Augustinian Imperative_ for this point and those
interested can see that and surrounding pages.
My question is: isn't Connolly's argument an updated version of the kind
that the Frankfurt School made (in works like Marcuse's _One Dimensional
Man_, to take an easy example)? Doesn't he view power as essentially
repressive, despite his discussion of the creation of difference that
power then goes on to suppress and "Other-ize"?
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