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VersusEthicalSubstance
Morality
FREDRIC JAMESON
152
Jameson
ofone'scommitment
tothatongoingcollective
ty,a failure
projectwhichessentially
which
the
laws
those
defines
"an
offense
destroys
relationships
against
community:
would
to suchoffenses
makecommonpursuit
ofthegoodpossible....Theresponse
themto havethereby
excluded
haveto be thatoftakingthepersonwhocommitted
of
himself
or herself
fromthecommunity"
(142). Thereis thenherea conception
someofthenewer
thegroupas a collective
project,whichalreadybeginsto suggest
towardswhichourcontemporaries
seemto
aboutgroupformation
waysofthinking
be feeling
theirway-namelythenotionof Utopiaas a stateof seige,as a permaas vividin UrsulaLe Guin'sidea of a
community,
something
nently
beleaguered
it
in
notion
of the"group-in-fusion."
of
as
is
Sartre's
Utopia scarcity
thatMacIntyre
reYet it is precisely
fromthestandpoint
of anti-Utopianism
theNietzschenouncestheactivepartofhisMarxianheritage-aswellas repudiating
an UtopiaoftheUbermensch
andindeedall overtly
andcauses
politicalmovements
is at firstlinguistic
andWittgensteinian:
"Both[NietHeretheargument
generally.
a newmorality,
but
zscheandSartre]sawtheirowntaskas inpartthatof founding
as eachis
inthewritings
of bothitis at thispointthattheirrhetoric-very
different
assertion
fromtheother-becomescloudyand opaque,and metaphorical
replaces
The
and
the
Sartrean
Ubermensch
Existentialist-cum-Marxist
belongin
argument.
thepages of a philosophical
bestiaryratherthanin seriousdiscussion.Bothby
mostpowerful
andcogentinthenegative
areattheirphilosophically
contrast
partof
discussionof
theircritiques"(21). Muchthe sameis impliedin his intermittent
of future
socialistor communist
societiesare
Marxism
itself,wheretheprojections
on thegroundsthat
as emptyof content
and thusas nonphilosophical,
dismissed
whatone cannotsay is notto be considered
thinking.
seemworth
Two featuresof thisrejectionof theUtopianand theprophetic
the
overtones
of
the
which
The
first
has
to
do
with
judgement,
Popperian
noting.
in
visionofthefuture
wantedsomehow
tobe predictive
wouldimplythatMarxism's
some "scientific"sense.MacIntyre
reasserts
theRenaissanceand Machiavellian
thenecessarily
unforeseeable
notionoffortunaas thepredictably
unpredictable,
formof future
context
ofthegreatest
to
interest
events,butthisin a verydifferent
of
features
peoplein the fieldof culturalstudies.For one of theotherstriking
of contempobookis oneofthenewestand mostprofound
tendencies
MacIntyre's
ingeneral,
of narrative
itselfas a
namelytheincreasing
foregrounding
rarythought
also
of
human
instance
fundamental
argued
understanding
(something dramatically
on storytelling
is ofcoursea
Theinsistence
inPaul Ricoeur'srecentTempsetr&cit).
as it does a fundaof MacIntyre's
Aristotelianism,
implying
component
significant
ofa lifeanditssocialrolesandpossitheintelligibility
between
mentalrelationship
oftheincreasing
reification-that
butitis alsoa crucialmoveinhiscritique
bilities;
ethicalcategories.
is, de-narrativization-of
contemporary
is thatitrecapitTheotherpointtobe madeaboutMacIntyre's
anti-Utopianism
ofUtopian
the
Marxism
ulatesoneofthegreatdebateswithin
itself,
namely critique
at theclimacsocialism."Theyhaveno idealstorealize,"criedMarxoftheworkers
tic momentof his address on the Paris Commune; rather,theirtask consistedin
uncoveringand revealingthe new formsof cooperativeand collectivesocial relationshipsthathad alreadybegun to emergewithinthe intersticesof the capitalist
Morality& Ethics
153
Jameson
154