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Northwestern University Law Review, Summer
1987, 81 Nw. U.L. Rev. 941
Between
Dewey and Gramsci: Unger's Emancipatory Experimentalism
By
Cornel West
Roberto
Unger's distinctive contribution to contemporary social thought is to
radically deepen and sharpen John Dewey's notion of social experimentation
in light of the crisis of Marxist theory and praxis. Unger's fundamental
aim is to free Marxist conceptions of human society-making from
evolutionary, deterministic, and economistic encumbrances. He seeks to
accomplish this by building upon Deweyan concerns with the plethora of
historically specific social arrangements and with the often overlooked
politics of personal relations between unique and purposeful individuals.
Unger's fascinating effort stakes out new discursive space on the
contemporary political and ideological spectrum. This space is neither
simply left nor liberal, Marxist nor Lockean, anarchist nor Kantian.
Rather, Unger's perspective is both post-Marxist and post-liberal; that
is, it consists of an emancipatory experimentalism that promotes permanent
social transformation and perennial self-development toward ever
increasing democracy and individual freedom.
Yet, in contrast to most significant social thinkers, Unger's viewpoint is
motivated by explicit religious concerns -- such as kinship with nature as
seen in romantic love, or transcendence over nature as manifested in the
hope for eternal life. In this way, Unger highlights the radical
insufficiency of his emancipatory experimentalism -- though it speaks best
to penultimate human matters. For Unger, ultimate human concerns are
inseparable from, yet not reducible to, the never-ending quest for social
transformation and self-development.
In this Essay I shall argue three claims regarding Unger's project. First,
I shall suggest that his viewpoint can best be characterized as the most
elaborate articulation of a Third-Wave Left romanticism now sweeping
across significant segments of the First World progressive intelligentsia
(or what is left of it!). Second, I will show that this Third-Wave Left
romanticism is discursively situated between John Dewey's radical liberal
version of socialism and Antonio Gramsci's absolute historicist conception
of Marxism. Third, I shall highlight the ways in which this provocative
project -- though an advance beyond much of contemporary social thought --
remains inscribed within a Eurocentric and patriarchal discourse. This
discourse not only fails to theoretically consider racial and gender forms
of subjugation, but also remains silent on the feminist and anti-racist
dimensions of concrete progressive political struggles.
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