Social Sciences in China Review

No.4, 2017

The Post-Radical Spectrum of Ideas since the May 1968 in France (Abstract)

Song Xiaojie

Marxist critical discourse has been included into the landscape of postmodernism, and the post-radical spectrum of ideas is the direct product of the diagnosis of this discourse on the post-Fordism transformation and its chain effects of contemporary capitalism since the May 1968 in France. Around “whither Marxism,” there are two different logical approaches. One is a path of post-Marxist deconstructivism that highlights the postmodern foundation of contemporary capitalist social transformation. On the basis of complete postmodernist logical foundation, it clearly declares the complete departure of the postmodernist political discourse from Marxist traditional revolutionary discourse. The other, abiding by neo-Marxist conciliationism, denies the substantive changes in nature of contemporary capitalism. Accepting some rational principles of postmodernism, it tries to reconstruct a contemporary Marxism suitable for new historical conditions. The former approach, using the fundamental principles of postmodernism, completely dissolves the efficacy of Marxism; while the latter focuses on finding the historical continuity between Marxism and postmodernism. Essentially, both basically ignore the real foundation of the revolutionary subject and the liberation of mankind due to their postmodern metaphysical planning, abstract and empty political program, and aesthetic and utopian revolutionary narratives. Therefore they inevitably deviate from Marxism.