Page 178 - Cultural Studies Volume 11

172 CULTURAL STUDIES

The class basis of a ‘politics of meaning’ is expressed here with complete clarity;
what needs to be further clarified are the political consequences of potential and actual
conflicts between the ‘self’ interest and ‘meaning’ interest of ‘middle-income
people’. Or, more problematically, what if their ‘meaning’ interests are, in the end,
merely transmutations of their ‘self’ interest, which requires, among other things, as
both the Clinton Administration and the Tikkun ‘Platform for a Politics of Meaning’
suggest that the poor show its own ‘ethical seriousness’ (willingness to ‘work hard’,
to demonstrate ‘responsibility’, etc.) before they are deemed worthy of ‘massive
support’?
2 See Edward Said (1985); Robert J.Griffen (1989); Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan
Boyarin (1989); Said (1989).

References

Alcalay, Ammiel (1993) After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Besser, James (1993) ‘Opportunity of peace accord will also create new challenges for
organized Jewish community’, Syracuse Jewish Observer, 16(1):15.
Boyarin, Jonathan (1992) Storm from Paradise: The Politics of Jewish Memory,
Minneapolis: Univeristy of Minnesota Press.
Boyarin, Daniel and Boyarin, Jonathan (1989) ‘Toward a dialogue with Edward Said’,
Critical Inquiry, 15(3):626–33.
Ellis, Marc H. (1989) Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation: The Uprising and the
Future, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
——(1990) Beyond Innocence and Redemption: Confronting the Holocaust and Israeli
Power, San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Fiske, John (1992) ‘Cultural Studies and the culture of everyday life’, in Grossberg,
Nelson and Treichler (1992):154–73.
Fraser, Nancy (1990) ‘Rethinking the public sphere: a contribution to the critique of
actually existing democracy’, Social Text 25/26:56–80.
Griffin, Robert J. (1989) ‘Ideology and misrepresentation: a response to Edward Said’,
Critical Inquiry, 15(3):611–25.
Grossberg, Lawrence, Nelson, Cary and Treichler, Paula (1992) Cultural Studies, New
York: Routledge.
Lenin, V.I. (1974) Lenin on the Jewish Question, edited by Hyman Lumer, New York:
International Publishers.
Leon, Abram (1970) The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation, New York:
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Lerner, Michael (1992a) The Socialism of Fools: Anti-Semitism on the Left, Oakland:
Tikkun Books.
———(1992b) ‘Can the Democrats be stopped from blowing it again?’, Tikkun, 7(4):
7–10.
Mercer, Kobena (1992) ‘“1968”: Periodizing postmodern politics and identity’, in
Grossberg, Nelson and Treichler (1992):424–49.
Said, Edward (1985) ‘An ideology of difference’, Critical Inquiry, 15(3):33–58.
——(1989) ‘Response’, Critical Inquiry 15(3):634–6.
Tikkun (1992) ‘Platform for a “politics of meaning”’, 7(4):11–23.