Page 259 - Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies
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ANGELA MCROBBIE 247

            discourses  which  we  inhabit,  then  new  kinds  of  sensibilities  begin  to  be
            clearly  discernible.  To  anybody  interested  in  the  sociology  of  youth  or  in
            youth  subcultures  this  is  immediately  obvious  because  of  the  strong
            symbolic  coding  which   accompanies  these  ‘different,  youthful,
            subjectivities’  (McRobbie,  1994).  But  for  the  mainstream  left,  the  very
            question  of  subjectivity  is  difficult  to  swallow  because  of  its  particular
            theoretical  legacy  through  Lacanian  psychoanalysis  and  then  through  the
            later  work  of  Foucault  where  the  subject  shows  itself  able  to  construct
            itself  through  ‘technologies  of  the  self’  (Foucault,  1988).  The  sheer
            eclecticism of New Times, as well as the attempt to use theory to construct
            a political practice which takes into account difference and which actively
            recognizes the autonomous dynamics of the social movements and the new
            politics of sexuality, ethnicity, ecology (and indeed kind of pressure-group
            politics and even the politics of charity), raises the question of a pluralism
            which  is  not  merely  a  rerun  of  classical  liberal  pluralism  but  something
            rather different.
              Much of this was heresy to others on the left including the academic left.
            From New Left Review to Capital and Class, from the New Socialist to the
            New Statesman, from New Formations to Feminist Review, ‘New Times’
            was  either  denounced  for  its  disavowal  of  politics  altogether,  or  for  its
            virtual  embracing  of  the  language  of  Thatcherism  (and  more  recently
            Majorism)  as  a  desperate  attempt  to  tune  into  what  it  was  that  made
            Thatcher click with ordinary people in the hope that if her lessons could be
            learnt  then  the  left  might  be  able  to  construct  for  itself  a  more  electable
            platform.  (McGuigan  characterizes  Stuart  Hall’s  question  baldly  as  ‘Why
            did  Thatcherism  become  so  popular?’  [McGuigan,  1992].)  There  was  a
            more  muted  response  from  Mike  Rustin  (also  published  in  New  Times),
            who argued that the project of change and transformation being described
            by  the  New  Times  writers  was  indeed  part  of  the  absolute  logic  of
            Thatcher’s  radical  restructuring  of  the  whole  fabric  of  British  society.  At
            the  same  time  ‘Thatcherism  may  be  understood  as  a  strategy  of  post-
            Fordism  initiated  from  the  perspective  of  the  Right’  (Rustin,  1989:319).
            Rustin therefore secures the New Times analysis to a more familiar political
            anchor. He is saying that market forces, enterprise culture and the whole
            programme of privatization are what have effected the other shifts at the
            level of culture and everyday life. This is a somewhat nuanced account of
            New Times and it chooses to all but ignore the political challenge it begins
            to  pose  to  old  ‘New  Left’  thinking.  Instead  it  is  seen  purely  as  a  new
            complicity:  ‘The  positive  emphases  given  to  modernisation,  consumption
            and individualism are instances of the tacit accommodation to the values of
            resurgent capitalism’ (313).
              The various writers closely linked with the journal Capital and Class are
            even  more  scathing  in  their  condemnation  of  New  Times.  In  a  string  of
            articles published over a period of five years they take the kind of writing
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