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PARTISAN REVIEW
very ability
to
unmask interests
IS
a tribute to the possibility of disinter–
ested knowledge.
The concept of hegemony, as it is appropriated by the transforma–
tionists, is no clearer. When one culture influences another, the influence
is often characterized as hegemony. But it is not plausible to regard all
cultural influence as hegemonic, if this means that it is coercive or con–
trary to the interests of the influenced country. As pizza became popular
in this country, perhaps Italy became more powerful - but not at our
expense. If power includes the realization of one's values, the spread of
Western- style democratic institutions around the world increases the
power of the West, but to the benefit, not the detriment, of the new
democracies. Denouncing all outside influence that alters indigenous cul–
tures as "cultural hegemony" implies that cultures have nothing to learn
from each other. Ironically, it is an extraordinarily reactionary view, a
yearning, apparently, for the primordial tribes that dotted the planet five
thousand years ago, before any culture bestirred itself to dominate an–
other - the world before cultural hegemony.
Replacing the disinterested pursuit of truth with interest-based
rhetoric makes, in classic terms, will rather than reason predominant.
Marxist theory, correctly understood, says Lentricchia, is "a form of will
to
power." Similarly, harking back to the Greek Sophists, Fish has em–
phasized that the goal of rhetoric is simply to prevail, by whatever means
are at one's disposal. On this view, argument is a test of wills conducted
with verbal weapons, not an exchange of ideas in the pursuit of truth. If
there is such a thing as truth, then the person who is open
to
persuasion,
who can give up beliefs that are not well-founded, who is therefore
open to the truth, is better off than the willful person who insists on
"winning" every argument, a closed soul who can learn nothing. If there
is no such thing as truth, then there is nothing but winning - and maybe
not even that , since presumably there wou ld also be no truth
to
the
question of who won.
Step
7:
Race, Class, and Gender:
Traditional social reformers tried to
create a society in which each individual would be able to fulfill his or
her potential. But the group-interest thesis requires that social goals be
framed in terms of the power of groups, not the aspirations of individu–
als. Marx singled out class as the critical category and provided a theory
of history to justifY this choice. Recent thinkers emphasize race and gen–
der as well. The emphasis on race, class, and gender has less to do with a
general theory of social and historical dynamics than with a theory of
oppression. The argument for focusing on race, class, and gender is not
so much that they are the moving forces of history as that they identify
the most oppressed groups. Occasionally someone mentions that people
