9 Between Modernism and Postmodernism: Castoriadis and the Politics of Heterodox Marxism

Abstract

In 'The postmodern imagination', Agnes Heller outlines what to her are characteristic differences between what she used to describe as 'forms of historical consciousness', in the case between 'the historical consciousness of unreflected generality' and of 'reflected generality', or, more simply, between the 'modern' and 'post-modern' manner of thinking about ourselves. Castoriadis always/already engaged in personal 'war of interpretation' with guardians of orthodox Marxism and the central committees of world communism. The woodcutters are not, to paraphrase Castoriadis, 'calculating machines'; adding and subtracting is rather an activity that has practical use in their lives, and thus which helps them to organise their world. Castoriadis is after all right: 'autonomy' is a value to which any left radicalism has to be addressed and part of the importance of The Imaginary Institution of Society is that it gives us insight into what a 'post-modern' reading of autonomy might. Keywords: Castoriadis; Marxism; modernism; post-modernism; woodcutters