Doreen Massey太毒了

Moreover, the issue is reinforced in Soja's book because we are given clues as to what he was trying to establish himself as. We are told, for instance, that the author once went for a trip around Los Angeles with Fredric Jameson and Henri Lefebvre. What are we to make of this information? Perhaps what is being communicated i s the sense o f an in-crowd, and the fact that the author may be part of it. Thus, Soja refers to Jameson: 'Fredric Jameson, perhaps the pre-eminent American Marxist literary critic' (p. 62). Jameson repays the compliment: 'that new spatiality implicit in the post-modern (which Ed Soja's Postmodern Geographies now places on the agenda in so eloquent and timely a fashion)' (1989, p . 45). Soja refers to Harvey: 'A brilliant example of this flexible halfway house of Late Modern Marxist geography is Harvey's recent paper ...' (p. 73) and Harvey is duly quoted o n the back o f Soja's book: 'One o f the most challenging and stimulating books ever written on the thorny issue ...'. On the back of Harvey's book we have Soja: 'Few people have penetrated the heartland of contemporary cultural theory and critique as explosively or as insightfully as David Harvey'. 
Now, let u s be clear what i s being argued here. First o f all, on the particular issue of quotes on the back of books, it is not sour grapes! Many of us are asked to participate in this kind of thing, and quite a few refuse. I realize that the pressure initially comes from publishers. It is part of the advertising to have ' "I think it is absolutely wonderful" - Big Name' or ' "Best thing since sliced bread" - Important Academic' on a book. I t establishes, supposedly, its credentials. I also realize that the competitive pressures towards this kind of thing are probably far worse in the USA than the ones I know in the United Kingdom. But still, ought we to go along with it? My own reasons for refusing in the past to write such plaudits have been based on straightforward dislike of the big-name syndrome and the individualism (and competitiveness) it implies. At least those of us supposedly on the left could refuse to participate on the grounds both of anti-elitism and of the recognition that research and the development of ideas is in reality (and could be even more) more of a collective process than that. Perhaps these are issues which we should debate openly. But second, neither is it being pretended that this is a new phenomenon or specific to these authors. It is neither; and indeed I am sure that the geographers involved here would share some of my reservations. Nor, third and most certainly, is it being argued that we should not be complimentary to each other, and congratulatory on each other's achievements. (Soj'a can be very nasty about less eminent figures - 'self-serving' is one adjective he employs, on p . 73.) The combination of all these characteristics of style and presentation is, however, alienating. It seems designed t o create a sense o f a centre and a periphery. If the arguments cited earlier are correct and academics (and especially white male academics) today are feeling that there is a loss of status, a feeling that we (they) are not being regarded with the customary awe (at least among those from whom most academics are accustomed to receive it - those on the currently fashionable 'margins' never cared much for most o f us anyway), then this is not the way to regain any kind of respect. This kind of response to a crisis chimes only too well with that negative aspect o f postmodernist analysis which can only confirm the mutual incomprehensibility of self-defining groups, and greet i t with a shrug of indifferent shoulders. On the other hand, it is a style which is in total contradiction t o that more emancipatory aspect of postmodernism, the pulling down of hierarchies, the entry of the previously marginalized into the central forum of debate.