Nietzschean theory retrofitted a postmodern anticolonialism that Marxist anti-imperialism already held

Evidence

Spitzer and his Auerbach as well as they did, and that he certainly was not ‘propagandistic’ in the way the 1960s’ radicals usually were. One of Said’s notable contributions to the American Left, in fact, is that he, perhaps more than anyone else, has taught this Left how to build bridges between the liberal mainstream and avant-garde theory. The range of erudition has been a considerable asset, though not everyone who wrote from the Marxist position was necessarily less erudite. And there certainly is an eloquence, a style. But the notable feature, underlying all the ambivalences, is the anti- Marxism and the construction of a whole critical apparatus for defining a postmodern kind of anti-colonialism. In this Said was certainly among the first, and a setter of trends. The Marxist tradition had been notably antiimperialist; the Nietzschean tradition had had no such credentials. Now it transpires that that is precisely what had been wrong - not with the Nietzschean intellectuals but with ami-imperialism itself. It should have been Nietzschean and now needed to do some theoretical growing up. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 947

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the research on strategic essentialism: this is the discourse-first, Nietzschean move that Ahmad charges with evacuating material/class analysis from postcolonial theory. — connects to: A new post-1970s left intellectual combined Third World rhetoric with anticommunism and Nietzschean post-structuralism — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 791; Marxian theory is structurally unable to grasp modern imperialism; Nietzsche is the source of the principal theses of postmodern theory — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 268 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Ahmad implies the Nietzschean turn stripped anti-imperialism of its class content — a specific charge worth testing against the strategic essentialism genealogy from Foucault to Spivak.

Broader Connections

• Nietzsche is the source of the principal theses of postmodern theory #contradicts (0.80) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 268
• Anti-colonial critique before Said was overwhelmingly Marxist-affiliated #corroborates (0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 320
• Marxian theory is structurally unable to grasp modern imperialism #contradicts (0.75)