Pragmatism Modified and the False Consciousness Problem
![handle is hein.journals/scal63 and id is 1777 raw text is: PRAGMATISM MODIFIED AND THE
FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS
PROBLEM*
MARI J. MATSUDA**
I. INTRODUCTION
It was Here who saw possibilities of mixing his own formulas through
re-mixing pre-recorded sound.
-Houston A. Baker, Jr.'
In calling this Comment Pragmatism Modified, I allude to Cath-
arine MacKinnon's Feminism Unmodified-her refusal to move her fem-
inism over to accommodate Marxism, liberalism, or any other pre-
feminist theory.2 If feminism is not moving, perhaps pragmatism can
bend toward feminism and other liberation-ended newcomers to theoreti-
cal discourse, including critical race theory.3
* © 1990 Mari J. Matsuda. All Rights Reserved.
** Associate Professor of Law, University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law.
B.A. 1975, Arizona State University; J.D. 1980, University of Hawaii; L.L.M. 1983, Harvard Law
School. The author thanks Eric Castro, Kimberle Crenshaw, Lillie Hsu, Charles R. Lawrence III,
and the participants in this Symposium for useful comments. Thanks also to Lisa Lim, research
assistant, and to the reference librarians at Stanford Law School for expert footnote aid.
1. H. Baker, Sounding Post-modernism: Hybridity, The Rap Race, and Pedagogy for the
1990's 2 (1989) (unpublished manuscript). This line refers to Kool DJ Here's use of turntables and
hip-hop acoustics. Professor Baker's choice to take the text of urban rap seriously is an example of
the expanded inquiry I advocate in this essay for pragmatists.
2. C. MAcKINNoN, FEMINISM UNMODIFIED (1987). See also C. MACKINNON, TOWARD A
FEMiNIsT THEORY OF THE STATE (1989) (providing an analysis of politics, sexuality, and the law
from the perspective of women).
3. Critical race theory, as I use it, refers to the work of progressive legal scholars of color
who are attempting to develop a jurisprudence that accounts for the role of racism in American law
and that works toward the elimination of racism as part of a larger goal of eliminating all forms of
oppression. Works I would include in this movement are, inter alia, Austin, Sapphire Bound], 1989
Wis. L. REv. 539; D. BELL, AND WE ARE NOT SAVED (1987); Calmore, Exploring the Significance
of Race and Class in Representing the Black Poor, 61 OR. L. REv. 201 (1982); Crenshaw, Race,
Reform and Retrenchment Transformation and Legitimation in Anti-Discrimination Law, 101
HARV. L. REv. 1331 (1988); Dalton, Aids in Blackface, 1989 DAEDALUS 205; Delgado, When a
Story Is Just a Story: Does Voice Really Matter?, 76 VA. L. REv. 95 (1989); Lawrence, The Id, the
Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning With Unconscious Racism, 39 STAN. L. REV. 317 (1987);
Lopez, The Work We Know So Little About, 42 STAN. L. REv. 1 (1989); Matsuda, Public Response
1763](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/scal63&div=51&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Pragmatism Modified and the False Consciousness Problem
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