I think a lot of post-structuralist theory is of use for the progress of anarchist theory. They might be extremely negative, and it all might seem extremely pessimistic; I think it would be fair to even characterize a lot of it as counter-revolutionary in some sense, but certainly not in any traditional, right-wing reactionary sense. I think the suspicions they raise of instrumental rationality and the totalizing effect of ideology even on us so-called radicals can only be a good thing. Not every philosophy is perfect. It may be unpleasant for some on this board to hear this, but I think a lot of classic social anarchism isn't devoid of potentially detrimental ideology. And I stress the word "potentially." I just think there are several things in poststructuralism that are especially of use to anarchism; there are a lot of anti-authoritarian spirited insights to be found in Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Frankfurt School, etc. Not a lot of it may vibe with everything Marx or Kropotkin says, but I think that's perhaps needed. And where they're wrong, they're wrong. Just as Marx has been wrong on multiple occasions--- but we don't call his whole spiel bullshit.
I do understand a lot of the criticism and agree with much of it. There is a lot of intellectual posturing in the way a lot of these people write. It gives off a very elitest vibe, that very much contradicts a lot of the actual anti-authoritarian content of the writing which makes it all seem a bit disingenuous. At any rate, if one can look past that, and in some cases separate the philosophy from the philosopher (mainly thinking about Heidegger here), there is a lot of good stuff to be drawn from it for our movement towards a more just society.
On a related note, I really think fallibilism is a very important thing for us anarchists. We should believe what we believe but we should remain suspicious of our own ideological tendencies. We know the extent ideology affects society, we shouldn't think we are immune or have completely conquered it. We need to remain suspicious. I think this is what post-structuralism is especially good for.
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Haven't been on libcom for a while. But most of this discussion has been pretty interesting.
I quite enjoy reading some so-called post-structuralist authors. I think the term 'post-structuralism' is a little bit of a strawman (when applied to to fairly different bodies of work such as Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida and whatever else). That said. This strawman has basically been perpetuated by various sections of higher education and a lot of shit work has been produced as a result (Homi Bhabha sticks in my mind right now, but I'm sure there are others). I think some of this is more observable in certain authors rather than in all of the people put under the umbrella term. Particularly Lyotard and Baudrillard. Both these authors are particularly annoying because they make claims ( I'm thinking here of Lyotard's guff in The Postmodern Condition about flying to japan, listening to reggae, eating McDonalds, wearing French perfume, whatever, whatever, whatever) that when pushed for evidence, or challenged for being shit, are met with 'oh but it doesn't claim to be a sociology' or something like this. Also the meta-narrative stuff. People who use this term in relation to Marxism, in my experience, have never read Marx. Or, basically, what ocelot said.
N.B. On Jameson - I think he gives a lot of this stuff too much credence. Is culture really as 'schizophrenic' as these authors seem to suggest? Was there a time when 'cognitive mapping' was more straight forward when we were apparently less schizophrenic? (excuse me if I'm getting this wrong, I haven't read Jameson in a long while).