postmodern terms and the Net
RCWilk
What are some of the best postmodern phrases and new terms that apply to the
Internet, Cyberspace, Virtual Reality ect?
Have, for example, Baudrillard and Mcluhan been upgraded to the 90's?
Deleuze & Guattari digitalized? Lacan 6.7.44 ?
Thanks,
Richard
rcw...@dreamgate.com
Postmodern Dreaming
http://www.dreamgate.com/pomo
Brad McCormick, Ed.D.
>
> Hi,
>
> What are some of the best postmodern phrases and new terms that apply to the
> Internet, Cyberspace, Virtual Reality ect?
Electro-Convulsive "Therapy"?
>
> Have, for example, Baudrillard and Mcluhan been upgraded to the 90's?
> Deleuze & Guattari digitalized? Lacan 6.7.44 ?
I thought *they* already *were* pretty postmodern....
>
> Thanks,
>
> Richard
>
> rcw...@dreamgate.com
> Postmodern Dreaming
> http://www.dreamgate.com/pomo
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bra...@cloud9.net
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
-------------------------------------------------------
<![%THINK;[XML]]> Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Suecyborg
I would start with concepts themselves and then ask people to name them:
"What might a postmodern term be for the temporary linkage of libinal
alliences on the Internet?"
once called a subject group by D&G, perhaps these might be called nonlocal
viseral-matrionics.
and so on....
Sue
wrob
to reflect the tenets of Postmodernism.
To rename events as corrolaries of theories advanced by dead philosophers...
it all makes it sound like you want to formalize postmodernism and apply it
to reality. Don't you realise it's all just a story?
Semi-rhetorically,
-BER
RCWilk wrote:
> Hi,
>
> What are some of the best postmodern phrases and new terms that apply to the
> Internet, Cyberspace, Virtual Reality ect?
>
> Have, for example, Baudrillard and Mcluhan been upgraded to the 90's?
> Deleuze & Guattari digitalized? Lacan 6.7.44 ?
>
Rob Watson
You don't find many arch modernist using news groups like this.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D.
>
> The singular concept of cyberspace should be enough on its own shouldn't it?
> You don't find many arch modernist using news groups like this.
What/who is a modernist?
If, by modernist, one understands something like (e.g.) Albrecht
Wellmer's notion in _The Persistence of Modernity_, that
"modernity" is the open-endedly recursive
project of self-reflection and self-surpassing
based on the results of that self-reflection, or what
Joseph Needham described as the Chinese reception of the
Jesuit missionaries in the 16th Century
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/essays.html/essays.html#m5
, etc. -- then I am proud to appropriate to myself
the appelation "modernist".
Being realistically paranoid, who would be *more*
likely to be in a postmodernist newsgroup than modernists?
(just like the most likely people to find in a mafia
gathering are FBI agents, etc.)
--
But, as I write this, I wonder if I have for a long time
been a victim of a bit of linguistic sloppiness: Perhaps
modern*ity* and modern*ism* are two quite different things?
Perhaps the project of modern*ity* has long since
surpassed the horizons of "modernists", who flourished between
about 1900 (around the time of Adolf Loos's publication
of his essay "Ornament and Crime") and 1960 (around the time
of Robert Venturi's "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture")?
Perhaps the most profound thinkers of the "modernist" period
were not modernists, but rather "transcendentalists" -- Husserl,
Broch, Musil, et al.
Perhaps both "modernism" and "postmodernism", like
other "isms" are just 2 more ideologies du jour, like
Christianity and "yin and yang" and so forth -- belief
systems for those who cannot self-accountably
create their own "worlds"?
Modernity, however, as Universal Culture (again, in the
sense in which Needham describes the Chinese reception of
the Jesuits..., or in the sense Unitarians understand
it -- see my citation of 1 Thes 5:21, below...) is the
unique meta-ideology which, as Hegel described it in
his _Phenomenology of Spirit_, remains itself
only-and-precisely insofar as it always surpasses itself.
Perhaps a "modernist" today would be as "queer" as
a "physician" today rushing to a patient's bedside *in his
horse and buggy*. And are "postmodernists" today going
the way of the horse and buggy?
"For the spirit alone is immortal." (Husserl)
"The spirit alone lives, all else dies." (Jean de Coras;
inquisitor of Martin Guerre)
And the current/next "istic" wave? Maybe: Cyberspaceism? No,
I do not think that is likely, because the word
doesn't *sound right*....
\brad mccormick
wrob
> What/who is a modernist?
>
> If, by modernist, one understands something like (e.g.) Albrecht
> Wellmer's notion in _The Persistence of Modernity_, that
> "modernity" is the open-endedly recursive
> project of self-reflection and self-surpassing
> based on the results of that self-reflection, or what
> Joseph Needham described as the Chinese reception of the
> Jesuit missionaries in the 16th Century
>
> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/essays.html/essays.html#m5
>
> , etc. -- then I am proud to appropriate to myself
> the appelation "modernist".
Excerpted from your link:
> > Joseph Needham's description, in Vol. 3 of
> > "Science and Civilization in China", of the reception of the
> > Jesuit missionaries by the Chinese in the 17th Century:
> > The Jesuits' intention was to convert the Chinese to The True Faith
> > (Christianity), and they offered Galilean natural science as an example
> > of the fringe benefits of adopting Jesus Christ as one's Savior.
> > The Chinese, on the other hand, regarded Christianity as another
> > ethnic belief system ... But they recognized the Galilean natural science
> > as something genuinely new,
> > because it was valid for anybody who made the effort to understand it....
> > The "moral" I draw from this story is that, whereas the idea of
> > Universal Culture arose in the West, it is not anything specifically
"Western"
> > ... We, however, can overcome our socialization. We can identify ourselves
> > with this idea of cultural productions that are valid for everyone,
> > rather than with the folkways of Western culture as the ethnicity we happen
> > to have been born into....
> > Thus, we can contribute to transforming "the West" .. into an instance of the
> > transcendence of all ethnicities and their prejudices (what are aptly called
> > "human nature", i.e., **forms of human existence which evolve willy-nilly
> > ("naturally") instead of being constructed in persons'
> > self-accountable endeavors of social planning**).
Based on the above, I'd say you have very good reason to describe
yourself as a modernist!
> Being realistically paranoid, who would be *more*
> likely to be in a postmodernist newsgroup than modernists?
> (just like the most likely people to find in a mafia
> gathering are FBI agents, etc.)
Being realistically paranoid, (G) *I'd* be inclined to egotistically
assume most people besides me are unthinkingly postmodernist,
that it is ingrained in the culture - i.e. to assume that many "modernists"
on this forum, like FBI agents at a pot party, have "crossed the line",
fall back on the justifications of the larger *Postmodern culture*
in which they are immersed (the only one they have likely known)
to construct their modernist argument.
This is of course, in itself, a rather ideologically driven thing
for me to say, as a postmodernist will no doubt tell me.
A thinking modernist such as yourself would be more likely to
disagree wirh the *facts* of my contention, or to
argue from classification, e.g. whether or not being
*in disagreement with* postmodernism puts one in alignment
with the modern tradition.
Am I right or wrong? :-)
> But, as I write this, I wonder if I have for a long time
> been a victim of a bit of linguistic sloppiness: Perhaps
> modern*ity* and modern*ism* are two quite different things?
> Perhaps the project of modern*ity* has long since
> surpassed the horizons of "modernists", who flourished between
> about 1900 (around the time of Adolf Loos's publication
> of his essay "Ornament and Crime") and 1960 (around the time
> of Robert Venturi's "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture")?
>
> Perhaps the most profound thinkers of the "modernist" period
> were not modernists, but rather "transcendentalists" -- Husserl,
> Broch, Musil, et al.
>
> Perhaps both "modernism" and "postmodernism", like
> other "isms" are just 2 more ideologies du jour, like
> Christianity and "yin and yang" and so forth -- belief
> systems for those who cannot self-accountably
> create their own "worlds"?
Yes, but you could well still be arguing from the viewpoint of a
Transcendental Modernism (SOMA - speaking out of my ass here -
we could call it a Transcendental Material Positive.) My mother is an
immunologist and has an interestingly similar perspective (please, no
freudian retorts here! :-)
This might make you more sympathetic to the Modern "ism"
(formal or ideological) over the Postmodern "ism", temporal as
either viewpoint might be.
A Formal Postmodernist, however, would point this out,
and conclude that your argument was biased by
a faith in progress and transcendence of temporal ideology,
and conclude that *there is no* Modern *ity*, that
civilisation is a parade of inbred, crescendo-ing "memes"!
A "Transcendental Postmodernist" might be your alter ego defending
the postmodern ideologies on this board. Such a person would be a
Deconstructivist -- someone who thought that if we *melt down* all
ideologies we are able to grasp the only truth there is in the world.
But this Evil Alter Ego would *still* conclude that there is no
expression of truth or progress in the world of unsignified *ideas* -
that "Everything Just IS" and you can't explain anything, indeed, that
progressive explanations and conservative progress-and-example-based
traditions such as those of the Chinese actually deserve
a thumb in the nose.
So, based on this, I would have to contend that there is a
Fundamental Disconnect between modernism and postmodernism --
at the transcendental level of non-signified, subconscious ideas.
We all are able to comprehend both ways of thinking at some level.
But postmodernism is a form of Non-Modernism.
Perhaps the best way I would define it is
"An Anti-positivist Non-Modernism that is reflexive on the
Modern tradition of the West and dependent on Modernism for
its rhetoric, but with a vaguely different objective that is difficult
to understand in Modern terms."
I'd equate Postmodernism with the World Wide Web, an entity that
exists whithin the language structure of the Internet (modernity),
but... but... something is different...
Losing rhetorical power reserves fast, BER
PS -- to help you slog through the above, I'd equate myself with
"Transcendental Positivist Non-Modernism" which IMHO
puts me closer to your line of argument than to the pomo one.
Puss in Boots
[...]
> But, as I write this, I wonder if I have for a long time
> been a victim of a bit of linguistic sloppiness: Perhaps
> modern*ity* and modern*ism* are two quite different things?
Very different -- in most ways opposites, although they're
connected by various paths. Sure as hell not the same.
Modernism is in large part a revolt against modernity -- a part
of the rebellion dating back at least to the Romantics and
curving on thru pomo. "Modernist" refers to modernism: not to
modernity.
-- Moggin
wrob
Part of the problem is that postmodernism is a revolt
against modernism. Pomo embraces modernity in seemingly
most ways.
Also, Modernism was an effort to transcend modernity.
It was an effort that seemingly lost its nerve after the
horrors of WWII - attributable to what?
Romanticism seems to me to be the main thread of
thought that rejects modernity.
-BER
deda...@my-deja.com
this the first time. Giles
In article <37C01F6A...@erols.com> , wrob <wr...@erols.com>
wrote:
> Interesting idea, but I'm not so sure.
>
> Part of the problem is that postmodernism is a revolt
> against modernism. Pomo embraces modernity in seemingly
> most ways.
Postmodernism is a revolt against Modernism? Would that it were so
straightforward. Some elements called postmodern (e.g. Prince Charles
- Krier - Terry architecture or the briefly fashionable 'return' to
figuration in painting from the late 70s and early 80s) certainly cast
themselves as 'opposing' modernism, although I cannot see any sense in
which an attempt to pretend that modernism hadn't happened could
properly be called an opposition. But others (e.g. Eisenman in
architecture, Levine in art), also called postmodern, certainly don't
regard themselves in this way, indeed the reverse. If you turn to the
various philosophical or critical materials usually, if not always
accurately, called postmodernist, then you are quite simply wrong. J-F
Lyotard, for instance, insists on the value of modernist art (Picasso,
Braque, Malevich are discussed, amongst others) as opposed to
supposedly 'postmodern' art, which he attacks as being part of this
'time of slackening'. Add in the importance of Joyce, Kafka, Beckett,
etc. for the 'postmodern' European philosophers and I would say that
you have problems with your argument on both counts - the revolt and
the embrace.
> Also, Modernism was an effort to transcend modernity.
Depends which element of Modernism you are talking about. Transcend,
fulfill, escape, condemn, destroy, celebrate, transform - all had
their adherents. A common denominator might be called critique, even
in celebration.
> It was an effort that seemingly lost its nerve after the
> horrors of WWII - attributable to what?
Eh? After WWII, yes, but only in the sense that we are currently
'after' WWII. What of Beckett, Pollock, Boulez, Stockhausen, etc.
etc.. If you wanted, you could also see an end to modernism in the
1930s - neo-classicism was all the rage, and the works of the 1910s
and 20s all but forgotten or worse - turned into hats. Still, that
wouldn't be so neat. Don't forget the horrors of WWI - but then,
oddly, those seemed to encourage some kinds of modernism.
> Romanticism seems to me to be the main thread of
> thought that rejects modernity.
Here we might nearly agree. Not the only thread, but perhaps the main
one, yes. Still, why do you separate Romanticism from modernism
altogether? Is Surrealism not linked to Romanticism? Nor Pollock? Nor
Schoenberg? Nor ... . There are other examples - Expressionism for
instance - which indicate that Romantics can have a tendency to become
deeply conservative too. The history of Romanticism also includes
conversions to Catholicism, arch nationalism and premature grumpy
senility, of which some, if not all, can be counted as being
thoroughly part of modernity. What about Futurism?
> -BER
Giles
> Puss in Boots wrote:
>
>> bra...@cloud9.net:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> > But, as I write this, I wonder if I have for a long time
>> > been a victim of a bit of linguistic sloppiness: Perhaps
>> > modern*ity* and modern*ism* are two quite different things?
>>
>> Very different -- in most ways opposites, although they're
>> connected by various paths. Sure as hell not the same.
>> Modernism is in large part a revolt against modernity -- a part
>> of the rebellion dating back at least to the Romantics and
>> curving on thru pomo. "Modernist" refers to modernism: not to
>> modernity.
>>
>> -- Moggin
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D.
wrob wrote:
>
> "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." wrote:
>
> > What/who is a modernist?
> >
> > If, by modernist, one understands something like (e.g.) Albrecht
> > Wellmer's notion in _The Persistence of Modernity_, that
> > "modernity" is the open-endedly recursive
> > project of self-reflection and self-surpassing
> > based on the results of that self-reflection, or what
> > Joseph Needham described as the Chinese reception of the
> > Jesuit missionaries in the 16th Century
> >
> > http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/essays.html#m5
Do you mean only I have been consistent in citing references which
are consonant with my asserted position? Or do you mean something more?
>
> > Being realistically paranoid, who would be *more*
> > likely to be in a postmodernist newsgroup than modernists?
> > (just like the most likely people to find in a mafia
> > gathering are FBI agents, etc.)
>
> Being realistically paranoid, (G) *I'd* be inclined to egotistically
> assume most people besides me are unthinkingly postmodernist,
> that it is ingrained in the culture - i.e. to assume that many "modernists"
> on this forum, like FBI agents at a pot party, have "crossed the line",
> fall back on the justifications of the larger *Postmodern culture*
> in which they are immersed (the only one they have likely known)
> to construct their modernist argument.
Seems to me you are saying two things here:
(1) Every "couch potato" TV watching lumpen-middle class
American is "unthinkingly postmodernist".
(2) Many FBI agents become "corrputed".
>
> This is of course, in itself, a rather ideologically driven thing
> for me to say, as a postmodernist will no doubt tell me.
I don't follow this. Can you elaborate?
>
> A thinking modernist such as yourself would be more likely to
> disagree wirh the *facts* of my contention, or to
> argue from classification, e.g. whether or not being
> *in disagreement with* postmodernism puts one in alignment
> with the modern tradition.
>
> Am I right or wrong? :-)
I'm confused.
>
> > But, as I write this, I wonder if I have for a long time
> > been a victim of a bit of linguistic sloppiness: Perhaps
> > modern*ity* and modern*ism* are two quite different things?
[snip]
> Yes, but you could well still be arguing from the viewpoint of a
> Transcendental Modernism (SOMA - speaking out of my ass here -
> we could call it a Transcendental Material Positive.) My mother is an
> immunologist and has an interestingly similar perspective (please, no
> freudian retorts here! :-)
Your "SOMA" reminds me of the creatures in Bosch's Hell,
but I don't see the relevance of such chimeras.
Do you mean that your mother is a *scientist* who
thinks philosophically and has adopted a perspective
similar to what I have indicated as mine? I'd really like to
get in touch with her in that case, for I have
found few scientists who think "phenomenologically"
(etc.).
[snip]
> A Formal Postmodernist, however, would point this out,
> and conclude that your argument was biased by
> a faith in progress and transcendence of temporal ideology,
> and conclude that *there is no* Modern *ity*, that
> civilisation is a parade of inbred, crescendo-ing "memes"!
By "memes", do you mean what I describe as "Ethnicities":
semiotic "viruses" which infect persons thru childrearing and
which are able so to propagate themselves from
generation to generation only by not being
recognized for what they are but being taken-for-granted
as "reality"? If yes, then I do believe that
the project of radical self-reflection, self-accountability, etc.
is indeed a kind of progress, namely, from unaccountable
anonymous process to self-accountability (Freud's
Wo Es war, soll ich werden.
, Husserl's vision from his "Vienna lecture", etc.)
I do not consider the advance from no tail
fins to tail fins to beyond tail fins in American
automobiles (e.g.) to be substantive progress....
>
> A "Transcendental Postmodernist" might be your alter ego defending
> the postmodern ideologies on this board. Such a person would be a
> Deconstructivist -- someone who thought that if we *melt down* all
> ideologies we are able to grasp the only truth there is in the world.
The Conquistadors melted down all the pre-Columbian
gold jewelry for bullion (talk about "SOMA" people!)
>
> But this Evil Alter Ego would *still* conclude that there is no
> expression of truth or progress in the world of unsignified *ideas* -
What would an "unsignified idea" be? An inscription in an
untranslated language?
> that "Everything Just IS" and you can't explain anything, indeed, that
> progressive explanations and conservative progress-and-example-based
> traditions such as those of the Chinese actually deserve
> a thumb in the nose.
Is your: "Everything just is" a just-is, or does it
*mean* something?
Heidegger's "Es gibt" in his _The Principle of Reason_
seems relevant here.
[snip]
> I'd equate Postmodernism with the World Wide Web, an entity that
> exists whithin the language structure of the Internet (modernity),
> but... but... something is different...
Postmodernism seems to me to have antedated the World Wide Web,
and a lot of stuff on the Web seems to me to be not
Postmodernist. Anent the first point, Robert Venturi's
_Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture_ and the
book _5 Architects_ were from the 60s/70s. Anent the
second point, see, e.g.: http://www.cwru.edu/affil/wwwethics/ .
>
> Losing rhetorical power reserves fast, BER
Alas, I've been partly lost from the beginning of this
quite long posting....
Less is more.
>
> PS -- to help you slog through the above, I'd equate myself with
> "Transcendental Positivist Non-Modernism" which IMHO
> puts me closer to your line of argument than to the pomo one.
Unfortunately, I can find no comfort in an "alignment" I
don't follow -- which I trust is a symptom of my
modernity orientation.
Oh, yes, the "flavor" of "modernity" I align myself
with is closer to Rabelais than to Descartes -- see,
e.g., Stephen Toulmin's book: _Cosmopolis: The Hidden
Agenda of Modernity_ (I highly recommend it!)
wrob
> Postmodernism is a revolt against Modernism? Would that it were so
> straightforward. Some elements called postmodern (e.g. Prince Charles
> - Krier - Terry architecture or the briefly fashionable 'return' to
> figuration in painting from the late 70s and early 80s) certainly cast
> themselves as 'opposing' modernism, although I cannot see any sense in
> which an attempt to pretend that modernism hadn't happened could
> properly be called an opposition.
Anti-modernism, although I would indeed call Krier at least subconsciously
part of the postmodern architecture in appropriating classicism without
fully appreciating it (see his plans to turn the National Mall into a
Venetian
Grand Canal, for instance.)
>If you turn to the various philosophical or critical materials usually,
> if not always accurately, called postmodernist, then you are quite
simply wrong.
> (snip) A common denominator might be called critique, even in
celebration.
I do not see how a celebratory critique of ones forefathers prevents
one from rebelling. One cannot rebel against an enemy one does not
respect. One cannot rebel against the truth without appreciating
truth for some other reason besides the reason that modernists
appreciate it ("because it's true" or "because it's the next step."
these are obviously not particularly postmodern approaches to
"celebrating" modern art or anything else.
For instance, I am in "revolt" against postmodernism, and yet I admire
many of its intents and insights. I think Brad Mckormick's position
on the progressive construct of ideas applies here, although as a
non-modernist I'm not so sure this is precisely what constitutes progress.
And I most definitely am not into "celebratory critiques" of anything that
takes itself more seriously than its descendants. To critique something
you must take it seriously in *some* fashion, even if it is in respect to
an entirely different worldview.
> > It was an effort that seemingly lost its nerve after the
> > horrors of WWII - attributable to what?
>
> Eh? After WWII, yes, but only in the sense that we are currently
> 'after' WWII. What of Beckett, Pollock, Boulez, Stockhausen, etc.
> etc.. If you wanted, you could also see an end to modernism in the
> 1930s - neo-classicism was all the rage, and the works of the 1910s
> and 20s all but forgotten or worse - turned into hats. Still, that
> wouldn't be so neat. Don't forget the horrors of WWI - but then,
> oddly, those seemed to encourage some kinds of modernism.
Well, considering that the High Modernist period is said to last
between the wars...
Also remember that the moderns were considered radical for advancing
the notion of the war to end all wars. Then, three decades later, they
made a terrible mess of interpreting the writing on the wall when it
came to the nuclear age. Unless you can prove to me that the sons and
daughters of the Enlightenment "learned the lessons of WWII", I have
yet to see any such lessons summed up.
The lessons of WWII that the postmodern generation learned
seemed to have been that modernism had failed, that the grand traditions
of particle physics, Zionism, etc. were impotent at achieving a better
world,
and that the death of Weimar Germany was a noble one (a disturbing
subtext that might explain the continuing popularity of 'Cabaret'.)
> > Romanticism seems to me to be the main thread of
> > thought that rejects modernity.
>
> Here we might nearly agree. Not the only thread, but perhaps the main
> one, yes. Still, why do you separate Romanticism from modernism
> altogether? Is Surrealism not linked to Romanticism? Nor Pollock? Nor
> Schoenberg? Nor ... . There are other examples - Expressionism for
> instance - which indicate that Romantics can have a tendency to become
> deeply conservative too. The history of Romanticism also includes
> conversions to Catholicism, arch nationalism and premature grumpy
> senility, of which some, if not all, can be counted as being
> thoroughly part of modernity. What about Futurism?
Modernism appropriated Romanticism in a manner so disturbingly
mind-bending that Postmodernism is about to make the same mistake
in appropriating every misstep of contemporary society. The tragedy
is that neither Modernism nor Pomo will ever be sent up on its own terms.
Instead, the next big ideology will, like its two predecessors, be the one
most well placed to fill the power vacuum next time there is a crisis
o Western civ.
Which is not to say that Romanticism was not at some level
a modern tradition... but it takes a postmodern understanding
to appreciate this. Modernism grappled with Romanticism far more
directly than any talk of the "roots of the phenomenon" or the
"crisis of our age".
-BER
wrob
I am not this verbose for any other reason except
that I don't have a good time expressing my ideas
in contemporary jargon, which, as the problem continues
to be often described, consists of a modernist discourse
that has been reinterpreted in its entirety by people who
claim to disagree.
In effect you have two opposing camps of people
claiming to be able to understand and thus take into
account the entirety of our discourse, even when one's
intent is to challenge another way of understanding,
whereupon you run into confusion, because they've
gotten used to living in a permanently "oppositional"
discourse.
In short: they've grown up hearing people tell them
to subvert the dominant paradigm; they feel like this leaves
them only two options at some fundamental level.
"Brad McCormick, Ed.D." wrote:
> > Based on the above, I'd say you have very good reason to describe
> > yourself as a modernist!
>
> Do you mean only I have been consistent in citing references which
> are consonant with my asserted position? Or do you mean something more?
I mean that I think I understand what your essay was saying,
(& wish I could boil my own thots down better)
and it seems like a sensibly modern path that builds on the best
tradition of thought. Course I'm not a modernist per se, I've had issues
with modernist thought long before I knew what pomo was.
> > Being realistically paranoid, (G) *I'd* be inclined to egotistically
> > assume most people besides me are unthinkingly postmodernist,
> > that it is ingrained in the culture - i.e. to assume that many "modernists"
> > on this forum, like FBI agents at a pot party, have "crossed the line",
> > fall back on the justifications of the larger *Postmodern culture*
> > in which they are immersed (the only one they have likely known)
> > to construct their modernist argument.
>
> Seems to me you are saying two things here:
>
> (1) Every "couch potato" TV watching lumpen-middle class
> American is "unthinkingly postmodernist".
Of course, who knows?
> (2) Many FBI agents become "corrputed".
Just a colorful reference. Obviously, the history of the "drug war"
would suggest that there is a real professional dilemma in that field.
> > This is of course, in itself, a rather ideologically driven thing
> > for me to say, as a postmodernist will no doubt tell me.
>
> I don't follow this. Can you elaborate?
If I had been a Marxist and made the same statement about
America being postmodern nation, every postmodern intellectual
in the country would have been able to trace my (supposed)
personal intellectual history, all the way to "Postmodernism:
the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism".
As it is, I am not a Marxist and so they must *assume* that there
is some ideology I am subconsciously using. In reality I'm just
making exaggerated claims to bolster my argument :-)
> > A thinking modernist such as yourself would be more likely to
> > disagree wirh the *facts* of my contention, or to
> > argue from classification, e.g. whether or not being
> > *in disagreement with* postmodernism puts one in alignment
> > with the modern tradition.
> >
> > Am I right or wrong? :-)
>
> I'm confused.
Me too :-) I didn't say I understood the Modern viewpoint
well enough to make the sort of claims that pomo folks do all the time
"of course, seeing as how you're a follower of so and so, it would
be natural for you to..."
> >
> > > But, as I write this, I wonder if I have for a long time
> > > been a victim of a bit of linguistic sloppiness: Perhaps
> > > modern*ity* and modern*ism* are two quite different things?
> [snip]
> > Yes, but you could well still be arguing from the viewpoint of a
> > Transcendental Modernism (SOMA - speaking out of my ass here -
> > we could call it a Transcendental Material Positive.) My mother is an
> > immunologist and has an interestingly similar perspective (please, no
> > freudian retorts here! :-)
>
> Your "SOMA" reminds me of the creatures in Bosch's Hell,
> but I don't see the relevance of such chimeras.
Actually, while the SOMA acronym is useful, I find the phrase
"Open up a can of whup-ass" to be an even more colorful
southern-style witticism!
> Do you mean that your mother is a *scientist* who
> thinks philosophically and has adopted a perspective
> similar to what I have indicated as mine? I'd really like to
> get in touch with her in that case, for I have
> found few scientists who think "phenomenologically"
> (etc.).
I'd have to learn more about your own perspective to say for sure,
but I've discussed philosophy with her before and found her
viewpoint to be a useful touchstone... like many scientists
(as she's said) who have been encouraged to deal with
philosophical issues from a continuing, self-reflexive, modernist
tradition, like the one you suggested, that takes postmodern
theories / excesses in stride.
But then again, how do you mean by thinking "phenomenologically"?
> By "memes", do you mean what I describe as "Ethnicities":
> semiotic "viruses"...which are able so to propagate themselves from
> generation to generation only by not being
> recognized for what they are but being taken-for-granted
> as "reality"? If yes, then I do believe that
> the project of radical self-reflection, self-accountability, etc.
> is indeed a kind of progress...
I agree on the meme definition and I think I understand your
position on progress... I'll keep in mind the reference to Husserl.
My own view of progress is, well... see bottom...
> > But this Evil Alter Ego would *still* conclude that there is no
> > expression of truth or progress in the world of unsignified *ideas* -
>
> What would an "unsignified idea" be? An inscription in an
> untranslated language?
Possibly. You frequently find such artifacts in the homes of
hip postmodern architects next to their plans for deconstructed
pyramids with giant letters of cut in half words on the facade!
Obviously, the sense of mystery behind the "unsignified ideas" -
much less behind the concept of as-yet unattained stages of human
reason that modernism advances - these folks would prefer to
explain away.
> Is your: "Everything just is" a just-is, or does it
> *mean* something?
Both, I guess. On the one hand I would not turn a blind eye
to the postmodern assertion that "You're just SAYING that."
But surely it's possible to "double-code" the phrase
"Everything Just Is" with the implication that this is an
insufficient understanding of reality as we're interpreting it here...
One of the things that Modernism has trouble in general is with
its need to take *something* at face value and run with it. Maybe
that's not such a problem.
> Postmodernism seems to me to have antedated the World Wide Web...
Definitely... I just meant to suggest the WWW was more expressive
of postmodern ideas about communication than the actual structure of
the Internet which harks back more to Enlightenment ambitions.
Hence the admirable idealism of the new medium which is being
slowly, seemingly *deconstructed* thru use, it seems to me... :- /
> > "Transcendental Positivist Non-Modernism" which IMHO
> > puts me closer to your line of argument than to the pomo one.
>
> Unfortunately, I can find no comfort in an "alignment" I
> don't follow -- which I trust is a symptom of my
> modernity orientation.
My position on progress is sort of form of "positivism"
that emphasizes the transcendent sense of familiarity with the
world around us... sort of the goals of "universal harmony" etc.
with heavy religious undertones (as a Christian)...
Obviously not traditional progress tho... imagine if Socrates was
a "christian". (If you don't think Socrates would have problems
with postmodernism, what did he call his contemporaries, the
professional rhetoricians? A great derogatory word for people of
a similar school of thought...)
> Oh, yes, the "flavor" of "modernity" I align myself
> with is closer to Rabelais than to Descartes -- see,
> e.g., Stephen Toulmin's book: _Cosmopolis: The Hidden
> Agenda of Modernity_ (I highly recommend it!)
Again, thanks for the references... I usually have to ferret things
out of the text to keep them from going "in one ear..."
ach, how postmodern of me (G)
-BER
Brad McCormick, Ed.D.
>
[snip]
> > > A thinking modernist such as yourself would be more likely to
> > > disagree wirh the *facts* of my contention, or to
> > > argue from classification, e.g. whether or not being
> > > *in disagreement with* postmodernism puts one in alignment
> > > with the modern tradition.
> > >
> > > Am I right or wrong? :-)
> >
>
> Me too :-) I didn't say I understood the Modern viewpoint
> well enough to make the sort of claims that pomo folks do all the time
> "of course, seeing as how you're a follower of so and so, it would
> be natural for you to..."
Well, lots of possibilities. You might suggest to your mother:
Enzo Paci's _The Function of the Sciences and the Meaning
of Man_, as well as, of course, Husserl's _The Crisis of European
Sciences
and transcendental phenomanology_ (both Northwestern Univ. paperbacks).
Then there's Cornelius Castoriadis's writings. And Susanne
Langer's _Philosophy in a New Key_ (from the 1940s).///
>
> > By "memes", do you mean what I describe as "Ethnicities":
> > semiotic "viruses"...which are able so to propagate themselves from
> > generation to generation only by not being
> > recognized for what they are but being taken-for-granted
> > as "reality"? If yes, then I do believe that
> > the project of radical self-reflection, self-accountability, etc.
> > is indeed a kind of progress...
[snip]
> > Is your: "Everything just is" a just-is, or does it
> > *mean* something?
>
> Both, I guess. On the one hand I would not turn a blind eye
> to the postmodern assertion that "You're just SAYING that."
> But surely it's possible to "double-code" the phrase
> "Everything Just Is" with the implication that this is an
> insufficient understanding of reality as we're interpreting it here...
Well, it either means what it says or it's something else.
And if it's intended to mean what it says, then it's what
Habermas would call a: "performative contradiction", i.e.,
an act which offers evidence contrary to what it asserts.
[snip]
> > Postmodernism seems to me to have antedated the World Wide Web...
>
> Definitely... I just meant to suggest the WWW was more expressive
> of postmodern ideas about communication than the actual structure of
> the Internet which harks back more to Enlightenment ambitions.
You can guess I'd rather like the latter. I'd be satisfied
with Lynx (the textual web browser) and HTML 3.2.
> Hence the admirable idealism of the new medium which is being
> slowly, seemingly *deconstructed* thru use, it seems to me... :- /
>
> > > "Transcendental Positivist Non-Modernism" which IMHO
> > > puts me closer to your line of argument than to the pomo one.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I can find no comfort in an "alignment" I
> > don't follow -- which I trust is a symptom of my
> > modernity orientation.
>
> My position on progress is sort of form of "positivism"
> that emphasizes the transcendent sense of familiarity with the
> world around us... sort of the goals of "universal harmony" etc.
> with heavy religious undertones (as a Christian)...
Hummh! Christianity? Now *there's* something
intersting from any but a "Credo quia absurdum" (sp?)
position. (I believe it was Camus who wrote that
night was when faith eescends on the mind).
>
> Obviously not traditional progress tho... imagine if Socrates was
> a "christian".
I've always found Socrates (at least as Plato portrays him)
a rather distasteful fellow....
> (If you don't think Socrates would have problems
> with postmodernism, what did he call his contemporaries, the
> professional rhetoricians? A great derogatory word for people of
> a similar school of thought...)
It is not clear to me that the "Sophists" were *all* so bad,
although probably some of them were con artists.
Eric Havelock's _Preface to Plato_ is relevant here.
>
> > Oh, yes, the "flavor" of "modernity" I align myself
> > with is closer to Rabelais than to Descartes -- see,
> > e.g., Stephen Toulmin's book: _Cosmopolis: The Hidden
> > Agenda of Modernity_ (I highly recommend it!)
>
> Again, thanks for the references... I usually have to ferret things
> out of the text to keep them from going "in one ear..."
> ach, how postmodern of me (G)
Toulmin's book seems to me to be important. It shows
how "modernity" might have turned out very
different from the alienated dissociation we
have today. Rabelais believed in reason, but
it was a reason-for-people, rather than an
abstract reason (Descartes') which didn't
give a d-mn about people. I have some relevant
excerpts from Rabelais on my website:
http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/theleme.html
Also, the ending of _Gargantua and Pantagruel_:
> "...For all the ancient philosophers and sages have reckoned two things to be necessary for
> safe and pleasant travel on the road of wisdom and in the pursuit after knowledge; God's
> guidance and the company of men.... So, when you philosophers, with God's guidance and
> in the company of some clear Lantern, give yourselves up to that careful study and
> investigation which is the proper duty of man -- and it is for this reason that men are
> called... searchers and discoverers... -- [as men, you] will find the truth of the sage Thales'
> reply to Amasis, King of the Egyptians. When asked wherein the greatest wisdom lay,
> Thales replied: 'In time.' For it is time that has discovered, or in due course will discover, all
> things that lie hidden. [As men, you] will also infallibly find that all men's knowledge, both
> theirs and their forefathers', is hardly an infinitesimal fraction of all that exists and that they
> do not know."
>
> ...When [our guide] had concluded her speech she handed us some closed and sealed letters
> and, after we had returned to her our undying thanks, she showed us out through a door...
> where [she] summoned her people to propose questions twice as high as Mount Olympus.
>
> And so we passed through a country full of delights... and at last we found our ships in the
> harbour. (Rabelais, 1532-1534/1955, pp. 710-2)
*My* ideal in life would be to have been, from earliest childhood,
an: *independent scholar*.
Rob Watson
literary aspirations of academics, who read the cannons, who write papers
for conferences, and who develop a tautological language game - for what is
post-modernism if not what comes after the self-reflexive language of the
academic. This broken, stuttering, anonymous, global communication matrix,
seems to move past the ideological - for we are telling no story other than
our own fleeting existence betrays.
deda...@my-deja.com
37C07ABA...@erols.com>,
wrob <wr...@erols.com> wrote:
> deda...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Postmodernism is a revolt against Modernism? Would that it were so
> > straightforward. Some elements called postmodern (e.g. Prince Charles
> > - Krier - Terry architecture or the briefly fashionable 'return' to
> > figuration in painting from the late 70s and early 80s) certainly cast
> > themselves as 'opposing' modernism, although I cannot see any sense in
> > which an attempt to pretend that modernism hadn't happened could
> > properly be called an opposition.
>
> Anti-modernism, although I would indeed call Krier at least subconsciously
> part of the postmodern architecture in appropriating classicism without
> fully appreciating it (see his plans to turn the National Mall into a
> Venetian
> Grand Canal, for instance.)
So? I see you have dropped, without
indication, the examples of work called
postmodern that does not set itself in
opposition to modernism.
> >If you turn to the various philosophical or critical materials usually,
> > if not always accurately, called postmodernist, then you are quite
> simply wrong.
> > (snip)
This is quite a snip. You claimed that
Postmodernism is a revolt against
modernism, but so far have offered no
justification for this. When offered counter
examples, you ignore them or simply drop
them.
>A common denominator might be called critique, even in
> celebration.
>
> I do not see how a celebratory critique of ones forefathers prevents
> one from rebelling. One cannot rebel against an enemy one does not
> respect. One cannot rebel against the truth without appreciating
> truth for some other reason besides the reason that modernists
> appreciate it ("because it's true" or "because it's the next step."
> these are obviously not particularly postmodern approaches to
> "celebrating" modern art or anything else.
I mentioned critique as a common
denominator of various modernisms, against
your blanket claim that modernism sought to
'transcend' modernity. You have apparently
dropped this. I don't know where this
'critique of one's forefathers' comes from,
nor did I make any suggestion that this
prevents one from rebelling. However, I
think that one certainly can rebel against an
enemy one does not respect, this might even
be a requirement.
> For instance, I am in "revolt" against postmodernism, and yet I admire
> many of its intents and insights. I think Brad Mckormick's position
> on the progressive construct of ideas applies here, although as a
> non-modernist I'm not so sure this is precisely what constitutes progress.
> And I most definitely am not into "celebratory critiques" of anything that
> takes itself more seriously than its descendants. To critique something
> you must take it seriously in *some* fashion, even if it is in respect to
> an entirely different worldview.
Hang on. You replied to Moggin's comments on
modernism, putting foward your views of
postmodernism, modernism and modernity. I
responded that I thought you were wrong and
gave reasons. You now apparently choose not
to reply but instead offer this, which frankly
I can't make much of. What is 'something that
takes itself more seriously than its
descendents'? Are the descendents being
disrespectful, or is it the something which is
not impressed by its descendents?
> > > It was an effort that seemingly lost its nerve after the
> > > horrors of WWII - attributable to what?
> >
> > Eh? After WWII, yes, but only in the sense that we are currently
> > 'after' WWII. What of Beckett, Pollock, Boulez, Stockhausen, etc.
> > etc.. If you wanted, you could also see an end to modernism in the
> > 1930s - neo-classicism was all the rage, and the works of the 1910s
> > and 20s all but forgotten or worse - turned into hats. Still, that
> > wouldn't be so neat. Don't forget the horrors of WWI - but then,
> > oddly, those seemed to encourage some kinds of modernism.
>
> Well, considering that the High Modernist period is said to last
> between the wars...
Said by whom? Others point to the late
1940s and early 1950s as 'high modernism'.
Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice,
but there are usually reasons for the choice.
> Also remember that the moderns were considered radical for advancing
> the notion of the war to end all wars. Then, three decades later, they
> made a terrible mess of interpreting the writing on the wall when it
> came to the nuclear age. Unless you can prove to me that the sons and
> daughters of the Enlightenment "learned the lessons of WWII", I have
> yet to see any such lessons summed up.
Which 'moderns'? Considered radical by
whom? I am not going to 'prove to you'
something which I did not assert. You said
modernism 'lost its nerve' after WWII. I said
modernism continued after WWII, and gave
examples. What has this got to do with
learning lessons?
> The lessons of WWII that the postmodern generation learned
> seemed to have been that modernism had failed, that the grand traditions
> of particle physics, Zionism, etc. were impotent at achieving a better
> world,
> and that the death of Weimar Germany was a noble one (a disturbing
> subtext that might explain the continuing popularity of 'Cabaret'.)
How do you deduce the 'nobility' of the end of
Weimar? How is Zionism a 'grand tradition',
or indeed particle physics? If these are the
lessons learned, then I would suggest some
new text books. I'm not sure that you can
blame WWII on the 'failure' of Modernism
either. It seems a little unfair to ask a
handful of artists, writers, filmmakers and
architects to, well, change the world by
themselves and then blame them when they
don't. I know some of them promised to
change it, but even they knew they needed
help.
> > > Romanticism seems to me to be the main thread of
> > > thought that rejects modernity.
> >
> > Here we might nearly agree. Not the only thread, but perhaps the main
> > one, yes. Still, why do you separate Romanticism from modernism
> > altogether? Is Surrealism not linked to Romanticism? Nor Pollock? Nor
> > Schoenberg? Nor ... . There are other examples - Expressionism for
> > instance - which indicate that Romantics can have a tendency to become
> > deeply conservative too. The history of Romanticism also includes
> > conversions to Catholicism, arch nationalism and premature grumpy
> > senility, of which some, if not all, can be counted as being
> > thoroughly part of modernity. What about Futurism?
>
> Modernism appropriated Romanticism in a manner so disturbingly
> mind-bending that Postmodernism is about to make the same mistake
> in appropriating every misstep of contemporary society. The tragedy
> is that neither Modernism nor Pomo will ever be sent up on its own terms.
> Instead, the next big ideology will, like its two predecessors, be the one
> most well placed to fill the power vacuum next time there is a crisis
> o Western civ.
What is so disturbing to you about
modernism's 'appropriation' of
Romanticism? What ideologies are you
talking about? You can't be suggesting that
Modernism filled a power vacumn, can you?
> Which is not to say that Romanticism was not at some level
> a modern tradition... but it takes a postmodern understanding
> to appreciate this.
No it doesn't. The Surrealists understood it
very well, as did Walter Benjamin, Theodor
Adorno, Ernst Bloch and many others.
>Modernism grappled with Romanticism far more
> directly than any talk of the "roots of the phenomenon" or the
> "crisis of our age".
Eh?
> -BER
Giles
wrob
> So? I see you have dropped, without
> indication, the examples of work called
> postmodern that does not set itself in
> opposition to modernism.
I said below that I do not believe you have to spend
your time NEGATING a philosophy to rebel against it!
The worst insult to the modern tradition is to believe that
you have concluded it with some sort of overarching
paradigm shift; this is exactly what the postmodernists
asserted. And they were right. The man on the street is not
modern man, and neither is the average avant garde artist.
> This is quite a snip. You claimed that
> Postmodernism is a revolt against
> modernism, but so far have offered no
> justification for this. When offered counter
> examples, you ignore them or simply drop them.
The simple fact is that anyone who believes Postmodernism
is consistent with the modern tradition is not modernist;
he is something more or less than a modernist; he is a
postmodernist who labels himself a modernist because he
is fond of that tradition of thought. Or else he is a modernist
who really does not appreciate postmodernism.
You also have to appreciate a philosophy to rebel against it.
> >A common denominator might be called critique, even in
> > celebration.
> >
> > I do not see how a celebratory critique of ones forefathers prevents
> > one from rebelling. One cannot rebel against an enemy one does not
> > respect. One cannot rebel against the truth without appreciating
> > truth for some other reason besides the reason that modernists
> > appreciate it ("because it's true" or "because it's the next step."
> > these are obviously not particularly postmodern approaches to
> > "celebrating" modern art or anything else.
>
> I mentioned critique as a common
> denominator of various modernisms, against
> your blanket claim that modernism sought to
> 'transcend' modernity.
Modernism did not critique itself in the same way that postmodernism
critiques modernism. If it had, then postmodernism would be an
utterly meaningless catch phrase.
Also, modernism was chiefly concerned with critiquing Modern*ity*.
It's standards for critiquing itself were much different than ours
today. It believed you could critique yourself from within the set of
rules you were critiquing.
In postmodernism this is the opposite. it embraces modern*ity*.
"Modern*ity*" is seen as irrevocably *post* modern in content.
Meanwhile, it believes that no modernism can be critiqued without
stepping outside it into the overall set of modernities (grouped under
the postmodern rubric of course.)
In effect, it argues that *Postmodernism is necessary to fully understand
the philosophy of Modernism or any other contemporary philosophy in
a postmodern society.*
> However, I
> think that one certainly can rebel against an
> enemy one does not respect, this might even
> be a requirement.
Not if the enemy - modernism in this case - dictates the terms of respect.
Its followers need to respect YOUR argument or you'll be ignored.
> > For instance, I am in "revolt" against postmodernism, and yet I admire
> > many of its intents and insights. I think Brad Mckormick's position
> > on the progressive construct of ideas applies here, although as a
> > non-modernist I'm not so sure this is precisely what constitutes progress.
> Hang on. [...] You now apparently choose not
> to reply but instead offer this, which frankly
> I can't make much of.
Too bad, it's packed with meaning for me. But you won't accept
my basic premise that postmodernism is not part of the modern "tradition."
> How do you deduce the 'nobility' of the end of
> Weimar? How is Zionism a 'grand tradition',
> or indeed particle physics? If these are the
> lessons learned, then I would suggest some
> new text books.
I wouldn't learn the history either modernism or postmodernism
out of a text book. A postmodernist would understand.
> I'm not sure that you can
> blame WWII on the 'failure' of Modernism
> either. It seems a little unfair to ask a
> handful of artists, writers, filmmakers and
> architects to, well, change the world by
> themselves and then blame them when they
> don't. I know some of them promised to
> change it, but even they knew they needed help.
I don't care that they didn't change the world. I do care that
they didn't change their minds. If you don't change your minds
then you can't change others' minds.
That's what the postmodernists did - they changed everyones' minds.
> What is so disturbing to you about
> modernism's 'appropriation' of
> Romanticism?
The same thing I find disturbing about modernism trying to
claim credit for Postmodernism.
Imagine if the Nazis had won the war. Every "modernist" in
Germany after the war would have been a nazi sympathizer by
default. Then, if the postmodern revolution ever reached germany,
You'd have a bunch of postmodernists equating modernism with hitler.
> What ideologies are you
> talking about? You can't be suggesting that
> Modernism filled a power vacumn, can you?
Of course it did. The Renaissance provided an excellent myth
of antiquity constructed from extant texts. the Modernists translated
that myth into a justification for a new world order of sorts.
-BER
wrob
> (Gentle sigh) You persist in your habit of unmarked deletions. At least
> have the honour to leave what you prefer to avoid intact.
I only delete questions which would take too much time to answer
to your satisfaction. And I've tried to mark snips. After all,
we can only discuss so much.
> > I said below that I do not believe you have to spend
> > your time NEGATING a philosophy to rebel against it!
> > The worst insult to the modern tradition is to believe that
> > you have concluded it with some sort of overarching
> > paradigm shift; this is exactly what the postmodernists
> > asserted. And they were right. The man on the street is not
> > modern man, and neither is the average avant garde artist.
I'm saying it now...>
> No, you didn't say that. You did make some comments about not being able
> to rebel against an enemy you can't respect. You said
>
> 'One cannot rebel against an enemy one does not respect. One cannot rebel
> against the truth without appreciating truth for some other reason
> besides the reason that modernists appreciate it.'
>
> You now seem to contradict that here - after all, it is hardly respectful
> to simply overarch your opponent (which is what I take to be your
> 'conclude with an overarching paradigm shift'). The trouble is that you
> have offered no examples or indeed argument that this is so. I gave some
> examples that suggested that the 'paradigm shift' ain't so simple. You
> don't want to hear this, and so far have offered nothing but bombast in
> reply. In what does this paradigm shift consist?
The common example of Newtons laws demonstrates what most people
mean by paradigm shift. Modern science has improved upon Newtons laws
in such a fashion/degree that we need not look back to them for authority.
They did not have to prove them entirely false to do so. Why do modernists
seem to insist that their tradition can never be surpassed unless someone
proves all their insights wrong?
> > The simple fact is that anyone who believes Postmodernism
> > is consistent with the modern tradition is not modernist;
> > he is something more or less than a modernist; he is a
> > postmodernist who labels himself a modernist because he
> > is fond of that tradition of thought. Or else he is a modernist
> > who really does not appreciate postmodernism.
>
> I offered a range of examples which suggested that this was neither
> simple nor a fact. Either you explain why your epochal scheme is right or
> this is just wind.
You suggested how it was possible for a modernist to be postmodern,
I suppose. But this only proves that postmodern has a long pedigree.
Why assume that everything that was said back in the golden years of
Modernism was a modern tradition? Is 19th century Romanesque
architecture "modernist"? (rhetorical, I know)
Nevertheless, it does not follow that Modernism can just go its
merry way assuming that the arguments of Derrida et al have only
proved how self reflexive "modern man" is capable of being thanks
to the hard work of storied academe.
> > You also have to appreciate a philosophy to rebel against it.
>
> But you have just asserted a paradigm shift as central to postmodernism.
> Modernism was not appreciated but 'concluded', you said. Where is the
> 'appreciation' in that?
We appreciate the Parthenon, but the ancient Greeks concluded that the
Doric Order was spent the minute they saw it completed - in their version
of the classical tradition, the pinnacle had been reached, it was all downhill
from there, and so they moved on.
Will the modernists realise that their moment was good while it lasted,
and move on? Or will they continue creating Baroque, institutional
countermovements to piously comment on postmodern decline
(in itself little more than participation in the postmodern project?)
I'm not saying If you can't beat them, join them. I feel the modernists
have already done that.
> > Modernism did not critique itself in the same way that postmodernism
> > critiques modernism. If it had, then postmodernism would be an
> > utterly meaningless catch phrase.
>
> How does postmodernism critique modernism? Examples please. This is not
> an answer to my question, by the way. You still have to justify your
> blanket categorisation of modernism.
Let someone else defend the claim that postmodernism critiques modernism.
Of course, this sort of argument is almost deconstructionist in its challenging
of long-held assumptions.
I'm only characterising modernism in respect to postmodernism...
> > Also, modernism was chiefly concerned with critiquing Modern*ity*.
> > It's standards for critiquing itself were much different than ours
> > today. It believed you could critique yourself from within the set of
> > rules you were critiquing.
>
> Where else would or could you do it from? Could one not say the same of,
> for instance, deconstruction?
A deconstructionist would not hold himself to a set of rules, even for
critique.
> Plus, you appear confused as to whether
> Modernism was critiquing itself or modernity. I can certainly see a way
> in which the two are closely linked, but you haven't made that case.
Every philosophy critiques itself. It's hardly a modern innovation.
The two are indeed closely linked, thanks to industrialization...
> > In postmodernism this is the opposite. it embraces modern*ity*.
> Perhaps. Depends which 'postmodernism' you are talking about.
Postmodernism is rather notorious for hamstringing even the most avidly
anti - establishment avant garde. Just look at what happened to "Punk".
> > "Modern*ity*" is seen as irrevocably *post* modern in content.
>
> Umm, seen by whom? Do you mean postmodernism or postmodernity by *post*
> modern here? Are you saying that aesthetic forms which correspond to a
> modern sociology have now appeared, or are you saying that there is no
> difference between modernity and 'postmodernity' as social forms? If the
> latter then modernism has a continued validity as far as I can see.
I'm saying that modern sociology does not necessarily provide the
frame of reference for interpreting "contemporaneity", which is what we
might unbiasedly call "modernity" for the sake of argument...
> > Meanwhile, it believes that no modernism can be critiqued without
> > stepping outside it into the overall set of modernities (grouped under
> > the postmodern rubric of course.)
>
> It? What? Who believes this? Postmodernism? If so, which postmodernism
> are you talking about? How can one step into an 'overall set of
> modernities'? To do so would be to mount a critique of modernism from a
> position of totality, something which, as far as I can tell, is something
> of a postmodern no no.
On the contrary, if nothing is outside the text, than the text IS the position
of
totality. We might as well both be postmodernists, because that is the way
this argument is going right here!!
> > In effect, it argues that *Postmodernism is necessary to fully understand
> > the philosophy of Modernism or any other contemporary philosophy in
> > a postmodern society.*
>
> But that is a thoroughly Hegelian position. In fact, the more I think
> about it, the more crude Hegelian you seem, misconceived Aufhebungs and
> all.
"Crude Hegelian"?? he he ... You realise of course that this is Postmodernity
and I can take any position I want, you certainly cannot refute my argument
because you find (unintentional) Hegelian parallels.
It might help if you realised that as Hegel was attempting to do (and his
pupils
largely failed him) I am attempting to speak from outside the dominant cultural
discourse. *I* am saying that their argument inevitably leads to the
conclusion.
> >> However, I
> >> think that one certainly can rebel against an
> >> enemy one does not respect, this might even
> >> be a requirement.
> >
> > Not if the enemy - modernism in this case - dictates the terms of respect.
> > Its followers need to respect YOUR argument or you'll be ignored.
>
> Come, come. ANY revolt will not have control of the 'terms of respect'.
> Any revolt which relies upon the terms of its enemy is (a) really just a
> conversation, (b) doomed. In any case how can you have your beloved
> 'paradigm shift' without creating new terms?
You can't cause new terms without basing them in some way
on what has gone before. Otherwise you're just a "visionary"
with no reason for people to believe you. But why this insistence
by modernists that Postmodernism would have had to *disprove*
some major element of modernism in order to produce a paradigm shift?
> You have also cut the part of your passage that I asked about, and my
> question. Let me remind you. You said
>
> 'And I am most definitely not into "celebratory critiques" of anything
> that takes itself more seriously than its descendants.'
>
> and I said
>
> 'What is "something that takes itself more seriously than its
> descendants"? Are the descendants being disrespectful, or is it the
> something which is not impressed by its descendants?'
>
> Now I have just seen another interpretation - perhaps the something takes
> itself so seriously that it does not bother to have descendants. So, it
> might be rich for you, but I have three possible meanings which are
> mutually exclusive and none of which make an awful lot of sense.
But all three are true to varying degrees of modernism vs a vis pomo.
And yet they are constantly busy celebratorily critiquing each other as if
they had agreed to disagree. A very postmodern position to take.
> Mind you, I still want
> to know how Weimar's failure was noble and Zionism is a 'grand
> tradition'. You can also explain particle physics as a grand tradition if
> you want.
These are postmodern tropes to begin with. The postmodernists claim
numerous failures of modernism. Thomas Jefferson claims King George
committed numerous crimes.
> >> I'm not sure that you can
> >> blame WWII on the 'failure' of Modernism
> >> either. It seems a little unfair to ask a
> >> handful of artists, writers, filmmakers and
> >> architects to, well, change the world by
> >> themselves and then blame them when they
> >> don't. I know some of them promised to
> >> change it, but even they knew they needed help.
> >
> > I don't care that they didn't change the world. I do care that
> > they didn't change their minds. If you don't change your minds
> > then you can't change others' minds.
>
> They did change their minds, they became modernists - not an easy thing
> to do, at least if you meant it - ask Rodchenko, or Breton, or Brecht, or
> Mayakovsky, or Meyer, etc.. Being a modernist came to mean exile,
> repudiation or death - all easy decisions. Of course, silly me, they
> should just have changed their minds. The second sentence here is just a
> nonsense homily, in fact worse than nonsense. 50,000 people followed
> Mayakovsky's coffin, precisely because he didn't change his mind. Not bad
> for a poet.
Then he didn't change anyone else's mind! And so he couldn't have persuaded
anyone that there was a crisis of western civ. And if he wasn't a modernist
before,
why assert that he *became* one? But really, I don't know about Mayakovsky
or his pallbearers.
> > That's what the postmodernists did - they changed everyones' minds.
>
> Been around this newsgroup long? But I have to ask - who are you talking
> about? Who are these *postmodernists* who have had such an impact? And
> who is this everyone?
I mean that the sort of attitude towards Life, the Universe and Everything
evinced
by latter day modernists is shared by very few people outside the ivory tower.
The debate between modernists and academic postmodernists is a tempest in a
teapot.
George Will would consider this a stimulating rebuke, but he would think both
of us
to be postmodernists.
> >> What is so disturbing to you about
> >> modernism's 'appropriation' of
> >> Romanticism?
> >
> > The same thing I find disturbing about modernism trying to
> > claim credit for Postmodernism.
>
> Until you clear up what you mean by postmodernism, this makes no sense.
> Who is claiming this? Me? I think not.
Postmodernism is this semantics-obsessed debate, a tempest in a teapot
amongst people who are free to take for granted that they are right.
In the modern era, real life sanctions accompanied such behavior.
Too bad all the modernist heroes who braved such sanctions had such a
healthy respect for these limitations.
> > Imagine if the Nazis had won the war. Every "modernist" in
> > Germany after the war would have been a nazi sympathizer by
> > default. Then, if the postmodern revolution ever reached germany,
> > You'd have a bunch of postmodernists equating modernism with hitler.
>
> Most modernists who remained in Germany after the Nazi coup ended up
> dead, even some who had turned sympathiser (expressionists mainly). You
> would have had a very hard time even finding a post-war modernist in your
> scenario. But then, it has not been unheard of for modernism to be
> equated with totalitarianism. The trouble is that accusation usually came
> from the American right - in the name of 'traditional' values, of course.
> (Oddly enough, the CIA funded the promotion of Abstract Expressionism in
> Europe in the 1950s in the name of anti-communism).
A postmodernist would not consider that odd.
> >> What ideologies are you
> >> talking about? You can't be suggesting that
> >> Modernism filled a power vacumn, can you?
> >
> > Of course it did. The Renaissance provided an excellent myth
> > of antiquity constructed from extant texts. the Modernists translated
> > that myth into a justification for a new world order of sorts.
>
> I'm sorry, but this is just silly. The many and varied claims of
> Modernism were never realised, nor were they ever in a position of
> authority, except possibly, and briefly, in the highly irrelevant world
> of art. If you mean architecture then you will have to revise your
> timeframe as virtually all modernist *style* architecture was built after
> WWII.
This is nonsense, as any architectural historian will tell you.
Most fields of THOUGHT place the modern tradition back to at LEAST
the enlightenment. If you think modernism made a break with the
enlightenment, then you don't put it in very good bargaining position
up against the postmodern juggernaut.
> It is also silly, as I have pointed out a couple of times already,
> in assuming a unified view on the part of modernism. You appear to
> believe that Modernism consisted of positive proposals, whereas, with
> some exceptions, it largely consisted of a mixture of utopias, dystopias,
> self destructions, deliberate artificiality, pain, failure, dreams,
> allegory, delay, uncertainty and so forth. Everything, in short, that had
> been exiled from modernity but could not be separated from it. You appear
> to want a postmodernism that 'embraces' modernity and is separate from
> modernism. If you can find it, you are welcome to it. Perhaps
> supermarkets styled as Grecian temples?
I don't *want* postmodernism period. I do not attempt to boil down
modernism, only to distinguish its *view of itself* vs. Pomo's *view of it*.
I think Pomo had the right idea, though. The fact that you are employing
postmodern, in-your-face rhetoric that never would have flown in the 50's
shows the unfortunate limitations of modernist-style thought in not being
able to assimilate differing worldviews.
-BER
wrob
statement is what I could have a hard time stating plainly:
Most present day adherence to "modernism" is a game being played
by people who are unthinkingly postmodernist, who were raised
in a society that appreciates the "modern impulse" in no better fashion than
it appreciates the impulse that went into the ancient Greek poems or
the Gothic cathedrals.
-BER
deda...@my-deja.com
> Come, come...
(Gentle sigh) You persist in your habit of unmarked deletions. At least
have the honour to leave what you prefer to avoid intact.
>> So? I see you have dropped, without
>> indication, the examples of work called
>> postmodern that does not set itself in
>> opposition to modernism.
>
> I said below that I do not believe you have to spend
> your time NEGATING a philosophy to rebel against it!
> The worst insult to the modern tradition is to believe that
> you have concluded it with some sort of overarching
> paradigm shift; this is exactly what the postmodernists
> asserted. And they were right. The man on the street is not
> modern man, and neither is the average avant garde artist.
No, you didn't say that. You did make some comments about not being able
to rebel against an enemy you can't respect. You said
'One cannot rebel against an enemy one does not respect. One cannot rebel
against the truth without appreciating truth for some other reason
besides the reason that modernists appreciate it.'
You now seem to contradict that here - after all, it is hardly respectful
to simply overarch your opponent (which is what I take to be your
'conclude with an overarching paradigm shift'). The trouble is that you
have offered no examples or indeed argument that this is so. I gave some
examples that suggested that the 'paradigm shift' ain't so simple. You
don't want to hear this, and so far have offered nothing but bombast in
reply. In what does this paradigm shift consist?
>> This is quite a snip. You claimed that
>> Postmodernism is a revolt against
>> modernism, but so far have offered no
>> justification for this. When offered counter
>> examples, you ignore them or simply drop them.
>
> The simple fact is that anyone who believes Postmodernism
> is consistent with the modern tradition is not modernist;
> he is something more or less than a modernist; he is a
> postmodernist who labels himself a modernist because he
> is fond of that tradition of thought. Or else he is a modernist
> who really does not appreciate postmodernism.
I offered a range of examples which suggested that this was neither
simple nor a fact. Either you explain why your epochal scheme is right or
this is just wind.
> You also have to appreciate a philosophy to rebel against it.
But you have just asserted a paradigm shift as central to postmodernism.
Modernism was not appreciated but 'concluded', you said. Where is the
'appreciation' in that?
>> >A common denominator might be called critique, even in
>> > celebration.
>> >
>> > I do not see how a celebratory critique of ones forefathers prevents
>> > one from rebelling. One cannot rebel against an enemy one does not
>> > respect. One cannot rebel against the truth without appreciating
>> > truth for some other reason besides the reason that modernists
>> > appreciate it ("because it's true" or "because it's the next step."
>> > these are obviously not particularly postmodern approaches to
>> > "celebrating" modern art or anything else.
>>
>> I mentioned critique as a common
>> denominator of various modernisms, against
>> your blanket claim that modernism sought to
>> 'transcend' modernity.
> Modernism did not critique itself in the same way that postmodernism
> critiques modernism. If it had, then postmodernism would be an
> utterly meaningless catch phrase.
How does postmodernism critique modernism? Examples please. This is not
an answer to my question, by the way. You still have to justify your
blanket categorisation of modernism.
> Also, modernism was chiefly concerned with critiquing Modern*ity*.
> It's standards for critiquing itself were much different than ours
> today. It believed you could critique yourself from within the set of
> rules you were critiquing.
Where else would or could you do it from? Could one not say the same of,
for instance, deconstruction? Plus, you appear confused as to whether
Modernism was critiquing itself or modernity. I can certainly see a way
in which the two are closely linked, but you haven't made that case.
> In postmodernism this is the opposite. it embraces modern*ity*.
Perhaps. Depends which 'postmodernism' you are talking about.
> "Modern*ity*" is seen as irrevocably *post* modern in content.
Umm, seen by whom? Do you mean postmodernism or postmodernity by *post*
modern here? Are you saying that aesthetic forms which correspond to a
modern sociology have now appeared, or are you saying that there is no
difference between modernity and 'postmodernity' as social forms? If the
latter then modernism has a continued validity as far as I can see.
> Meanwhile, it believes that no modernism can be critiqued without
> stepping outside it into the overall set of modernities (grouped under
> the postmodern rubric of course.)
It? What? Who believes this? Postmodernism? If so, which postmodernism
are you talking about? How can one step into an 'overall set of
modernities'? To do so would be to mount a critique of modernism from a
position of totality, something which, as far as I can tell, is something
of a postmodern no no.
> In effect, it argues that *Postmodernism is necessary to fully understand
> the philosophy of Modernism or any other contemporary philosophy in
> a postmodern society.*
But that is a thoroughly Hegelian position. In fact, the more I think
about it, the more crude Hegelian you seem, misconceived Aufhebungs and
all.
>> However, I
>> think that one certainly can rebel against an
>> enemy one does not respect, this might even
>> be a requirement.
>
> Not if the enemy - modernism in this case - dictates the terms of respect.
> Its followers need to respect YOUR argument or you'll be ignored.
Come, come. ANY revolt will not have control of the 'terms of respect'.
Any revolt which relies upon the terms of its enemy is (a) really just a
conversation, (b) doomed. In any case how can you have your beloved
'paradigm shift' without creating new terms?
>> > For instance, I am in "revolt" against postmodernism, and yet I admire
>> > many of its intents and insights. I think Brad Mckormick's position
>> > on the progressive construct of ideas applies here, although as a
>> > non-modernist I'm not so sure this is precisely what constitutes
>> progress.
>
>> Hang on. [...] You now apparently choose not
>> to reply but instead offer this, which frankly
>> I can't make much of.
>
> Too bad, it's packed with meaning for me. But you won't accept
> my basic premise that postmodernism is not part of the modern "tradition."
I recognised your basic premise but you have given me no reason to accept
your it. Even if I did, that passage still doesn't make sense. The
section where I gave the history of this conversation has been dropped.
You have also cut the part of your passage that I asked about, and my
question. Let me remind you. You said
'And I am most definitely not into "celebratory critiques" of anything
that takes itself more seriously than its descendants.'
and I said
'What is "something that takes itself more seriously than its
descendants"? Are the descendants being disrespectful, or is it the
something which is not impressed by its descendants?'
Now I have just seen another interpretation - perhaps the something takes
itself so seriously that it does not bother to have descendants. So, it
might be rich for you, but I have three possible meanings which are
mutually exclusive and none of which make an awful lot of sense.
>> How do you deduce the 'nobility' of the end of
>> Weimar? How is Zionism a 'grand tradition',
>> or indeed particle physics? If these are the
>> lessons learned, then I would suggest some
>> new text books.
>
> I wouldn't learn the history either modernism or postmodernism
> out of a text book. A postmodernist would understand.
I keep forgetting - *avoid irony*, or even jokes. Mind you, I still want
to know how Weimar's failure was noble and Zionism is a 'grand
tradition'. You can also explain particle physics as a grand tradition if
you want.
>> I'm not sure that you can
>> blame WWII on the 'failure' of Modernism
>> either. It seems a little unfair to ask a
>> handful of artists, writers, filmmakers and
>> architects to, well, change the world by
>> themselves and then blame them when they
>> don't. I know some of them promised to
>> change it, but even they knew they needed help.
>
> I don't care that they didn't change the world. I do care that
> they didn't change their minds. If you don't change your minds
> then you can't change others' minds.
They did change their minds, they became modernists - not an easy thing
to do, at least if you meant it - ask Rodchenko, or Breton, or Brecht, or
Mayakovsky, or Meyer, etc.. Being a modernist came to mean exile,
repudiation or death - all easy decisions. Of course, silly me, they
should just have changed their minds. The second sentence here is just a
nonsense homily, in fact worse than nonsense. 50,000 people followed
Mayakovsky's coffin, precisely because he didn't change his mind. Not bad
for a poet.
> That's what the postmodernists did - they changed everyones' minds.
Been around this newsgroup long? But I have to ask - who are you talking
about? Who are these *postmodernists* who have had such an impact? And
who is this everyone?
>> What is so disturbing to you about
>> modernism's 'appropriation' of
>> Romanticism?
>
> The same thing I find disturbing about modernism trying to
> claim credit for Postmodernism.
Until you clear up what you mean by postmodernism, this makes no sense.
Who is claiming this? Me? I think not.
> Imagine if the Nazis had won the war. Every "modernist" in
> Germany after the war would have been a nazi sympathizer by
> default. Then, if the postmodern revolution ever reached germany,
> You'd have a bunch of postmodernists equating modernism with hitler.
Most modernists who remained in Germany after the Nazi coup ended up
dead, even some who had turned sympathiser (expressionists mainly). You
would have had a very hard time even finding a post-war modernist in your
scenario. But then, it has not been unheard of for modernism to be
equated with totalitarianism. The trouble is that accusation usually came
from the American right - in the name of 'traditional' values, of course.
(Oddly enough, the CIA funded the promotion of Abstract Expressionism in
Europe in the 1950s in the name of anti-communism).
>> What ideologies are you
>> talking about? You can't be suggesting that
>> Modernism filled a power vacumn, can you?
>
> Of course it did. The Renaissance provided an excellent myth
> of antiquity constructed from extant texts. the Modernists translated
> that myth into a justification for a new world order of sorts.
I'm sorry, but this is just silly. The many and varied claims of
Modernism were never realised, nor were they ever in a position of
authority, except possibly, and briefly, in the highly irrelevant world
of art. If you mean architecture then you will have to revise your
timeframe as virtually all modernist *style* architecture was built after
WWII. It is also silly, as I have pointed out a couple of times already,
in assuming a unified view on the part of modernism. You appear to
believe that Modernism consisted of positive proposals, whereas, with
some exceptions, it largely consisted of a mixture of utopias, dystopias,
self destructions, deliberate artificiality, pain, failure, dreams,
allegory, delay, uncertainty and so forth. Everything, in short, that had
been exiled from modernity but could not be separated from it. You appear
to want a postmodernism that 'embraces' modernity and is separate from
modernism. If you can find it, you are welcome to it. Perhaps
supermarkets styled as Grecian temples?
> -BER
Lewis Mammel
> Funnily enough, amongst other things, I am an architectural historian. I
> can assure you that this is true. I couldn't give you exact percentages,
> but at a guesstimate, roughly 95%, probably higher, is post WWII. Look
> around. Note I said 'Modernist *style*. I even emphasised it.
I'm impressed by your post so let me ask you this naive question.
Do you think Dr. Seuss exemplifies the modernist style? This thought
came to me when I saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and noticed the resemblance.
Also, Orson Welles' production of MacBeth seemed very modernist, as well
as Dr. Seussish.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
deda...@my-deja.com
> deda...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> (Gentle sigh) You persist in your habit of unmarked deletions. At least
>> have the honour to leave what you prefer to avoid intact.
>
> I only delete questions which would take too much time to answer
> to your satisfaction. And I've tried to mark snips. After all,
> we can only discuss so much.
At the risk of quibbling, you haven't marked even most deletions in the
past. I'll leave the question of satisfaction dangling.
>> > I said below that I do not believe you have to spend
>> > your time NEGATING a philosophy to rebel against it!
>> > The worst insult to the modern tradition is to believe that
>> > you have concluded it with some sort of overarching
>> > paradigm shift; this is exactly what the postmodernists
>> > asserted. And they were right. The man on the street is not
>> > modern man, and neither is the average avant garde artist.
>
> I'm saying it now...>
Fine, I'll answer it later, or perhaps below.
>> No, you didn't say that. You did make some comments about not being able
>> to rebel against an enemy you can't respect. You said
>>
>> 'One cannot rebel against an enemy one does not respect. One cannot rebel
>> against the truth without appreciating truth for some other reason
>> besides the reason that modernists appreciate it.'
>>
>> You now seem to contradict that here - after all, it is hardly respectful
>> to simply overarch your opponent (which is what I take to be your
>> 'conclude with an overarching paradigm shift'). The trouble is that you
>> have offered no examples or indeed argument that this is so. I gave some
>> examples that suggested that the 'paradigm shift' ain't so simple. You
>> don't want to hear this, and so far have offered nothing but bombast in
>> reply. In what does this paradigm shift consist?
>
> The common example of Newtons laws demonstrates what most people
> mean by paradigm shift. Modern science has improved upon Newtons laws
> in such a fashion/degree that we need not look back to them for authority.
Or the move from earthcentric to heliocentric models of the Solar system?
Hmm.
It has been a long time since I have looked at Kuhn, but my dim memory is
that it is not based upon a developmental model, but rather significant
changes of terms, models and parameters. I stand to be corrected (and
there are many in this NG who can correct me). In any case, what I asked
was what constituted the paradigm shift you put forward. Any chance of
response?
> They did not have to prove them entirely false to do so. Why do modernists
> seem to insist that their tradition can never be surpassed unless someone
> proves all their insights wrong?
But you describe your shift as being conclusive. More, you say that
anyone who believes that 'Postmodernism is consistent with the modern
tradition' could well be 'a modernist who does not really appreciate
postmodernism'. So any hypothetical current modernists are mistaken, yes?
>> > The simple fact is that anyone who believes Postmodernism
>> > is consistent with the modern tradition is not modernist;
>> > he is something more or less than a modernist; he is a
>> > postmodernist who labels himself a modernist because he
>> > is fond of that tradition of thought. Or else he is a modernist
>> > who really does not appreciate postmodernism.
>>
>> I offered a range of examples which suggested that this was neither
>> simple nor a fact. Either you explain why your epochal scheme is right or
>> this is just wind.
>
> You suggested how it was possible for a modernist to be postmodern,
> I suppose. But this only proves that postmodern has a long pedigree.
> Why assume that everything that was said back in the golden years of
> Modernism was a modern tradition? Is 19th century Romanesque
> architecture "modernist"? (rhetorical, I know)
I don't think I even suggested such a thing. You said that Postmodernism
is a revolt against modernism. I offered examples which seemed to
complicate this situation. I did not draw any conclusions as to what this
said about modernism or postmodernism, merely that it made your case for
a revolt problematic. You then, after arguing for a respectful revolt -
of which more below-, put forward the model of a paradigm shift. As I
have just suggested, this model also seems to have some problems. You now
cause your own model a few more problems by suggesting that
'postmodernism has a long pedigree'. This doesn't really fit with the
'paradigm shift' (e.g Try 'Einsteinian physics has a long pedigree before
Einstein'). Nor, considering that you also insist on the inconsistency of
Modernism and Postmodernism, can you simply claim certain 'high'
modernists as being postmodern, which is what you seem to do here. Again,
I am not saying yea or nay, but this doesn't fit your own argument. (Mind
you, you are not alone. I read a book a couple of years ago which claimed
that Brecht was postmodern for the very same reasons that previously he
was considered as a modernist avant-gardist. Ho hum or indeed ha ha).
> Nevertheless, it does not follow that Modernism can just go its
> merry way assuming that the arguments of Derrida et al have only
> proved how self reflexive "modern man" is capable of being thanks
> to the hard work of storied academe.
Storied? I don't get your point here, but modernism's way was never
'merry'.
>> > You also have to appreciate a philosophy to rebel against it.
>>
>> But you have just asserted a paradigm shift as central to postmodernism.
>> Modernism was not appreciated but 'concluded', you said. Where is the
>> 'appreciation' in that?
>
> We appreciate the Parthenon, but the ancient Greeks concluded that the
> Doric Order was spent the minute they saw it completed - in their version
> of the classical tradition, the pinnacle had been reached, it was all
> downhill
> from there, and so they moved on.
Bad analogy. For it to fit, you would have to have the ancient Greeks
still appreciating the Parthenon after the Doric Order was 'spent' and
they had 'moved on'.
> Will the modernists realise that their moment was good while it lasted,
> and move on? Or will they continue creating Baroque, institutional
> countermovements to piously comment on postmodern decline
> (in itself little more than participation in the postmodern project?)
Ah. Now this is interesting. Correct me if I am wrong, but you appear to
be saying that making a negative critique of the present is merely
'pious' or part of attempting to further careers and one should just get
over it and 'move on' to, presumably, 'embracing modernity'. Is this
fair?
> I'm not saying If you can't beat them, join them. I feel the modernists
> have already done that.
Again, you would have to be clear about what you mean by 'modernism' for
this to mean anything. In some ways, I might agree with you. In others,
not. At the moment, who knows?
>> > Modernism did not critique itself in the same way that postmodernism
>> > critiques modernism. If it had, then postmodernism would be an
>> > utterly meaningless catch phrase.
>>
>> How does postmodernism critique modernism? Examples please. This is not
>> an answer to my question, by the way. You still have to justify your
>> blanket categorisation of modernism.
>
> Let someone else defend the claim that postmodernism critiques modernism.
> Of course, this sort of argument is almost deconstructionist in its
> challenging
> of long-held assumptions.
Why should someone else defend this claim? You made it, now defend it.
Please note, I am not at this moment denying the claim, merely asking for
clarification. BTW I have this nagging sense that 'challenging long held
assumptions' was often a modernist activity.
> I'm only characterising modernism in respect to postmodernism...
Apart from a couple of very fleeting glimpses, you have not characterised
it at all, nor have you characterised postmodernism. If you are
'characterising modernism in respect to postmodernism', then your version
of postmodernism, whatever it may be, would seem to involve some serious
historical reinvention in order to justify itself. Still, if you do
actually characterise it, I may well turn out to be wrong.
>> > Also, modernism was chiefly concerned with critiquing Modern*ity*.
>> > It's standards for critiquing itself were much different than ours
>> > today. It believed you could critique yourself from within the set of
>> > rules you were critiquing.
>>
>> Where else would or could you do it from? Could one not say the same of,
>> for instance, deconstruction?
>
> A deconstructionist would not hold himself to a set of rules, even for
> critique.
I'll come back to this below with the your 'nothing outside of the text'
comment.
>> Plus, you appear confused as to whether
>> Modernism was critiquing itself or modernity. I can certainly see a way
>> in which the two are closely linked, but you haven't made that case.
>
> Every philosophy critiques itself. It's hardly a modern innovation.
> The two are indeed closely linked, thanks to industrialization...
*Every* philosophy critiques itself?
>> > In postmodernism this is the opposite. it embraces modern*ity*.
>
>> Perhaps. Depends which 'postmodernism' you are talking about.
>
> Postmodernism is rather notorious for hamstringing even the most avidly
> anti - establishment avant garde. Just look at what happened to "Punk".
Again, I might be tempted to agree, but I still don't know what you are
talking about when you say Postmodernism. I can think of some things that
are called postmodernist which certainly try not to do this.
>> > "Modern*ity*" is seen as irrevocably *post* modern in content.
>>
>> Umm, seen by whom? Do you mean postmodernism or postmodernity by *post*
>> modern here? Are you saying that aesthetic forms which correspond to a
>> modern sociology have now appeared, or are you saying that there is no
>> difference between modernity and 'postmodernity' as social forms? If the
>> latter then modernism has a continued validity as far as I can see.
>
> I'm saying that modern sociology does not necessarily provide the
> frame of reference for interpreting "contemporaneity", which is what we
> might unbiasedly call "modernity" for the sake of argument...
O.K., bad phrasing. I was not talking about sociology the academic
discipline, but modernity as a social form. If you use that term, then
you imply a continuity between the 'modernity' to which modernism
responded and the present. If, on the other hand, you wish to argue that
social organisation has changed, then might I suggest you call it
postmodernity? Mind you, I would then want to know what the difference
was that you see.
>> > Meanwhile, it believes that no modernism can be critiqued without
>> > stepping outside it into the overall set of modernities (grouped under
>> > the postmodern rubric of course.)
>>
>> It? What? Who believes this? Postmodernism? If so, which postmodernism
>> are you talking about? How can one step into an 'overall set of
>> modernities'? To do so would be to mount a critique of modernism from a
>> position of totality, something which, as far as I can tell, is something
>> of a postmodern no no.
>
> On the contrary, if nothing is outside the text, than the text IS the
> position
> of
> totality. We might as well both be postmodernists, because that is the way
> this argument is going right here!!
Out of curiosity, have you ever read the Derrida (Of Grammatology) that
you are misquoting here? My guess would be not. Let me refer you back to
the point above where you suggested it was possible to mount a critique
from outside 'the set of rules you were critiquing'. "Il n'y a pas de
hors-texte" ('There is no outside to the text') does not mean that there
is nothing outside the text. At this point in the passage, Derrida has
just cheerfully admitted that there could well have been a real Rousseau.
It means that one cannot obtain a position which is outside. The text
might well be a kind of totality but it is a totality which cannot be
grasped as such because there can be no position from which to grasp it
which is not already a part of it. So, bluntly, there can be no position
of totality. Deconstruction has to work from within the set of rules it
is critiquing, because there is nowhere else from which it can work.
(Crude to the point of barbarism, I know. Again, I welcome correction or
improvement from those better versed than myself).
>> > In effect, it argues that *Postmodernism is necessary to fully understand
>> > the philosophy of Modernism or any other contemporary philosophy in
>> > a postmodern society.*
>>
>> But that is a thoroughly Hegelian position. In fact, the more I think
>> about it, the more crude Hegelian you seem, misconceived Aufhebungs and
>> all.
>
> "Crude Hegelian"?? he he ... You realise of course that this is Postmodernity
> and I can take any position I want, you certainly cannot refute my argument
> because you find (unintentional) Hegelian parallels.
What? Are you sleeping with the enemy? I think it was Paul de Man who
said 'we are all of us Hegelians, and most of us fairly orthodox ones'.
Unintentionality, like ignorance, is no excuse. You seem to wish to claim
postmodernism as a more developed position from which less developed
positions can be comprehended - a position which incorporates the others
but transcends them. Hell, if it looks like a duck....
I am surprised that you class modernism as a contemporary philosophy
(actually I am surprised that you call modernism 'a philosophy' at all.
As I keep trying to point out, you are lumping together a disparate set
of practices, concerns and thoughts, as you seem to be doing with
postmodernism as well). Anyhow, I have barely even tried to refute your
argument. I am spending all my time trying to find out what your argument
is.
> It might help if you realised that as Hegel was attempting to do (and his
> pupils
> largely failed him) I am attempting to speak from outside the dominant
> cultural
> discourse. *I* am saying that their argument inevitably leads to the
> conclusion.
What conclusion? I now have doubts about your reading of Hegel or at
least your understanding of Hegelian dialectics. Please point to any
place where Hegel even suggests that this was what he was attempting to
do.
>> >> However, I
>> >> think that one certainly can rebel against an
>> >> enemy one does not respect, this might even
>> >> be a requirement.
>> >
>> > Not if the enemy - modernism in this case - dictates the terms of
> respect.
>> > Its followers need to respect YOUR argument or you'll be ignored.
>>
>> Come, come. ANY revolt will not have control of the 'terms of respect'.
>> Any revolt which relies upon the terms of its enemy is (a) really just a
>> conversation, (b) doomed. In any case how can you have your beloved
>> 'paradigm shift' without creating new terms?
>
> You can't cause new terms without basing them in some way
> on what has gone before. Otherwise you're just a "visionary"
> with no reason for people to believe you.
Did I say that one could cause new terms without such a basis? Any revolt
has to be based on 'what has gone before' and on current conditions. The
revolt is a rejection of that present. Otherwise it is an internal reform
- a conversation conducted by the dominant. (The recent discussion of Job
seems relevant here). So revolt means rejecting the demand for respect
made by the dominant.
> But why this insistence
> by modernists that Postmodernism would have had to *disprove*
> some major element of modernism in order to produce a paradigm shift?
What modernists? I'm not saying that this insistence isn't made, but by
whom? Still, isn't demonstrating the inadequacy of a previous model part
of a paradigm shift? You say 'Will the modernists realise that their
moment was good while it lasted and move on?'. If nothing has been
'disproved' or surpassed, why should they?
>> You have also cut the part of your passage that I asked about, and my
>> question. Let me remind you. You said
>>
>> 'And I am most definitely not into "celebratory critiques" of anything
>> that takes itself more seriously than its descendants.'
>>
>> and I said
>>
>> 'What is "something that takes itself more seriously than its
>> descendants"? Are the descendants being disrespectful, or is it the
>> something which is not impressed by its descendants?'
>>
>> Now I have just seen another interpretation - perhaps the something takes
>> itself so seriously that it does not bother to have descendants. So, it
>> might be rich for you, but I have three possible meanings which are
>> mutually exclusive and none of which make an awful lot of sense.
>
> But all three are true to varying degrees of modernism vs a vis pomo.
> And yet they are constantly busy celebratorily critiquing each other as if
> they had agreed to disagree. A very postmodern position to take.
Generational conflict I can, at a stretch, see. But if your claims for
postmodernism are in any way true then the third interpretation cannot
fit at all. I can see no mutal critique involved in these possibilities,
merely mutal opposition and/or exclusivity.
>> Mind you, I still want
>> to know how Weimar's failure was noble and Zionism is a 'grand
>> tradition'. You can also explain particle physics as a grand tradition if
>> you want.
>
> These are postmodern tropes to begin with. The postmodernists claim
> numerous failures of modernism. Thomas Jefferson claims King George
> committed numerous crimes.
No, I'm sorry. I have never, ever, heard of Zionism being called a 'grand
tradition', or particle physics (part of one, perhaps). I have also not
come across Weimar's 'noble failure'. I am not a total recluse but
obviously I missed something, so please point to examples of these as the
'lessons learnt' by the 'postmodern generation' (oops, I thought
postmodernism supposedly had a long pedigree). Anyway, King George did,
at least by command and proxy, commit numerous crimes. What has this to
do with the topic or are you claiming Jefferson as pomo? That might be
fun.
>> >> I'm not sure that you can
>> >> blame WWII on the 'failure' of Modernism
>> >> either. It seems a little unfair to ask a
>> >> handful of artists, writers, filmmakers and
>> >> architects to, well, change the world by
>> >> themselves and then blame them when they
>> >> don't. I know some of them promised to
>> >> change it, but even they knew they needed help.
>> >
>> > I don't care that they didn't change the world. I do care that
>> > they didn't change their minds. If you don't change your minds
>> > then you can't change others' minds.
>>
>> They did change their minds, they became modernists - not an easy thing
>> to do, at least if you meant it - ask Rodchenko, or Breton, or Brecht, or
>> Mayakovsky, or Meyer, etc.. Being a modernist came to mean exile,
>> repudiation or death - all easy decisions. Of course, silly me, they
>> should just have changed their minds. The second sentence here is just a
>> nonsense homily, in fact worse than nonsense. 50,000 people followed
>> Mayakovsky's coffin, precisely because he didn't change his mind. Not bad
>> for a poet.
>
> Then he didn't change anyone else's mind! And so he couldn't have persuaded
> anyone that there was a crisis of western civ. And if he wasn't a modernist
> before,
> why assert that he *became* one? But really, I don't know about Mayakovsky
> or his pallbearers.
OK. Fair cop, bad logic and bad writing. Let me revise it. Many
Modernists were killed or renounced their work, or went into exile under
threat of death. Mayakovsky committed suicide as it became apparent that
his version of revolutionary culture ( and the revolution) was to be
crushed by Stalinism. Nonetheless, and despite official disapproval, many
thousands followed his coffin. So, either Mayakovsky, despite his refusal
to change his mind, had a profound effect on a lot of people -
articulating something which developed or changed people's understanding
of themselves and their situation, or, well, it was a case of 'hey honey,
it's a nice day, so let's follow the coffin and take a picnic'. I'm not
entirely surprised that you don't know about Mayakovsky. You don't, so
far at least, seem to know a lot about modernism or indeed
'postmodernism'. So much for 'respect'. But I could be wrong, indeed I
hope so.
>> > That's what the postmodernists did - they changed everyones' minds.
>>
>> Been around this newsgroup long? But I have to ask - who are you talking
>> about? Who are these *postmodernists* who have had such an impact? And
>> who is this everyone?
>
> I mean that the sort of attitude towards Life, the Universe and Everything
> evinced
> by latter day modernists is shared by very few people outside the ivory
> tower.
> The debate between modernists and academic postmodernists is a tempest in a
> teapot.
> George Will would consider this a stimulating rebuke, but he would think both
> of us
> to be postmodernists.
No, that is not what you meant. You said 'the postmodernists' changed
'everyone's minds'. Perfectly clear. So, who are they?
If you want to say that modernism is not popular, then fine. It never was
particularly popular, with odd exceptions. Now explain why not being
popular strips something of its validity. (I won't argue about the perils
of institutionalisation, because that is fair enough, indeed it is worse
because most of the ivory has been scraped off the towers these days).
>> >> What is so disturbing to you about
>> >> modernism's 'appropriation' of
>> >> Romanticism?
>> >
>> > The same thing I find disturbing about modernism trying to
>> > claim credit for Postmodernism.
>>
>> Until you clear up what you mean by postmodernism, this makes no sense.
>> Who is claiming this? Me? I think not.
>
> Postmodernism is this semantics-obsessed debate, a tempest in a teapot
> amongst people who are free to take for granted that they are right.
> In the modern era, real life sanctions accompanied such behavior.
> Too bad all the modernist heroes who braved such sanctions had such a
> healthy respect for these limitations.
But you said postmodernism was a paradigm shift, a revolt, something
which had changed everyone's minds. Now it is a tempest in a teapot?
I don't see what you mean about modernist heroes. They had a healthy
respect for limitations whilst braving the sanctions? Many, heroically or
not, lost everything or were killed.
>> > Imagine if the Nazis had won the war. Every "modernist" in
>> > Germany after the war would have been a nazi sympathizer by
>> > default. Then, if the postmodern revolution ever reached germany,
>> > You'd have a bunch of postmodernists equating modernism with hitler.
>>
>> Most modernists who remained in Germany after the Nazi coup ended up
>> dead, even some who had turned sympathiser (expressionists mainly). You
>> would have had a very hard time even finding a post-war modernist in your
>> scenario. But then, it has not been unheard of for modernism to be
>> equated with totalitarianism. The trouble is that accusation usually came
>> from the American right - in the name of 'traditional' values, of course.
>> (Oddly enough, the CIA funded the promotion of Abstract Expressionism in
>> Europe in the 1950s in the name of anti-communism).
>
> A postmodernist would not consider that odd.
This seems like a cop out. Your hypothetical scenario collapses,
'modernism' gets even more complicated and this is your response?
Moreover, it still doesn't explain why you find Modernism's
'appropriation' of Romanticism disturbing.
>> >> What ideologies are you
>> >> talking about? You can't be suggesting that
>> >> Modernism filled a power vacumn, can you?
>> >
>> > Of course it did. The Renaissance provided an excellent myth
>> > of antiquity constructed from extant texts. the Modernists translated
>> > that myth into a justification for a new world order of sorts.
>>
>> I'm sorry, but this is just silly. The many and varied claims of
>> Modernism were never realised, nor were they ever in a position of
>> authority, except possibly, and briefly, in the highly irrelevant world
>> of art. If you mean architecture then you will have to revise your
>> timeframe as virtually all modernist *style* architecture was built after
>> WWII.
>
> This is nonsense, as any architectural historian will tell you.
Funnily enough, amongst other things, I am an architectural historian. I
can assure you that this is true. I couldn't give you exact percentages,
but at a guesstimate, roughly 95%, probably higher, is post WWII. Look
around. Note I said 'Modernist *style*. I even emphasised it.
> Most fields of THOUGHT place the modern tradition back to at LEAST
> the enlightenment. If you think modernism made a break with the
> enlightenment, then you don't put it in very good bargaining position
> up against the postmodern juggernaut.
I have no qualms about seeing modernism in some relation to the
enlightenment (as, of course, was Romanticism). But this hardly means
that it was ever in a position of authority. Come on, just how important
was art, music and architecture in determining the course of things?
Wasn't part of Romanticism an attempted revolt against the Enlightenment
separation of aesthetics from the organisation of life? Poets, I'm
afraid, remained the unacknowledged legislators of mankind,
unacknowledged and largely ineffectual.
>> It is also silly, as I have pointed out a couple of times already,
>> in assuming a unified view on the part of modernism. You appear to
>> believe that Modernism consisted of positive proposals, whereas, with
>> some exceptions, it largely consisted of a mixture of utopias, dystopias,
>> self destructions, deliberate artificiality, pain, failure, dreams,
>> allegory, delay, uncertainty and so forth. Everything, in short, that had
>> been exiled from modernity but could not be separated from it. You appear
>> to want a postmodernism that 'embraces' modernity and is separate from
>> modernism. If you can find it, you are welcome to it. Perhaps
>> supermarkets styled as Grecian temples?
>
> I don't *want* postmodernism period. I do not attempt to boil down
> modernism, only to distinguish its *view of itself* vs. Pomo's *view of it*.
Well, you certainly haven't 'boiled down' modernism, or indeed done
anything else much. You have talked about a 'revolt' and a 'paradigm
shift' and even an 'overarching concluding', but so far you haven't said
what any of these might consist in. In fact you handed off the job of
doing so. 'Let someone else defend the claim that postmodernism critiques
modernism', you said, right after making that claim.
> I think Pomo had the right idea, though. The fact that you are employing
> postmodern, in-your-face rhetoric that never would have flown in the 50's
> shows the unfortunate limitations of modernist-style thought in not being
> able to assimilate differing worldviews.
And there I was aiming for robust but fair. Damn. Mind you, I can show
you some rhetoric from the late 1910s and 1920s, or even the 1950s, that
would make your hair curl. Ever read any Tristan Tzara, or even the
second manifesto of Surrealism? Pomo hasn't a monopoly on 'in-your-face'.
[...]
deda...@my-deja.com
37C35F5E...@ameritech.net>,
Lewis Mammel <lhma...@ameritech.net>
wrote:
>
>
[...]
>
> I'm impressed by your post so let me ask you this naive question.
> Do you think Dr. Seuss exemplifies the modernist style? This thought
> came to me when I saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and noticed the resemblance.
> Also, Orson Welles' production of MacBeth seemed very modernist, as well
> as Dr. Seussish.
You wicked man, you know that the Seuss
question is still highly inflammatory. Prof
Vertoeuf's apparent discovery of an early
shooting script for Caligari with the title
'The Cat in the Box' remains to be confirmed
- forgery has been alleged. Many would be
pleased by his disgrace, seeing it as a fitting
rebuke for undue pomposity.
Nearly as troubling is the relation of the
recent work of Richard Rogers and the
Teletubbies home. There has been vitriol
poured on each other by new urbanists and
Po-modernists.
> Lew Mammel, Jr.
wrob
a coherent case for anything in response to your various assumptions.
Do you expect me to change your assumptions?
Please note that I am not advocating some universal theory
in my replies. Hegelian or othrwise. No, I have not read Derrida,
I don't intend to. That is not postmodernity.
Let me reply to specific posts. This is simple rhetoric, from my point
of view we're not really talking about much of substance!
deda...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In any case, what I asked was what constituted the paradigm shift
> you put forward. Any chance of response?
> > They did not have to prove them entirely false to do so. Why do modernists
> > seem to insist that their tradition can never be surpassed unless someone
> > proves all their insights wrong?
>
> But you describe your shift as being conclusive. More, you say that
> anyone who believes that 'Postmodernism is consistent with the modern
> tradition' could well be 'a modernist who does not really appreciate
> postmodernism'. So any hypothetical current modernists are mistaken, yes?
Only in relation to postmodernism. There is not a detailed modern critique
of pomo because one has to step outside modernist assumptions
(not outside of pomo's assumptions) to understand
pomo's critique of modernism. This is basically a paradigm shift.
My views on this are complicated by the fact that I believe it is possible
to have a worldview that allows you to step outside both sets of assumptions,
but doing so renders you entirely incomprehensible to the rest of the
intellectuals. Is that not so honorable?
> (snip) You said that Postmodernism is a revolt against modernism.
> I offered examples which seemed to complicate this situation.
> I did not draw any conclusions as to what this said about modernism
> or postmodernism, merely that it made your case for a revolt problematic.
> You then, after arguing for a respectful revolt - of which more below-,
> put forward the model of a paradigm shift. As I have just suggested,
> this model also seems to have some problems. You now
> cause your own model a few more problems by suggesting that
> 'postmodernism has a long pedigree'.
I am not trying to put forward a model of a paradigm shift.
Would you expect a po.mo.ist to put forward a model for each of his terms?
I am trying to describe a paradigm shift that actually happened to people.
These people are not modernists and they do not define paradigm
shifts based on specifics such as whether or not specific cultural
products of modernism ALLOWED respect or not. If modernism had
entirely gone over to the Nazis instead of vice versa, the Postmodernists
would have had the same paradigm shift under entirely different conditions
of "acceptance" and such.
> > We appreciate the Parthenon, but the ancient Greeks concluded that the
> > Doric Order was spent the minute they saw it completed - in their version
> > of the classical tradition, the pinnacle had been reached, it was all
> > downhill from there, and so they moved on.
>
> Bad analogy. For it to fit, you would have to have the ancient Greeks
> still appreciating the Parthenon after the Doric Order was 'spent' and
> they had 'moved on'.
No, it's not. architectural historians have put forward this exact hypothesis
for what the Greeks actually thought.
It is possible to create the most perfect "primitive" artwork in the world.
It is possible to create the most perfect Brutalist building.
What do you do then? Try to go one better in the same mode?
If you're a modernist, apparently... (?)
> > Will the modernists realise that their moment was good while it lasted,
> > and move on? Or will they continue creating Baroque, institutional
> > countermovements to piously comment on postmodern decline
> > (in itself little more than participation in the postmodern project?)
>
> Ah. Now this is interesting. Correct me if I am wrong, but you appear to
> be saying that making a negative critique of the present is merely
> 'pious' or part of attempting to further careers and one should just get
> over it and 'move on' to, presumably, 'embracing modernity'. Is this
> fair?
I'm not trying to say anything. I don't believe modernist critiques were ever
anything but "pious" and missing the point. When postmodernists pointed that
out, modernists rightly claimed that postmodernism didn't offer a better model.
Postmodernism embraced this vision of non-progress.
> > I'm not saying If you can't beat them, join them. I feel the modernists
> > have already done that.
>
> Again, you would have to be clear about what you mean by 'modernism' for
> this to mean anything. In some ways, I might agree with you. In others,
> not. At the moment, who knows?
Mere semantics. I am employing self-definitions, not book definitions that pomo
was correct in asserting bias in. They are true * for me *. Unlike a pomo, I
believe
they are also true for everyone else who momentarily shares my assumptions.
(I said that it was almost deconstructionist to ask me to prove how postmodernism
was a revolt against modernism)
> Why should someone else defend this claim? You made it, now defend it.
> Please note, I am not at this moment denying the claim, merely asking for
> clarification. BTW I have this nagging sense that 'challenging long held
> assumptions' was often a modernist activity.
Yes, but a modernist might assume *there was an answer* to these assumptions.
He would challenge assumptions out of fear that they were pious lies.
Either you do not believe there is an answer to the question of whether pomo
was a rebellion against modernism - a rather postmodern approach -
or you agree that in some way it was -- or, you disagree with me,
in which case a postmodernist would be inclined to believe that
no argument of mine on behalf of this assertion would convince you logically
otherwise. I could define all my terms and for you the definitions would not
work, there would be no term "P" such that P could be defined as to be a
widespread revolt against your or my term M.
But maybe you agree that pomo was a rebellion against M?
(your definition or mine)
> > I'm only characterising modernism in respect to postmodernism...
>
> Apart from a couple of very fleeting glimpses, you have not characterised
> it at all, nor have you characterised postmodernism. If you are
> 'characterising modernism in respect to postmodernism', then your version
> of postmodernism, whatever it may be, would seem to involve some serious
> historical reinvention in order to justify itself. Still, if you do
> actually characterise it, I may well turn out to be wrong.
How do you "characterise" something so big such as to prove any point
within a remotely modern constrct? This was precisely the argument made by
postmodernists (though their solution doesn't necessarily follow).
> > Every philosophy critiques itself. It's hardly a modern innovation.
> > The two are indeed closely linked, thanks to industrialization...
>
> *Every* philosophy critiques itself?
If it's not an ideology or a creed, my definition does. Sure, why not?
Philosophy was invented to distinguish the practice of critique.
> >> > In postmodernism this is the opposite. it embraces modern*ity*.
> >
> >> Perhaps. Depends which 'postmodernism' you are talking about.
> >
> > Postmodernism is rather notorious for hamstringing even the most avidly
> > anti - establishment avant garde. Just look at what happened to "Punk".
>
> Again, I might be tempted to agree, but I still don't know what you are
> talking about when you say Postmodernism. I can think of some things that
> are called postmodernist which certainly try not to do this.
If we can't agree on the term Postmodernism, then we can't define it,
because my definition only works on what I percieve to be the evident features
of Pomo. I can't give you an abstract construct that'll fit your logic as well as
mine, so the best I can do is feed you self-definitions offhand.
> O.K., bad phrasing. I was not talking about sociology the academic
> discipline, but modernity as a social form. If you use that term, then
> you imply a continuity between the 'modernity' to which modernism
> responded and the present. If, on the other hand, you wish to argue that
> social organisation has changed, then might I suggest you call it
> postmodernity? Mind you, I would then want to know what the difference
> was that you see.
I'll get back to you on that.
> Out of curiosity, have you ever read the Derrida (Of Grammatology) that
> you are misquoting here? My guess would be not. Let me refer you back to
> the point above where you suggested it was possible to mount a critique
> from outside 'the set of rules you were critiquing'. "Il n'y a pas de
> hors-texte" ('There is no outside to the text') does not mean that there
> is nothing outside the text. At this point in the passage, Derrida has
> just cheerfully admitted that there could well have been a real Rousseau.
> It means that one cannot obtain a position which is outside. The text
> might well be a kind of totality but it is a totality which cannot be
> grasped as such because there can be no position from which to grasp it
> which is not already a part of it. So, bluntly, there can be no position
> of totality. Deconstruction has to work from within the set of rules it
> is critiquing, because there is nowhere else from which it can work.
> (Crude to the point of barbarism, I know. Again, I welcome correction or
> improvement from those better versed than myself).
I perfectly understand that that's what these gentlemen are talking about.
My point was that in my terms, they had to have a reason to "deconstruct" their
world-view, and the reason was that they had to step outside of that world view.
Their position of totality was attached to the cipher outside the text. Just as
our
position of totality is attached to the idea that the universe ends at the bounds
of what actually exists. We have to imagine the concept of existence, similarly,
pomo's have to imagine the concept of inherent validity. It wouldn't be a stretch
to assert they define all terms negatively.
> What? Are you sleeping with the enemy? I think it was Paul de Man who
> said 'we are all of us Hegelians, and most of us fairly orthodox ones'.
> Unintentionality, like ignorance, is no excuse. You seem to wish to claim
> postmodernism as a more developed position from which less developed
> positions can be comprehended - a position which incorporates the others
> but transcends them. Hell, if it looks like a duck....
No, I'm saying that this is just the way it turned out. Pomo was in the right
place at the right time. But we can't go back, just like we can't redo the
Mona Lisa if someone drops it. This is the reality to which Hegel is probably
attempting to fully grasp. (Don't ask me to tho.)
> > But why this insistence
> > by modernists that Postmodernism would have had to *disprove*
> > some major element of modernism in order to produce a paradigm shift?
>
> What modernists? I'm not saying that this insistence isn't made, but by
> whom? Still, isn't demonstrating the inadequacy of a previous model part
> of a paradigm shift? You say 'Will the modernists realise that their
> moment was good while it lasted and move on?'. If nothing has been
> 'disproved' or surpassed, why should they?
But postmodernists attempt to recognize the inadequacy of ALL modewls!
Their "revolt" against modernism is thus a rather "existential" one, frankly...
Again, they were in the right place at the right time.
> > I mean that the sort of attitude towards Life, the Universe and Everything
> > evinced by latter day modernists is shared by very few people outside the
> > ivory tower. The debate between modernists and academic postmodernists
> > is a tempest in a teapot.
> > George Will would consider this a stimulating rebuke, but he would think both
> > of us to be postmodernists.
>
> No, that is not what you meant. You said 'the postmodernists' changed
> 'everyone's minds'. Perfectly clear. So, who are they?
>
> If you want to say that modernism is not popular, then fine. It never was
> particularly popular, with odd exceptions. Now explain why not being
> popular strips something of its validity. (I won't argue about the perils
> of institutionalisation, because that is fair enough, indeed it is worse
> because most of the ivory has been scraped off the towers these days).
Postmodernism never was particularly popular either. Neither was Hitler.
> Funnily enough, amongst other things, I am an architectural historian. I
> can assure you that this is true. I couldn't give you exact percentages,
> but at a guesstimate, roughly 95%, probably higher, is post WWII. Look
> around. Note I said 'Modernist *style*. I even emphasised it.
The vast majority of buildings in America today are postmodernist in style.
They betray many of the same weaknesses that made people hate modern
architecture after WWII.
> > I don't *want* postmodernism period. I do not attempt to boil down
> > modernism, only to distinguish its *view of itself* vs. Pomo's *view of it*.
>
> Well, you certainly haven't 'boiled down' modernism, or indeed done
> anything else much. You have talked about a 'revolt' and a 'paradigm
> shift' and even an 'overarching concluding', but so far you haven't said
> what any of these might consist in. In fact you handed off the job of
> doing so. 'Let someone else defend the claim that postmodernism critiques
> modernism', you said, right after making that claim.
Correct. Like I said, why should I boil down a concept that cannot exist
within modernist discourse? Trying to prove that postmodernism rebels
against modernism is like trying to prove that punk rock is a revolt against
postmodernism (it probably isn't by the way).
> > I think Pomo had the right idea, though. The fact that you are employing
> > postmodern, in-your-face rhetoric that never would have flown in the 50's
> > shows the unfortunate limitations of modernist-style thought in not being
> > able to assimilate differing worldviews.
>
> And there I was aiming for robust but fair. Damn. Mind you, I can show
> you some rhetoric from the late 1910s and 1920s, or even the 1950s, that
> would make your hair curl. Ever read any Tristan Tzara, or even the
> second manifesto of Surrealism? Pomo hasn't a monopoly on 'in-your-face'.
Why are people so interested in heady debate for its own sake?
No wonder its such a male profession... (G)
-BER
Lewis Mammel
> You wicked man, you know that the Seuss
> question is still highly inflammatory.
You disappoint me.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
deda...@my-deja.com
deda...@my-deja.com
wrob <wr...@erols.com> wrote:
First, a big apology for having been a git.
> Your argument's all over the map. I can't even begin to make
> a coherent case for anything in response to your various assumptions.
> Do you expect me to change your assumptions?
Perhaps. We are possibly both having difficulties in relating our
assumptions to each others. I have sometimes, hard though it may be to
believe, changed my mind about things.
> Please note that I am not advocating some universal theory
> in my replies. Hegelian or othrwise. No, I have not read Derrida,
> I don't intend to. That is not postmodernity.
Duly noted.
> Let me reply to specific posts. This is simple rhetoric, from my point
> of view we're not really talking about much of substance!
>
> deda...@my-deja.com wrote:
[...]
>> > They did not have to prove them entirely false to do so. Why do
>> > modernists
>> > seem to insist that their tradition can never be surpassed unless someone
>> > proves all their insights wrong?
>>
>> But you describe your shift as being conclusive. More, you say that
>> anyone who believes that 'Postmodernism is consistent with the modern
>> tradition' could well be 'a modernist who does not really appreciate
>> postmodernism'. So any hypothetical current modernists are mistaken, yes?
>
> Only in relation to postmodernism. There is not a detailed modern critique
> of pomo because one has to step outside modernist assumptions
> (not outside of pomo's assumptions) to understand
> pomo's critique of modernism. This is basically a paradigm shift.
Clearly put.I come back to this, if I may.
> My views on this are complicated by the fact that I believe it is possible
> to have a worldview that allows you to step outside both sets of assumptions,
> but doing so renders you entirely incomprehensible to the rest of the
> intellectuals. Is that not so honorable?
It very well could be honorable, although it might depend on what that
worldview was.
>> (snip) You said that Postmodernism is a revolt against modernism.
>> I offered examples which seemed to complicate this situation.
>> I did not draw any conclusions as to what this said about modernism
>> or postmodernism, merely that it made your case for a revolt problematic.
>> You then, after arguing for a respectful revolt - of which more below-,
>> put forward the model of a paradigm shift. As I have just suggested,
>> this model also seems to have some problems. You now
>> cause your own model a few more problems by suggesting that
>> 'postmodernism has a long pedigree'.
>
> I am not trying to put forward a model of a paradigm shift.
> Would you expect a po.mo.ist to put forward a model for each of his terms?
> I am trying to describe a paradigm shift that actually happened to people.
Well, you did say that Postmodernists saw themselves as 'concluding'
Modernism with an overarching paradigm shift, and offered Newton as an
example of what 'most people' mean by paradigm shift. Above you have just
given a very clear description of the structure of a paradigm shift as
you see it.
I accept that, as you have said, you are interested in characterising
postmodernism in terms of its view of itself, not speaking from that
position. But I am still unclear as to what that characterisation might
be for you. If we might be able to relate our assumptions, it would be
helpful if you could describe the shift in terms of what that self
perception might involve.
> These people are not modernists and they do not define paradigm
> shifts based on specifics such as whether or not specific cultural
> products of modernism ALLOWED respect or not. If modernism had
> entirely gone over to the Nazis instead of vice versa, the Postmodernists
> would have had the same paradigm shift under entirely different conditions
> of "acceptance" and such.
I think I see - there would then have been an association of modernism
with a specific moment of defeat and rejection? I still have my doubts
about the scenario, but I'll leave that for the moment if I may.
>> > We appreciate the Parthenon, but the ancient Greeks concluded that the
>> > Doric Order was spent the minute they saw it completed - in their version
>> > of the classical tradition, the pinnacle had been reached, it was all
>> > downhill from there, and so they moved on.
>>
>> Bad analogy. For it to fit, you would have to have the ancient Greeks
>> still appreciating the Parthenon after the Doric Order was 'spent' and
>> they had 'moved on'.
>
> No, it's not. architectural historians have put forward this exact hypothesis
> for what the Greeks actually thought.
What I meant was that the relation of modernism and postmodernism that I
thought you were outlining suggested that postmodernists could still
appreciate modernism, despite having 'surpassed' it. Your analogy set up
'our' appreciation of the Parthenon as a parallel, rather than that of
the classical Greeks who had 'moved on'.
> It is possible to create the most perfect "primitive" artwork in the world.
> It is possible to create the most perfect Brutalist building.
> What do you do then? Try to go one better in the same mode?
> If you're a modernist, apparently... (?)
Here, I think, an aspect of our different assumptions might be clear.
Personally, I wonder about 'perfection' with, as you suggest, an
accompanying sense of completion. First of all - perfect in what terms?
The 'internal' or integral concerns of the 'paradigm' out of which the
work is produced, I suppose (please correct me if you see it
differently). But doesn't this mean that a concept of perfection as a
summation or completion needs to be part of that paradigm, as with the
classical Greeks in your analogy? I can conceive of other ways in which
perfection might be regarded - it might for instance be seen as vital to
repeat perfection, as deviation from the model of perfection would be a
failure. Or it might be seen as necessary to avoid perfection because
that would bring about the end
I would agree that a goal of perfection, and with it completion, was an
aspect of some, perhaps many, elements of modernism. But I would disagree
on whether that perfection was ever actually achieved, or even
achieveable. I think a realisation and incorporation of that failure,
arguably, also takes place in modernism. This might be one reason why I
tend to see modernism as, with exceptions, a negative or critical force.
>> > Will the modernists realise that their moment was good while it lasted,
>> > and move on? Or will they continue creating Baroque, institutional
>> > countermovements to piously comment on postmodern decline
>> > (in itself little more than participation in the postmodern project?)
>>
>> Ah. Now this is interesting. Correct me if I am wrong, but you appear to
>> be saying that making a negative critique of the present is merely
>> 'pious' or part of attempting to further careers and one should just get
>> over it and 'move on' to, presumably, 'embracing modernity'. Is this
>> fair?
>
> I'm not trying to say anything. I don't believe modernist critiques were
> ever
> anything but "pious" and missing the point. When postmodernists pointed that
> out, modernists rightly claimed that postmodernism didn't offer a better
> model.
> Postmodernism embraced this vision of non-progress.
O.K., I'll bite. What is the point?
>> > I'm not saying If you can't beat them, join them. I feel the modernists
>> > have already done that.
>>
>> Again, you would have to be clear about what you mean by 'modernism' for
>> this to mean anything. In some ways, I might agree with you. In others,
>> not. At the moment, who knows?
>
> Mere semantics. I am employing self-definitions, not book definitions that
> pomo
> was correct in asserting bias in. They are true * for me *. Unlike a pomo, I
> believe
> they are also true for everyone else who momentarily shares my assumptions.
True for them momentarily?
> (I said that it was almost deconstructionist to ask me to prove how
> postmodernism
> was a revolt against modernism)
I suppose I could be said to have asked you to prove it. I did ask for
examples of that revolt, but that seems more empirical than
deconstructionist. Naturally we then hurtled off on an argument over what
'revolt' might mean.
>> Why should someone else defend this claim? You made it, now defend it.
>> Please note, I am not at this moment denying the claim, merely asking for
>> clarification. BTW I have this nagging sense that 'challenging long held
>> assumptions' was often a modernist activity.
>
> Yes, but a modernist might assume *there was an answer* to these assumptions.
> He would challenge assumptions out of fear that they were pious lies.
Yes - or he or she might make a work out of their failure to find an
answer. I think we might be back on the question of perfection here.
> Either you do not believe there is an answer to the question of whether pomo
> was a rebellion against modernism - a rather postmodern approach -
> or you agree that in some way it was -- or, you disagree with me,
> in which case a postmodernist would be inclined to believe that
> no argument of mine on behalf of this assertion would convince you logically
> otherwise. I could define all my terms and for you the definitions would not
> work, there would be no term "P" such that P could be defined as to be a
> widespread revolt against your or my term M.
>
> But maybe you agree that pomo was a rebellion against M?
> (your definition or mine)
I would currently have to go for an option you didn't offer, there are
lots of answers, depending. In my first post, right before I started
savaging your ankles, chewing the curtains and annoying the houseguests,
I said that the situation wasn't so straightforward, as far as I could
see. For the moment, I'll stick with that. So, in some ways, I do appear
agree to with you - some things called postmodernist could involve what
might be called a revolt against modernism. Others, as far as I can see,
don't. What might be called a revolt, however, we have not agreed upon so
far (amongst many other things we haven't agreed upon).
I am, despite all appearances to the contrary, capable of being convinced
by argument. Moreover, I would certainly be capable of conceding that
what you see as postmodernism could be defined as a revolt, in your sense
of term, against what you take as modernism (or what you take as
postmodernism's understanding of modernism, if you prefer), if you would
care to describe your sense of the terms - or highlights at least. In
return I would endeavour to set out why, in my terms, it doesn't seem so
straightforward. At that point we might have an understanding of each
other. What we might then do with that is another matter.
[...]
>> > Every philosophy critiques itself. It's hardly a modern innovation.
>> > The two are indeed closely linked, thanks to industrialization...
>>
>> *Every* philosophy critiques itself?
>
> If it's not an ideology or a creed, my definition does. Sure, why not?
> Philosophy was invented to distinguish the practice of critique.
In terms of your definition, I cannot but agree with you.
[...]
>> > Postmodernism is rather notorious for hamstringing even the most avidly
>> > anti - establishment avant garde. Just look at what happened to "Punk".
>>
>> Again, I might be tempted to agree, but I still don't know what you are
>> talking about when you say Postmodernism. I can think of some things that
>> are called postmodernist which certainly try not to do this.
>
> If we can't agree on the term Postmodernism, then we can't define it,
> because my definition only works on what I percieve to be the evident
> features
> of Pomo. I can't give you an abstract construct that'll fit your logic as
> well as
> mine, so the best I can do is feed you self-definitions offhand.
Please do. Or we could fill out what we each understand by the terms (at
least some salient features anyway).
[...]
>> O.K., bad phrasing. I was not talking about sociology the academic
>> discipline, but modernity as a social form. If you use that term, then
>> you imply a continuity between the 'modernity' to which modernism
>> responded and the present. If, on the other hand, you wish to argue that
>> social organisation has changed, then might I suggest you call it
>> postmodernity? Mind you, I would then want to know what the difference
>> was that you see.
>
> I'll get back to you on that.
Fine.
>> Out of curiosity, have you ever read the Derrida (Of Grammatology) that
>> you are misquoting here? My guess would be not. Let me refer you back to
>> the point above where you suggested it was possible to mount a critique
>> from outside 'the set of rules you were critiquing'. "Il n'y a pas de
>> hors-texte" ('There is no outside to the text') does not mean that there
>> is nothing outside the text. At this point in the passage, Derrida has
>> just cheerfully admitted that there could well have been a real Rousseau.
>> It means that one cannot obtain a position which is outside. The text
>> might well be a kind of totality but it is a totality which cannot be
>> grasped as such because there can be no position from which to grasp it
>> which is not already a part of it. So, bluntly, there can be no position
>> of totality. Deconstruction has to work from within the set of rules it
>> is critiquing, because there is nowhere else from which it can work.
>> (Crude to the point of barbarism, I know. Again, I welcome correction or
>> improvement from those better versed than myself).
>
> I perfectly understand that that's what these gentlemen are talking about.
> My point was that in my terms, they had to have a reason to "deconstruct"
> their world-view, and the reason was that they had to step outside of that
> world view.
> Their position of totality was attached to the cipher outside the text.
> Just as our position of totality is attached to the idea that the universe > ends at the bounds of what actually exists. We have to imagine the concept > of existence, similarly, pomo's have to imagine the concept of inherent
> validity. It wouldn't be a stretch to assert they define all terms
> negatively.
I can see how 'stepping outside' might certainly seem necessary,
particularly if one regards a worldview as something internally coherent
and complete. If this was the case then one would have to 'step outside'
in order to critique it. But what if the worldview is not complete or
coherent? Or even, what if a search for the grounds of its own validity
was a part of that worldview? If that was the case then there might not
be a need to 'step outside' for a critique to develop. The critique might
also turn out to be, in effect, unachievable and continual, because it
recognised that it could not posit an 'outside'. I offer this as a 'what-
if', any resemblances are purely co-incidental.
[...]
>> > But why this insistence
>> > by modernists that Postmodernism would have had to *disprove*
>> > some major element of modernism in order to produce a paradigm shift?
>>
>> What modernists? I'm not saying that this insistence isn't made, but by
>> whom? Still, isn't demonstrating the inadequacy of a previous model part
>> of a paradigm shift? You say 'Will the modernists realise that their
>> moment was good while it lasted and move on?'. If nothing has been
>> 'disproved' or surpassed, why should they?
>
> But postmodernists attempt to recognize the inadequacy of ALL modewls!
> Their "revolt" against modernism is thus a rather "existential" one,
> frankly...
> Again, they were in the right place at the right time.
>
[...]
>> Funnily enough, amongst other things, I am an architectural historian. I
>> can assure you that this is true. I couldn't give you exact percentages,
>> but at a guesstimate, roughly 95%, probably higher, is post WWII. Look
>> around. Note I said 'Modernist *style*. I even emphasised it.
(Wince, blush)
> The vast majority of buildings in America today are postmodernist in style.
> They betray many of the same weaknesses that made people hate modern
> architecture after WWII.
Perhaps so. But even if one just takes the careers of van der Rohe or
Corbusier, the large majority of their completed buildings are post war.
>> > I don't *want* postmodernism period. I do not attempt to boil down
>> > modernism, only to distinguish its *view of itself* vs. Pomo's *view of
>> > it*.
>>
>> Well, you certainly haven't 'boiled down' modernism, or indeed done
>> anything else much. You have talked about a 'revolt' and a 'paradigm
>> shift' and even an 'overarching concluding', but so far you haven't said
>> what any of these might consist in. In fact you handed off the job of
>> doing so. 'Let someone else defend the claim that postmodernism critiques
>> modernism', you said, right after making that claim.
>
> Correct. Like I said, why should I boil down a concept that cannot exist
> within modernist discourse? Trying to prove that postmodernism rebels
> against modernism is like trying to prove that punk rock is a revolt against
> postmodernism (it probably isn't by the way).
Perhaps if I asked how you see this difference between its *view of
itself* and Pomo's *view of it* ?
>> > I think Pomo had the right idea, though. The fact that you are employing
>> > postmodern, in-your-face rhetoric that never would have flown in the 50's
>> > shows the unfortunate limitations of modernist-style thought in not being
>> > able to assimilate differing worldviews.
>>
>> And there I was aiming for robust but fair. Damn. Mind you, I can show
>> you some rhetoric from the late 1910s and 1920s, or even the 1950s, that
>> would make your hair curl. Ever read any Tristan Tzara, or even the
>> second manifesto of Surrealism? Pomo hasn't a monopoly on 'in-your-face'.
>
> Why are people so interested in heady debate for its own sake?
> No wonder its such a male profession... (G)
Perhaps not always for its own sake, sometimes it might actually mean
something. Not here though, I agree. But then I'm only here because the
gym is closed.
wrob
Too tired to resopnd now, but soon...
-BER (yawn)
Lewis Mammel
>
> deda...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Funnily enough, amongst other things, I am an architectural historian. I
> > can assure you that this is true. I couldn't give you exact percentages,
> > but at a guesstimate, roughly 95%, probably higher, is post WWII. Look
> > around. Note I said 'Modernist *style*. I even emphasised it.
>
> Do you think Dr. Seuss exemplifies the modernist style? This thought
> came to me when I saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and noticed the resemblance.
> Also, Orson Welles' production of MacBeth seemed very modernist, as well
> as Dr. Seussish.
Now I remember what really set me off on this idea. It was an illustration
in Peter Gay's Weimar_Culture of the "Einstein Tower". ( 'Caligari' is also
illustrated, and I viewed it after reading the book about five years ago. ) cf.
http://homeport.tcs.tulane.edu/lester/text/1890-Present/Modern/Modern32.html
The illustration in the book is a murky photo taken from the other
side, compared to the web photo, showing the long first floor like the
prow of a ship. The windows appear to have been touched up with cross
bar pane dividers, so it truly looks like it belongs in Whoville. Even
the conception appears Dr. Seussish, as one imagines the astronomer, Einstein
perhaps, living in the little rooms and going up the tower at night to
observe. In fact it is a solar telescope and is still in use! ( The image is
projected down to the first floor where it is analyzed by various instruments. ) cf.
http://aipsoe.aip.de/descr/soe-overview-e.html
Ronald W. Clark, in his Einstein Biography, remarks that the Nazis railed
against it in their propaganda. I guess they just never bothered to knock
it down, preoccupied with other matters as they were.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
deda...@my-deja.com
Lewis Mammel <lhma...@ameritech.net> wrote:
> Lewis Mammel wrote:
> >
> > deda...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > > can assure you that this is true. I couldn't give you exact percentages,
> > > but at a guesstimate, roughly 95%, probably higher, is post WWII. Look
> > > around. Note I said 'Modernist *style*. I even emphasised it.
> >
> > Do you think Dr. Seuss exemplifies the modernist style? This thought
> > came to me when I saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and noticed the resemblance.
> > Also, Orson Welles' production of MacBeth seemed very modernist, as well
> > as Dr. Seussish.
>
> Now I remember what really set me off on this idea. It was an illustration
> in Peter Gay's Weimar_Culture of the "Einstein Tower". ( 'Caligari' is also
> illustrated, and I viewed it after reading the book about five years ago. ) cf.
>
> http://homeport.tcs.tulane.edu/lester/text/1890-Present/Modern/Modern32.html
>
> The illustration in the book is a murky photo taken from the other
> side, compared to the web photo, showing the long first floor like the
> prow of a ship. The windows appear to have been touched up with cross
> bar pane dividers, so it truly looks like it belongs in Whoville. Even
> the conception appears Dr. Seussish, as one imagines the astronomer, Einstein
> perhaps, living in the little rooms and going up the tower at night to
> observe. In fact it is a solar telescope and is still in use! ( The image is
> projected down to the first floor where it is analyzed by various instruments. ) cf.
>
> http://aipsoe.aip.de/descr/soe-overview-e.html
>
> Ronald W. Clark, in his Einstein Biography, remarks that the Nazis railed
> against it in their propaganda. I guess they just never bothered to knock
> it down, preoccupied with other matters as they were.
>
> Lew Mammel, Jr.
Mendelsohn's tower is certainly a very odd building, even from a period
which produced some notably strange structures - e.g. Prague cubist
architecture or Bruno Taut's 'Alpine city' fantasies of glass
architecture (which might be Seuss meets Oz?). From earlier, some of the
interiors of Gaudi's apartment blocks also strike me as authentically
Seussish. They are more than a little spatially disconcerting - it is
virtually impossible to walk in a straight line. Might not Tatlin's
Monument to the Third International also have its Seussist aspects?
Revolutionary Seuss?
I share your puzzlement as to why the Einstein tower still exists -
although it was perhaps Einstein who was the main problem, rather than
the architecture per se. There were some fairly odd buildings proposed by
expressionist architects who allied themselves with the Nazis. For a
while, it even looked possible that a sort of folk art tinged
Expressionism would become an 'official' style, but its proponents, by
and large, were allied with the SA and the Strasserite faction. Still, it
might well have been an oversight that the tower survived - your guess is
as good as mine.
Your first post set me off inventing a whole history, as well as rigorous
distinctions between committed Seussism and works which just showed a
somewhat fashionable Seussist influence. But, in some ways, I'd have to
just say yes to a modernist Seuss. One could draw all sorts of
associations between Seuss and some kinds of modernism (and criticism -
Russian Formalism springs to mind). Heck, even Beckett could be related
at moments - although perhaps something of a negative image of Beckett,
where 'going on' is happily delirious, rather than condemned to be
meaningful?
Many modernists were preoccupied with cartoons, comics and children's
books, as I'm sure you know; e.g. Eisenstein was hugely impressed with
Disney (I await the discovery of a print of 'Steamboat Josef' - a series
of comic capers celebrating the early completion of the Dneproges
hydroelectric scheme in the first 5 year plan). It might have been partly
to do with the combination of a graphic simplicity and immediacy, and the
seeming refusal of such apparently simple forms - visual and linguistic -
to 'behave'. A spiralling, contradictory logic, and an aesthetic,
physical pleasure in rhythm and repetition? Yep. I can see Seuss in there
with a modernist hardcore.
I am, however, prepared to argue that Welles was just adopting Seussist
motifs for his own purposes, if pushed to do so.