Debil Postmoderns Cyberpunk
Chris Lehmann
I think, on a lot of levels, that the post-modern author looks
at all that has come before her and says, "O.k. now what."
Modernism, with all of its agnst-driven, questioning led to a
dead end. (Albeit, a very interesting one at that.) Many of the
post-modern authors (including Barth) have "answered" the
questions of modernism/existentialism with a "That's nice, but
how does that bring us into the world?" And it is with that
mindset that Barth's quote is truly telling. The Becketts and
Camus etc... write interesting philosophical novels, but beyond
the university, their relevance becomes diminished. Compare that
to Barth's Chimera (excuse the lack of underlining) and you see
his point.
Chimera is a book that uses the past (Greek mythology) and
reinvents it. His stories speak of post-modern questions that
appeal to the intelligent, aware person in society. Gender roles,
questions of voice and telling, aging & potency, the power of myth,
and there is a great debt paid to the modernists in his stories, but
but - the literature is relevant to the physical world again.
Eco's quote plays on the "now what" aspect of post-modernism
as well. Modernism drew itself to its end, the "great works" have
been written, "I love you" has been said as perfectly as it is
ever going to be said, now what? Well, footnoting is one answer, as
is plays on form, but how do we create.
I think this is the question of the next generation of
artists and of society as a whole. What do we create? I think a lot
of the nostalgia we see of the 1960's is that people still felt
that they lived in a limitless world. Now in literature, music,
lifein general, it appears that is no longer the case. Will we be
the first generation to not do better than our parents?
Anyway, just something to chew on . . .
Chris Lehmann
University of Pennsylvania
(did my .sig print?)
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Lehmann ce...@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu
University of Pennsylvania "When a ball dreams, it dreams
Breed Ultimate it's a frisbee."
David Stein
Debil has been used to hearing the word "postmodernism" as an insult
or as a warning that incomprehensible sentences are soon to follow.
Thus he noted with interest a quotation on a Pantheon (a bunch of
auto-bio-info sheets hanging on a wall) entry of one of his co-workers
at a job in which he slaves away playing videogames all Summer long.
The quotation was from Umberto Eco:
I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves
a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, "I love
you madly." because he knows that she knows (and that she knows
that he knows) that these words have already been written by
Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say,
"As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly". At this
point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly that
it is no longer possible to speak innocently, he will nevertheless
have said what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her,
but he loves her in an age of lost innocence. If the woman goes
along with this, she will have received a declaration of love
all he same. Neither of the two speakers will feel innocent,
both will have accepted the challenge of the past, of the
already said, which cannot be eliminated, both will consciously
and with pleasure play the game of irony.... But both will have
succeeded, once again, in speaking of love. [1]
As you can see, though the quotation is long, it is nevertheless
understandable, and, what's more, makes sense. So Debil carefully
queried the co-worker and the next day obtained a copy of
What is Post-Modernism?
=======================
written by Charles Jencks [0]. It is a small pamphlet of only 48 pages but
lots of photographs and illustrations.
Jencks's field is Architecture, and it is here that Jencks's description
of Post-Modernism (note the spelling) is the most clear and satisfying.
But Jencks does attempt a general definition of Post-Modernism in arts,
including Literature. In his opinion the central trait of Post-Modernism
is what he terms "double coding":
Double coding to simplify means both elite/popular and new/old
and there are compelling reasons for these opposite pairings.
Today's Post-Modern architects were trained by Modernists, and
are committed to using contemporary technology as well as facing
social reality. These commitments are enough to distinguish
them from revivalists or traditionalists, a point worth stressing
since it creates their hybrid language, the style of Post-Modern
architecture. The same is not completely true of Post-Modern
artists and writers who may use traditional techniques of
narrative and representation in a more straightforward way.
Yet all the creators who could be called Post-Modern keep
something of a Modern sensibility - some intention which
distinguishes their work from that of revivalists - whether
this is irony, parody, displacement, complexity, eclecticism,
realism or any number of contemporary tactics and goals.
As I mention in the foreword, Post-Modernism has the essential
double meaning: the continuation of Modernism and its transcendence.
So it seems Post-Modernism attempts to communicate in a positive way with
the public without necessarily lowering its artistic standards. Just
like Bugs Bunny may be enjoyed by both adults and children, Post-Modernism
tries to work on both high/low level. Further, where Modernism may seek
to break with the past, Post-Modernism respects it and tries to incorporate
it into its design--without, again, ignoring the present.
Just as Jencks does not claim that Post-Modernist techniques are uniform
in arts, neither does he claim that his definition is one generally agreed
upon. He does claim, however, that Post-Modernism is often defined to mean
"almost everything and thus nearly nothing" (--he cites "The Anti-Aesthetic:
Essays on Postmodern Culture" as an example). Further, he argues that
what is often called Post-Modern could be much more succinctly described
as Late-Modern--"the continuation of Modernism in its ultra or exaggerated
form".
Others prominent in the theory of Post-Modernism, like I. Hassan and
F. Lyotard, and probably J. Baudrillard and F. Jameson, might disagree with
Jenkcs's definition. Whatever the case, however, Debil found Jencks's
definition useful because he saw how it relates to the many examples
from architecture and visual arts in the book. Debil could *see* why the
Neue Staatsgalerie extensions, in Stuttgart, are Post-Modern, while
the Pompidou Centre, Paris, is not.
By restricting his definition, Jencks was able to explain Post-Modernism
in architecture so that even Debil can now recognize it as well as he can
recognize, say, the Gothic or the Baroque.
Why would Post-Modernism make itself most evident in architecture?
It is here that the break in communication between elite and popular
art has most painful consequences. People, after all, have to
live in the buildings designed for them. To cite Jencks:
The `death' of Modern architecture and its ideology of progress
which offered technical solutions to social problems was seen
by everyone in a vivid way.
While the failure of Modernism may not be as vivid in Literature
as in Architecture, the break between popular and elite culture
seems evident here as well. To cite J. Barth:
My ideal postmodernist author neither merely repudiates
nor merely imitates either his twentieth-century
modernist parents or his nineteenth-century premodernist
grandparents. He has the first half of our century under
his belt, but not on his back. Without lapsing into moral
or artistic simplism, shoddy craftmanship, Madison Avenue
venality, or either false or real naivete, he nevertheless
aspires to a fiction more democratic in its appeal that
such late-modernist marvels (by my definition and in my
judgment) as Beckett's _Stories and Texts for Nothing_
or Nabakov's _Pale Fire_. He may not hope to reach and move
the devotees of James Mitchener and Irving Wallace--not
to mention the lobotomized mass-media illiterates. But
he should hope to reach and delight, at least part of
the time, beyond the circle of what Mann used to call
the early Christians: professional devotees of high art.[2]
This and Eco's quote indicate there are some serious attempts
at postmodern literature.
Jencks's book is a delight to read, and I recommend it to anyone
with even the slightest interest in art.
However, there are still some areas, like Literature, where I'm
unsure how Post-Modernism fits in. I did, however, notice some
postmodern elements in certain Cyberpunk works.
So...
My question, then, is whether there are any science fictional
works that may be reasonably termed postmodern. In particular, I
would like to know if there is any connection between Cyberpunk
or _The Movement_ and postmodernism.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[0] Jencks, Charles: "What is Post-Modernism?"
Academy Editions, London / St. Marti's Press, New York
0-312-86603-8
[1] Eco, Umberto: "Postscript to The Name of the Rose"
Harcourt Brace Jovanich, New York, 1984
[2] Barth, John: "The Literature of Replenishment, Postmodernist Fiction"
_The Atlantic_, January 1980
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
Michael Wasson
[lots of stuff about postmodernism]
> My question, then, is whether there are any science fictional
>works that may be reasonably termed postmodern. In particular, I
>would like to know if there is any connection between Cyberpunk
>or _The Movement_ and postmodernism.
One feature of PoMo seems to be an emphasis on meta-texts. ie, the
process of producing the text is commented on within the text ...
examples might include Pynchon's fragmenting narratives (_Gravity's
Raingbow_), Burrough's cut-up method (and commentaries thereon) and
Acker's plagiarisms.
examples in S/F:
PKDick's _Man in the High Castle_. The novel is about alternate time-lines,
but also about the fictional construction of alternate time-lines. There is
a novel within the novel, written in a world where the Allies lost the
war about what would have happened if the Allies had *won* the war--but
the fictional author's version doesn't match our own world, which calls
into question the fiction that Dick himself has created.
A lot of other Dick is about the falsity of narratives, eg,
_The Penultimate Truth_ and _Time Out of Joint_
JGBallard's _Atrocity Exhibition_. The narrative explodes in a way
reminiscent of WSB or Pynchon. One of the themes running through the
book is the use of technical and medical language, a type of "narrative"
traditional literature hasn't usually seen fit to examine. As a post-modern
document, the Re/Search re-issue of this book is even more interesting
because it incorporates Ballard's notes as marginalia; in this way
the book continually comments on itself.
Ballard talks a great deal about the "death of affect,"
caused by the constant imitations of true emotion that appear in
soap operas, presidential speeches, and "high" literature ... you
could relate this to Eco's point that the phrase "I love you madly"
can only be uttered ironically in a post-modern culture. Ballard,
incidently, believes that S/F is literature's last hope in this
regard.
Stanislaw Lem: His more experimental books (_Perfect Vaccuum_, _One
Human Minute_) might be considered post-modern in that they subvert
traditional (non-literary) forms of writing, such as book reviews,
scientific essays, and prefaces to other (imaginary) books.
S.Delany: The Neveryone series. IMHO these are pretty dull (and
I respect Delany a great deal) but they're po-mo in this sense:
Delaney realizes that Sword&Sorcercey is something of an
impoverished genre, a bastard child of S/F&F [Conan fans, no flames
pleeeeze:-)], and he incorporates this self-conscious realization
into the stories.
J. Russ: _The Female Man_ is an alternative-time-line novel written
specifically as an anti-novel and a political statement. Somewhere
toward the end, the narrator concludes that if the book becomes dated
and unread, then it will have done its job. The narrator is self-
consciously (and ironically) aware of art's limitations.
In _The Two of Them_ she negates about a chapter's worth
of narrative by abruptly stating "No, that didn't happen. I made that up"
[or something like that] and then continuing the story without those
developments, a technique which makes the reader aware (perhaps
uncomfortably) that a novel is, after all, just something somebody
made up.
There will be a quiz. :-)
_______________________________________________________________________________
"There was nothing to be | Michael Wasson | "'Dead-on balls accurate'?"
done; a circumstance that | U of Hawaii | "It's an industry term."
happily suited our disin- | and | (from My Cousin Vinny)
clination to do anything." | Fat Messiah Games, |____________________________
--Herman Melville | S. Pacific HQ | [standard disclaimer]
Gordon Fitch
| In article <1992Aug27.1...@math.ucla.edu> dst...@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:
| [lots of stuff about postmodernism]
| > My question, then, is whether there are any science fictional
| >works that may be reasonably termed postmodern. In particular, I
| >would like to know if there is any connection between Cyberpunk
| >or _The Movement_ and postmodernism.
|
| One feature of PoMo seems to be an emphasis on meta-texts. ie, the
| process of producing the text is commented on within the text ...
| examples might include Pynchon's fragmenting narratives (_Gravity's
| Raingbow_), Burrough's cut-up method (and commentaries thereon) and
| Acker's plagiarisms.
|
| examples in S/F:
|
| PKDick's _Man in the High Castle_. The novel is about alternate time-lines,
| but also about the fictional construction of alternate time-lines. There is
| a novel within the novel, written in a world where the Allies lost the
| war about what would have happened if the Allies had *won* the war--but
| the fictional author's version doesn't match our own world, which calls
| into question the fiction that Dick himself has created.
I believe _Man_in_the_High_Castle_ was composed using the _Book_
_of_Changes_ on the plot -- one of Dick's books was (according to
him). The incorporation of an ancient Chinese method and text of
divination is nicely incongruous.
--
)*( Gordon Fitch )*( g...@panix.com )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta., NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
kevin brooks
> In article <1992Aug27.1...@math.ucla.edu> dst...@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:
> [lots of stuff about postmodernism]
> > My question, then, is whether there are any science fictional
> >works that may be reasonably termed postmodern. In particular, I
> >would like to know if there is any connection between Cyberpunk
> >or _The Movement_ and postmodernism.
>
> One feature of PoMo seems to be an emphasis on meta-texts. ie, the
> process of producing the text is commented on within the text ...
> examples might include Pynchon's fragmenting narratives (_Gravity's
> Raingbow_), Burrough's cut-up method (and commentaries thereon) and
> Acker's plagiarisms.
But I believe that a similar argument can be made of Picasso's collages as
well as stories written by Borges or Kafka as well as many other artists
(or "cultural producers"). It is problematic that _essentialist_ theories
of (post)modernism continue to dominate the literature on the subject. I
think that believing in the historical paradigm of
Classisim/Modernism/Postmodernism is as problematic as going along
uncritically with Hegel's characterization of the history of representation
as literally beginning in a pre-symbolic state (India), passing into a
truly symbolic stage (Egypt), followed by a classical period (Greece), and
finally achieving the pinnacle in Romanticism (Christian Europe). Hegel,
by the way, can also be read as allegorizing, turning into narrative, a
process of understanding that is conceptually synchronic rather than
diachronic.
The problem of "postmodernism" is more generally the problem of reflection or
criticism. Since "reflection" is a constituitive moment of all artistic
production it is possible to argue for the "postmodernism" of almost any work
of art. Modernism on the other hand is a characteristically "blind" moment
when action attempts to outrun reflection or representation. Since all art
must be _made_, then, as in the case of postmodernism, the modernist argument
can be applied to almost any work of art (or representation). But what can
we learn from all this? Perhaps that all of these categories are really only
"moments" constituitive of the process of interpretation, a process that
ocurrs every time anyone encounters a representation.
>
[deleted a significant amount of text dealing with particular authors/works]
Kevin Brooks
Peter Webb
: My question, then, is whether there are any science fictional
: works that may be reasonably termed postmodern. In particular, I
: would like to know if there is any connection between Cyberpunk
: or _The Movement_ and postmodernism.
I'd suggest you read "Storming the Reality Studio," edited by Larry McCaffery.
It begins with an essay on PostModernism in SF and Serious Literature and
continues with many excerpts from PostModern works. I don't have the book
at work, so I can't post the ISBN or publisher.
Peter Webb (pw...@hks.com)
Gordon Fitch
| ...
| The problem of "postmodernism" is more generally the problem of reflection or
| criticism. Since "reflection" is a constituitive moment of all artistic
| production it is possible to argue for the "postmodernism" of almost any work
| of art. Modernism on the other hand is a characteristically "blind" moment
| when action attempts to outrun reflection or representation. Since all art
| must be _made_, then, as in the case of postmodernism, the modernist argument
I'm not sure what you mean here -- but Modernism seems highly
reflective to me; at least, "High Modernism" does. Earlier
Modernism has many of the qualities of what we now call Post-
Modernism.
It seems to me that Modernism was the last effort to hold an
artistic ideology together, to keep the Parthenon and Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon in one bag and run their price up. You
can't, apparently, get Warhol, grafitti artists, and van
painters into the bag without ripping it; hence, the _post_
Modern era; not a movement or an ideology, but the lack of one.
Gordon Fitch
| In article <1992Sep2.1...@panix.com>, g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
| > In article <78...@ut-emx.uucp> kbr...@ut-emx.uucp (kevin brooks) writes:
| > | ...
| >
| > I'm not sure what you mean here -- but Modernism seems highly
| > reflective to me; at least, "High Modernism" does. Earlier
| > Modernism has many of the qualities of what we now call Post-
| > Modernism.
|
| inserting your comment without taking into account the rest of my original
| post?
I get tired of articles that quote in full. I leave enough of
a quote in to show what part of the previous article I'm commenting
on, in the hope that the previous article was distributed to the
same sites as mine will be. Had I known about your special
feeling for your words, of course, I wouldn't have touched a
one of them.
However, I don't understand what your problem is anyway. Any-
thing that starts "I'm not sure what you mean here" isn't
very apodictic, at least, it isn't by me. I realize that in
some academic circles "I don't know what you mean" is a way
of saying "You're full of shit" but, believe me, it's been
many a year since I've even spied the glorious towers of
Academe from afar, and when I say "I don't know" it means
"I don't know."
| > It seems to me that Modernism was the last effort to hold an
| > artistic ideology together, to keep the Parthenon and Les
| > Demoiselles d'Avignon in one bag and run their price up. You
| > can't, apparently, get Warhol, grafitti artists, and van
| > painters into the bag without ripping it; hence, the _post_
| > Modern era; not a movement or an ideology, but the lack of one.
| > --
| > )*( Gordon Fitch )*( g...@panix.com )*(
| > ( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta., NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
|
| I will respond to your statement with a story derived from personal experience:
| One time when I was commenting on a book that deals
| theoretically with cezanne's work, theory, and interpretation
| a friend asked me if I thought it out of place to have a book like that
| when cezanne, of all people, constantly expressed his resistance to theory.
So are you providing a theory of "Postmodernism" alongside
the theories of "Modernism"? This might salvage the Art
Market from the fate that awaits it.
| Another thing: Postmodernists, for all the stuff published by them on the
| "end of knowledge," they sure seem to know a lot about modernism -- not.:)
Here are some other things I don't know: I don't know who,
or what, a "Postmodernist" is; I think of "postmodern" as
denoting the period which followed the soi-disant "Modern"
or "Modernistic" movement which seems to have closed down
around 1960. Some people still work in the style, others
don't. Which are the Postmodernists? Or are they only
the critics of the era?
Secondly, I'm so out of it I don't know where this catch-
phrase of the form "X is y -- NOT!" comes from. Was it some-
thing on television? I keep seeing it, and it seems heavily
overworked now. Any ideas? It's certainly more postmodern
than I am.
Didn't take out a word, Kevin. Okay?
kevin brooks
> | ...
>
> I'm not sure what you mean here -- but Modernism seems highly
> reflective to me; at least, "High Modernism" does. Earlier
> Modernism has many of the qualities of what we now call Post-
> Modernism.
Do you get your kicks out of only quoting part of my comment and then
inserting your comment without taking into account the rest of my original
post?
>
> It seems to me that Modernism was the last effort to hold an
> artistic ideology together, to keep the Parthenon and Les
> Demoiselles d'Avignon in one bag and run their price up. You
> can't, apparently, get Warhol, grafitti artists, and van
> painters into the bag without ripping it; hence, the _post_
> Modern era; not a movement or an ideology, but the lack of one.
> --
> )*( Gordon Fitch )*( g...@panix.com )*(
> ( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta., NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
I will respond to your statement with a story derived from personal experience:
One time when I was commenting on a book that deals
theoretically with cezanne's work, theory, and interpretation
a friend asked me if I thought it out of place to have a book like that
when cezanne, of all people, constantly expressed his resistance to theory.
Another thing: Postmodernists, for all the stuff published by them on the
"end of knowledge," they sure seem to know a lot about modernism -- not.:)
kevin brooks
kevin brooks
The reason I objected to you cutting up my text and then commenting on part
of it was that your comments would have been addressed by the part you cut!
by the way, the expression: X is Y -- not! imitates madonna. since
imitation is repetition and repetition necessarily produces an ironic
condition, i was ironing. obviously you can't recognize irony.
sincerely,
kevin brooks
Jeffrey Klein
>Secondly, I'm so out of it I don't know where this catch-
>phrase of the form "X is y -- NOT!" comes from. Was it some-
>thing on television? I keep seeing it, and it seems heavily
>overworked now. Any ideas? It's certainly more postmodern
>than I am.
Popularized by the Satuday Night Live skit and Paramount movie
"Wayne's World". SOme people point to its use on an album by
Anthrax c. 1985 as its first popular use, but it was used before that
in a Bill Muray skit on SNL in 1979. Less emphatic forms of the
terminal "not" have been found in Nero Wolfe and Fritz Leiber stories,
c. 1940-1955. Heck, it's even in Shakespeare!
"I fear thee - NOT!"
Heh heh. What reading alt.usage.english won't tell ya.
--
Jeff Klein | "Happily, Ral doffs his outer clothing for a
Browsing Boy of the LNH| refreshing dip in one of the dangerous
kl...@kira.egr.msu.edu | chemical vats." - Ty Templeton
David Liebman
>
>imitation is repetition and repetition necessarily produces an ironic
an _irritated_ condition.
Gordon Fitch
| of it was that your comments would have been addressed by the part you cut!
Exactly. I was addressing the powerful _shadow_ of your
comments.
| by the way, the expression: X is Y -- not! imitates madonna. since
| imitation is repetition and repetition necessarily produces an ironic
| condition, i was ironing. obviously you can't recognize irony.
Of course not. In view of your Summary: line ("Her majesty,
Fitch") I think we have to regard my obtuseness as a case of
more or less permanent PMS. I've never been very good at
menstruating, so I'm more or less stuck with it.
I'm glad you recognized my aristocratic demeanor, however. In
the future, when you talk of this -- and you will talk of it --
be kind, or something like that. I don't want to go upstairs
and look it up. By the way, can I use that Summary: line in my
.signature file?