FAQ?

[Jaime Nichols]

Does this NG have a FAQ, and if so, would someone be so good as to let
me know where I can find it? All the links I found were broken.

Thanks,

Jaime Nichols

[Puss in Boots]

alt.pomo FAQ

So You Want To Know About Post-Modernism?

Alright then, here are the ABC's: in specific, an assembly, a
bibliography, and a conversation. Comments, questions, requests,
criticism to mog...@mindspring.com -- or better yet, post them on alt.
pomo.

"Don't start me talking'
I'll tell everything I know
Gonna break up this signifyin'
Everything's got to go!"

(Sonny Boy Williamson)

Part One: An Assembly

As they step into the same rivers, other and still other
waters flow upon them.

The problem of the value of truth came before us -- or was it
we who came before the problem? Which of us is Oedipus here, and
which the Sphinx? We are at a rendezvous, it seems, of questions and
of question marks.

And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out;
The Sunne is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him, where to looke for it.
And freely men confesse, that this world's spent,
When in the Planets, and the Firmament
They seeke so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out againe to his Atomis.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All just supply, and all Relation:
Prince, subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a Phoenix, and that there can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.

How many stars have our telescopes revealed to us which did
not exist for our philosophers of old! ... The final judgement of
reason is to admit that there is an infinity of things which are
beyond it. Reason is but feeble if it cannot see this far.

A star is gone! A star is gone!
There is a blank is heaven.

O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

Propositions can represent the whole reality, but they cannot
represent what they must have in common with reality in order to be
able to represent it -- the logical form. To be able to represent
logical form, we should have to be able to put ourselves with the
propositions outside logic, that is outside the world.

Il n'y a pas de hors texte.

Whither is God?" the madman cried; "I will tell you. We have
killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we
do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to
wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained
the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we
moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward,
sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any way up or
down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not
feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not the
night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns
in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the
gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the
divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains
dead. And we have killed him.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly
revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the
relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.
Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form was, on
the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier
industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production,
uninterrrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting
uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all
earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of
ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all
new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is
solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last
compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and
his relations with his kind.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are filled with a passionate intensity.
...twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rought beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Perhaps patient meditation and painstaking investigation on
and around what it still provisionally called writing, far from
falling short of a science of writing or of hastily dismissing it by
some obscurantist reaction, letting it rather develop its own
positivity as far as possible, are the wanderings of a way of thinking
that is faithful and attentive to the ineluctable world of the future
which proclaims itself at present, beyond the closure of knowledge.
The future can only be anticipated in the form of an absolute danger.
It is that which breaks absolutely with constituted normality and can
only be proclaimed, _presented_, as sort of monstrosity.

Let us hope the time will come, thank God that in certain
circles it already has come, when language is most efficiently used
where it is being most efficiently misused. As we cannot eliminate
language all at once, we should at least leave nothing beind that
would contribute to its falling into disprepute. To bore one hole
after another in it, until what lurks behind it -- be it something or
nothing -- begins to seep through; I cannot imagine a higher goal for
a writer today.

A thinking man's answer to the question whether he is a
nihilist would probably be, 'Not enough.'

One must even go further: in a sense, the mythologist is
excluded from the history in the name of which he professes to act.
The havoc he wreaks in the name of the community is absolute for him,
it fills his assignment to the brim; he must live this assignment
without any hope of going back or any assumption of payment. It is
forbidden for him to imagine what the world will concretely be like,
when the immediate object of his criticism has disppeared. Utopia is
an impossible luxury for him: he greatly doubts that tomorrow's truths
will be the exact reverse of today's lies. History never insures the
triumph pure and simple of something over its opposite: it unveils,
while making itself, unimaginable solutions, unforseeable syntheses.
The mythologist is not even in a Moses-like situation: he cannot see
the Promised Land. For him, tomorrow's positivity is entirely hidden
by today's negativity. All the values of his undertaking appear to
him as acts of destruction: the latter accurately cover the former,
nothing protrudes. The subjective grasp of history in which the
potent seed of the future _is nothing but_ the most profound
apocalypse of the past has been expressed by Saint-Just in a strange
saying: '_What constitutes the Republic is the total destruction of
what is opposed to it_.' This must not, I think, be understood in the
trivial sense of 'One has to clear the way before reconstructing.'
The copula has an exhaustive meaning: there is for some men a
subjective dark night of history where the future becomes an essense,
the essential destruction of the past.

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as
they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by
themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and
transmitted from the past. The tradition of the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

What is now happening to Marx's doctrine has, in the course
of history, often happened to the doctrines of other revolutionary
thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation.
During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes
have visited relentlesss persecution on them and received their
teaching with the most savage hostility, the most furious hatred, the
most ruthless campaign of lies and slanders. After their death,
attempts are made to turn them into harmless icons, canonise them, and
surround their names with a certain halo for the 'consolation' of the
oppressed classes and with the object of duping them, while at the
same time emasculating and vulgarising the real essence of their
revolutionary theories and blunting their revolutionary edge. At the
present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labour
movement are co-operating in this work of adulterating Marxism. They
omit, obliterate, and distort the revolutionary side of its teaching,
its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what
is, or seems, acceptable to the bourgeoisie.

It is much easier to point out the faults and errors in the
work of a great mind than to give a distinct and full exposition of
its value. For the faults are particular and finite, and can
therefore be fully comprehended; while, on the contrary, the very
stamp which genius impresses upon its works is that their excellence
is unfathomable and inexhaustible.

As the water that is displaced by a ship immediately flows in
again behind it, so when great minds have driven error aside and made
room for themselves, it very quickly closes in behind them.

Pas d'au-dela

Part Two: Uncomprehensive Bibliography

Blake, William:

_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_

Marx, Karl:

"The Communist Manifesto"
_The German Ideology_
_Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844_
_The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonoparte_

Kierkegaard, Soren:

_The Concept of Dread_
_The Sickness Unto Death_
_Fear and Trembling_
_Philosophical Fragments_
_Concluding Unscientific Postscript_

Nietzsche, Friederich:

_The Gay Science_
_Thus Spake Zarathustra_
_Beyond Good and Evil_
_The Will to Power_
"On Truth and Falsity"

Freud, Sigmund:

_The Interpretation of Dreams_
"Civilization and its Discontents"
"Beyond the Pleasure Principle"
"A History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement"

Heidegger, Martin:

_Being and Time_, Introduction
"What is Metaphysics?"
_Introduction to Metaphysics_.
_Basic Writings_, ed. David Farrell Krell

Wittgenstein, Ludwig:

_Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_
_Philosophical Investigations_
_On Culture and Value_
"Lecture on Ethics"

Kafka, Franz:

"Reflections on Sin, Pain, Hope, and the True Way"
_Parables and Paradoxes_

Beckett, Samuel:

_Disjecta_

Woolf, Virginia:

"Modern Fiction"

Eliot. T.S:

"Tradition and the Individual Talent"
"The Metaphysical Poets"
"Baudelaire"
"Hamlet"
"_Ulysses_, Order, and Myth"

Pound, Ezra:

_ABC of Reading_
_Guide to Kulchur_

Lawrence, D.H.:

"Surgery for the Novel -- or a Bomb"
"Art and Morality"
"Morality and the Novel"
"Why the Novel Matters"
"Benjamin Franklin"

Lenin, V.I.:

_State and Revolution_

Luxemburg, Rosa:

"The Russian Revolution"
"Leninism or Marxism?"

Benjamin, Walter:

_Illuminations_ (ed. Hannah Arendt)
_Reflections_ (ed. Peter Demetz)
_One-Way Street_

Adorno, Theodor:

_Prisms_
_Aesthetic Theory_
_Negative Dialectics_
_Minima Moralia_

Marcuse, Herbert:

"Repressive Tolerance"
_The Aesthetic Dimension_
_An Essay on Liberation_

Arendt, Hannah:

_Men in Dark Times_

Steiner, George:

_In Bluebeard's Castle_
_After Babel_
_On Difficulty_
_Language and Silence_

Althusser, Louis:

_Lenin and Philosophy_

Lacan, Jacques:

_Ecrits_

Derrida, Jacques:

_Writing and Difference_
_Margins of Philosophy_
_Spurs_
_Positions_

de Man, Paul:

_Allegories of Reading_
_The Rhetoric of Romanticism_
_Blindness and Insight_

Barthes, Roland:

_Image-Music-Text_
_Mythologies_
_Barthes by Barthes_
_Empire of Signs_
_A Barthes Reader_ (ed. Susan Sontag)

Foucault, Michel:

_Madness and Civilization_
_The Order of Things_
_Discipline and Punish_
_Power/Knowledge
_The History of Sexuality, Vol. One_
_The Foucault Reader_ (ed. Paul Rabinow)

Deleuze, Giles:

"Nomad Thought" (in _The New Nietzsche_,
ed. David B. Allison.)

w/ Felix Guattari:

_Anti-Oedipus_
_A Thousand Plateaus_

Borges, Jorge Luis:

"Kafka and his Precursors"
"A New Refutation of Time"
"Avatars of the Tortoise"
"Pierre Menard, Author of the _Quixote_"
"Partial Magic in the _Quixote_"
"Parable of Cervantes and of the _Quixote_"
"The Mirror of Enigmas"
"A Problem"
"The Library of Babel"
"Borges and I"

Fielder, Leslie:

"No, In Thunder!"

Barth, John:

"The Literature of Exhaustion"

Cioran, E.M.:

_The Temptation to Exist_
_A Short History of Decay_
_The New Gods_
_Drawn and Quartered_

Sontag, Susan:

_Against Interpretation_
_Under the Sign of Saturn_
_Styles of Radical Will_

Percy, Walker:

_Message in a Bottle_
_Lost in the Cosmos_

Summaries, Overviews, Idiot's Guides, etc.:

Generally speaking, these things are worse than useless, and
practically none are worth the time it takes to read them. However,
there are a handful of exceptions. Here are three of the better ones:

Hugh Kenner:

_The Pound Era_ (High Modernism)

Vincent Descombes:

_Modern French Philosophy_ (Structuralism, Semiology,
Post-Structuralism, etc.)

Greil Marcus:

_Lipstick Traces_ (Dada and the Situationists, both
of which are inexcusably missing from the list above.)

Part Three: A Conversation

(Alt.pomo, early 1995.)

Phil0123:

To my mind, postmodernism is the banishment of anysort of underlying
premise. No matter the topic discussed, postmodernism will only
entertain a premise as a tentative assertion so as an edifice can be
constructed (a message conveyed). But no premise is accepted as an
axiom.

Jim Elson:

I think this is a good functional definition which arises from
post-modern critiques of the Western tradition. The only problem is
that it may leave some wondering why post-modern thought refuses to
accept any premise as "given"/"self-evident".

Mark:

But this line of criticism _is_ part of "the Western tradition," and
has been part of it for quite some time -- there's nothing especially
"post-modern" about it, except in the sense that postmodernism is the
latest effort to make it look new. Seems to be working pretty well.

(I used to think there was something called "postmodernism" that _did_
"critique the Western tradition," as well a closely related movement
known as "modernism" which delivered some blows of its own; but I must
have been imagining them both.)

Michael Calvin McGee:

Two comments on terms, <premise> and <integrity>.

<premise> au contraire, Mark: pm is the elevation and celebration of
premises. It is, at least in part, the claim that all of the alleged
"facts" from which reasoned opinions are supposed to flow are in fact
:):) only <premises> from which power claims (you should, must,
believe/act such-and-such way) arise. The result, as you rightly
observe, is a kind of re-worked relativism.

Mark:

I don't see where you're contradicting me. As far as I can tell, we
agree that what's called "postmodern" is often merely the repetition
of a familiar theme -- a business of putting old wine in new bottles.
However, I also noted that the term "postmodernism" has another sense,
in which it refers to the analysis of that rather shady practice.
(This confusion of meanings isn't an accident or a simple mistake.)

Your example (basically a paraphrase of Nietzsche's observation that
"There are no facts; only interpretations") goes considerably further
than what I described before as "garden-variety relativism." It bears
genuinely vertiginous implications. Even though Nietzsche is sometimes
cubby-holed as a perspectivist, comments like this show why he doesn't
fit into the box. And as far as postmodernism follows him, it can't be
be filed away, either (at least not without filing off its rough edges).

Michael:

Consider that any attempt to explain the Simpson trial would have to
result in "relativist" thinking, but surely you would not hold that
traditional philosophical critiques of "relativism" would refute +any+
of the interpretive strands?

Mark:

Surely not -- I hold no brief for "traditional philosophical
critiques." I just don't see any reason to call platitudes like
"everyone has their own perspective" and "there are no absolutes"
"postmodern." Unfortunately, that's just what a good deal of so-called
"postmodernism" boils down to.

Michael:

The point of seeking <integrity> is not to reaffirm existing
institutions, nor even to endorse a wholly mechanistic view of social
organization. "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall." Disgruntled
modernists such as Don Hirsch (cultural illiteracy) want to put Humpty
together again. Many postmodernists, such as Jean Baudrillard, try to
make a living out of telling the world that Humpty has indeed fallen
(a bit of journalism in their tone, but mostly whining about having to
endure exposure to Humpty's gooey innards). Those who aspire to
<integrity> are asking What can we make of egg shells?

Mark:

Then you need a better word -- to have integrity means (among other
things) to be whole and complete. (Thus the arguments in favor of
montage, parataxis, bricolage, etc.) But whatever term you choose,
you're doing the work of the King's horses and the King's men: you're
putting Humpty Dumpty together again, even if you decide to glue his
pieces into a different shape.

Which is the point I was making to start with: replacing "axioms" with
"tentative assertions" is a way of "constructing an edifice" when the
old foundations are cracked. "The King is dead; long live the King!"
is the motto for all projects of this kind. Foucault said that we need
to decapitate the King, but as he knew, power is infinitely capable of
recapitulating itself.

P.S. Hirsch a modernist? Come, now.

Omar Haneef:

I allign the Enlightenment with modernism and postmodernism
becomes what comes after them. Modernism is an extension of the
enlightenment in my mind. Postmodernism reacts against the
canonization of the subversive project of modernism which is why the
author had to die.

Mark:

Then you've erased postmodernism from the map: there isn't
even a place for it in your schema.

Omar:

Au contraire (that was tongue in cheek). I can't possibly see where
YOU situate post-modernism. In "our" model, we see enlightenment/
modernism = belief in reality -> postmodernism = Reality in flux. IF
your model is enlightenment = belief in reality -> modernism = reality
in flux -> postmodernism = ?. My question is: Where is postmodernism
on YOUR map?

Mark:

I would say that modernism questions truth on truth on behalf
of truth, while postmodernism deepens that questioning when it calls
the concept and value of truth into doubt. Where modernism depicts a
world in flux, contrasting it with the idea that the basic features of
existence are set in concrete, postmodernism suggests that reality has
always been plastic and malleable. Similarly, where modernism employs
fragmentation as a strategy against "the rule and power of the whole,"
(Marcuse), postmodernism offers its suspicion that fragmentation has
itself taken on the role of an ordering principle. Post-modernism
both criticizes and intensifies the questioning begun by modernism,
per se. Thus modernism says, "Question authority!" and postmodernism
adds, "But don't listen to the answer." Modernism observes that "all
that is solid melts into air;" postmodernism replies, "And then it
starts raining."

What do you see as subversive about "the project of modernism,"
and what do you think it subverts? (I'm not suggesting that the
answer is nothing, whatsoever -- just asking for more details about
your view.)

Omar:

When I said that, I was thinking primarily of modernist texts
(Joyce, Faulkner) who employ narrative strategies to obscure
authority, betray reader-author contracts, ignore conventions of time
and/or space and are generally unapologetic about their subjective
choices.

Mark:

That makes perfect sense to me, but I don't see how it jibes
with what you said about modernism before, when you wrote that you
align modernism with the Enlightenment. While I think of both Joyce
and Faulkner as exemplary modernists, neither one of them has very
close ties with the Enlightenment: they're separated by centuries in
time and an equal distance in sensibility. The same goes for your
description of their writing -- it applies to Joyce and Faulkner, but
clearly it doesn't fit the Enlightenment very well. Are you using the
word "modern" in two different ways? (That's one of the main sources
of confusion about the relationship between modernism and p-modernism.)

Omar:

What is the difference between calling truth into question and
questioning the concept and value of truth? I understand, I think,
what you are describing as the pomo stance, that is "Why bother about
the truth? What can truth even mean?" But what is it that the
modernists did not see (in your model)? How could they be questioning
truth and still looking for it?

Mark:

That's not what I was getting at, so let me try again. Purely
as an analogy, consider Prof. Kant. (Using Kant as an example risks
the confusion between modernism and the Enlightenment we were stuck in
above. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Kant's philosophy was a
sample of modernism -- I'm only using it as a way illustrating my
point.) The _Critique of Pure Reason_ questions reason on behalf of
reason, without ever calling reason, per se, into question. (That
would have been the opposite of Kant's purpose.) By comparison, the
modernist critique of truth goes considerably further, since it
questions truth as conceived by philosophy, science, and religion.
But that questioning is carried out in the name of truth, while post-
modernism addresses the value of truth, itself. That's a deepening of
the questions asked by modernism, not a turning away of the kind in
your two examples. Asking "why do we want truth?" or "what then is
truth?" is different than saying "why bother with truth?" or "what can
truth even mean?" Those aren't questions -- they're just shrugs.

Omar:

Plastic and malleable IS flux. What is the difference?

Mark:

If plastic was flux, Mattel would be out of business -- but
that's not exactly the point. Put it this way: modernism advocates
Becoming over and against the rule of Being. The theory is that Being
is a static entity which imposes itself on the world and prohibits the
possibility of change. Postmodernism replies that Being is both
produced and maintained through the process of Becoming, and that
"change" is merely a nickname for the status quo. Or take the Mattel
example seriously. Modernism wants to remold the world and begins by
emphasizing that reality is malleable, contrary to both government
propaganda and popular belief; post-modernism says yes, that's true
enough, but the world is being continuously remolded, with observably
poor results: in fact, that's how it got this way, in the first place.

[End of FAQ]

[Puss in Boots]

English Dept.
Indiana University
An alt.postmodern newsgroup FAQ file
Version 1.01, Sept. 1995.
Last Revised Oct. 4, 1995.

{1.0}
Permission to copy and share this file without monetary profit is granted
provided this statement and the author's name (as an acknowledgement)
appears in the file. NONE OF THE PUBLISHED SOURCES QUOTED HERE UNDER FAIR
USE HAVE GIVEN THEIR WRITTEN PERMISSION TO BE QUOTED IN A FAQ FILE
APPEARING ON THE NET. Please distribute and expand on this file with due
recognition of copyright laws and original authors' and publishers' rights
and credits. The purpose of this file is purely educational and is not
meant for anyone's financial gain (unless one considers that previously
published work quoted herein is getting free, market targeted publicity).

WHAT THIS FILE CONTAINS:
*****
1.0 Statement of limited copyright and notice of fair use.
1.1 A discussion of what this FAQ is trying to do and its philosophy for
doing it.
2.0 How to find out more about what postmodern means.
2.1 Two basic issues central to many discussions of the postmodern.
2.2 A very short bibliographic essay on Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida and
Deleuze.
3.0 Three reference work definitions of the postmodern.
4.0 Twenty statements about postmodernism by published authors.
5.0 A short bibliography and note on other bibliographies.
5.1 Some principal or primary sources.
5.2 General works, anthologies, and secondary sources.
5.3 A list of works on modernity, modernism and the avant-garde.
5.4 A minimal list of writings on postmodernism and its relation to
religion, Japan and cyberpunk.
6.0 A digest of an alt.postmodern newsgroup thread on aestheticism,
fascism, futurism, Benjamin, and landscape design.
6.1 Final word.

*****

{1.1}
This is a "FAQ" (Frequently Asked Questions) file that has
few of the questions in it but tries to enlist many of the vari-
ous answers. It is not exhaustive.

A number of users cruising this newsgroup recently have asked
for a FAQ file, and while this particular "FAQ" file cannot hope
to be definitive, it does try to meet that basic, initial need
for information to the most common questions, "What is post-
modernism?" "How do I find out more about it?"

This FAQ should be of use for research into the question of
the postmodern, and I hope that even experienced students of
postmodernism will find it a serviceable source of reference. I
have tried to include detailed and accurate information on the
bibliographic entries.

This file is not meant to be monolithically definitive or
singularly authoritative, nor is it meant to supplant the knowl-
edge or opinions of others on this group, many of whom might have serious
questions or reservations about elements or assumptions of
this file. This FAQ is only one person's take on a very broad
and evolving field of cultural dispute, and is offered in a
spirit of collegiality and general education.

This FAQ can be read at least on three distinct levels each
corresponding to one of its major sections: 1) as a relatively
quick overview of the term "postmodern" as it is found in some
standard reference works; 2) as a bibliography and research aid
for the student of postmodernism, and 3) as an examina-
tion of what published and varyingly "recognized" authorities
have to say about the subject in their own words. Reading these
crystallized statements of what postmodernism is taken to be by
accomplished writers in the field should introduce a sense of the
thematics and semantics, the "language games" and politics, at
play in even attempting to define what the postmodern is. For my
part, in organizing and selecting the quotations I have tried to
present conservative positions, traditionalist, humanist and
reactionary positions, as well as Nietzschean, progressive,
socialist, feminist and Marxian and neo-Marxian positions on the
postmodern. To my mind, it is easier for a document of this type to err
on the side of exclusivity and ideological purity than it is to err on
the side of pluralism and report of the variety of serious opinion on the
topic.

Ideally, there will be future additions to this file, and
perhaps even other FAQ files will be made that compete with this
file and construct the field in different ways. Imagine a
newsgroup with four or five different, partly overlapping, lengthy
FAQ files all ostensibly covering the same topic (and not just
well established or recognized sub-topics or specialist fields)!
I submit that that is a reasonable possibility in an
alt.postmodern newsgroup.

{2.0}
HOW DO I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT POSTMODERNISM?
(Or, "What should I know about this stuff?")

Either of these is a daunting question. My tentative answer
would be for you to read this FAQ file, read some of the books
listed in this FAQ file, follow the exchanges on this newsgroup,
put questions to the newsgroup's posters, and, as a productive
exercise, find out what modernism is or is supposed to have been,
and what values and assumptions it championed. To that end, I've
included a section on modernity and the avant-garde to offer some
assistance. Some especially serious critics of postmodern
thought can be found there (Habermas, Giddens, Taylor, Williams).
These writers in particular insist on the complex and on-going
nature of the modernist enterprise and reject the notion that
postmodernism represents any sustained and substantial break from
it. Readers can further enact for themselves a similar political
and ideological confrontation that can be said to have occurred
in the American context between modernist and postmodernist in
the conjuncture between Lionel Trilling's _The Liberal
Imagination_ (Viking 1950) and Susan Sontag's _Against Inter-
pretation_ (Laurel 1969).

{2.1}
The opportunity to generate polemic in any discussion of the
postmodern is prodigious. Keeping an eye on the two following
basic issues can often help orient one to the various politics
and agendas that tend to cloud or obscure different discussions
of the postmodern. One is the problem of critical distance and
the other is a problem of nomenclature.

1) What is the author's take on the idea that critical distance and
the potential for real objectivity are unattainable? This question can be
seen at work in both Haraway's comments (see below) about what she sees as
Jameson's main thesis on postmodernism, and in Laclau's mapping of an
"analytic terrain" where the "given" is no longer a viable myth.
Pejoratively put, this collapse of critical distance is decried as
"aestheticist" or as aestheticizing ideology in many discussions (Norris).
The usual implication is that the culprits are decadent, apolitical and
dangerously irrational. The historical antecedents referred to are often
Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde's "dandyism" and the "Art for Art's sake"
movement. Whereas for many differently oriented commentators those same
decriers of aestheticism are often themselves denounced as totalitarian
rationalists, modernists, "mere" moralizers, reactionaries and
unsophisticated know-nothings (Haraway; Giroux).

2) The terms postmodern, postmodernity and postmodernism can
be seen to associate or conjure different meanings: the term
postmodern is inclusively ambiguous of what people mean when they
talk about issues that come up in discussions of postmodernity
and postmodernism. Postmodernity is a sign for contemporary
society, for the stage of technological and economic organization
which our society has reached. Postmodernism then can be, as Eco
says, a "spiritual" category rather than a discrete period in
history; a "style" in the arts and in culture indebted to ironic
and parodic pastiche as well as to a sense of history now seen
less as a story of lineal progression and triumph than as a story
of recurring cycles.

Analogously, and only for purposes of illustration, the con-
dition of modernity is often spoken of as the rapid pace and tex-
ture of life in a society experienced as the result of the indus-
trial revolution (Berman). However, modern_ism_ is a movement in
culture and the arts usually identified as a period and style
beginning with impressionism as a break with Realism in the fine
arts and in literature. Prior to modernism one finds periods and
styles associated with other distinct aesthetic movements, e.g.,
Romanticism and Realism. For instance, both Blake and Balzac,
Romantic and Realist representatives respectively, could be said
to have had some experience of modernity, to have lived during
the early stages of the expansion of bourgeois or industrial capitalism and
technology and science, whereas no one thinks of their respective arts or
modes of expression as obviously "modernist."

{2.2}
Finally, I must emphasize that certain influential figures
who converge in discussions of the postmodern, themselves sur-
prisingly rarely use the word "postmodern" and do not
describe their theories or discourses in that way. Their
theories can't be simply reduced to "postmodernism" without con-
troversy, and yet their arguments are drawn on and criticized
very often in the name of what goes by the "postmodern." The
works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault
and Gilles Deleuze are prevalent in discussions on the postmodern
(and this insistent close association probably explains the oft-remarked
failure to distinguish between post-structuralism and post-
modernism).

I'd suggest that it is important for following discussions of
postmodern theory to study and know Nietzsche's philosophy and espe-
cially his short essay on history, _On the Advantage and Dis-
advantage of History for Life_ (transl. Peter Preuss.
Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980). An acquaintance with the writings
of Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze can be useful. They have all
been profound students or readers of Nietzsche, part of a "return
to Nietzsche" or the "New Nietzsche" movement in France in the 1960s.
There's a nice collection of Foucault's writings edited by Paul Rabinow
titled _The Foucault Reader_ published by Pantheon Books, 1984.
For Derrida, to pick a citation for him almost at random, see the
essay "Differance" in _Margins of Philosophy_ (transl. Alan Bass.
Chicago UP, 1982). On Deleuze, the best way into his ideas is to
dive into one of his texts and keep going. The most rewarding
introduction to his work that I've seen is by Brian Massumi, who
translated _Milles Plateaux_, titled _A User's Guide to Capi-
talism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari_
(MIT Press, 1992). By no means is this group of suggested read-
ings intended to be limiting or exhaustive. I am only pointing
out what seem particularly plausible or telling routes of entry
into these writers' ideas.

{3.0}
WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?

Here are three published definitions from "standard" reference
works (cross-references are cited below in the FAQ bibliography section):

(A) "Post-modernism[:] The break away from 19th-century values is
often classified as modernism and carries the connotations of
transgression and rebellion. However, the last twenty years has
seen a change in this attitude towards focussing upon a series of
unresolvable philosophical and social debates, such as race, gen-
der and class. Rather than challenging and destroying cultural
definitions, as does modernism, post-modernism resists the very
idea of boundaries. It regards distinctions as undesirable and
even impossible, so that an almost Utopian world, free from all
constraints, becomes possible.
"It must be realized though, that post-modernism has many
interpretations and that no single definition is adequate. Dif-
ferent disciplines have participated in the post-modernist move-
ment in varying ways, for example, in architecture traditional
limits have become indistinguishable, so that what is commonly on
the outside of a building is placed within, and vice versa. In
literature, writers adopt a self-conscious intertextuality some-
times verging on pastiche, which denies the formal propriety of
authorship and genre. In commercial terms post-modernism may be
seen as part of the growth of consumer capitalism into multi-
national and technological identity.
"Its all-embracing nature thus makes post-modernism as rele-
vant to street events as to the *avant garde*, and as such is one
of the major focal points in the emergence of interdisciplinary
and cultural studies." (from THE PRENTICE HALL GUIDE TO ENGLISH
LITERATURE, Ed. Marion Wynne-Davies. First Prentice Hall edi-
tion, copyright 1990 by Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd. 812-13)
(B) "Postmodernism and postmodernity[,] a cultural and ideologi-
cal configuration variously defined, with different aspects of
the general phenomenon emphasized by different theorists, post-
modernity is seen as involving an end of the dominance of an
overarching belief in scientific rationality and a unitary theory
of PROGRESS, the replacement of empiricist theories of represen-
tation and TRUTH, and increased emphasis on the importance of the
unconscious, on free-floating signs and images, and a plurality
of viewpoints. Associated also with the idea of a postindustrial
age (compare POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETY [Daniel Bell]), theorists
such as BAUDRILLARD (1983) and Lyotard (1984) make central to
postmodernity a shift from a `productive' to a `reproductive'
social order, in which simulations and models--and more
generally, signs--increasingly constitute the world, so that any
distinction between the appearance and the `real' is lost.
Lyotard, for example, speaks especially of the replacement of any
*grand narrative* [les grands recits] by more local `accounts' of
reality as distinctive of postmodernism and postmodernity.
Baudrillard talks of the `triumph of signifying culture.' Cap-
turing the new orientation characteristic of postmodernism, com-
pared with portrayals of modernity as an era or a definite
period, the advent of postmodernity is often presented as a
`mood' or `state of mind' (see Featherstone, 1988). If modernism
as a movement in literature and the arts is also distinguished by
its rejection of an emphasis on representation, postmodernism car-
ries this movement a stage further. Another feature of post-
modernism seen by some theorists is that the boundaries between
`high' and `low' culture tend to be broken down, for example,
motion pictures, jazz, and rock music (see Lash, 1990). Accord-
ing to many theorists, postmodernist cultural movements, which
often overlap with new political tendencies and social movements
in contemporary society, are particularly associated with the
increasing importance of new class fractions, for example,
`expressive professions' within the service class (see Lash and
Urry, 1987)." (David Jary and Julia Jary. eds. THE HARPER COLLINS
DICTIONARY OF SOCIOLOGY. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 375-6)

(C) "Postmodernism[:] A portmanteau term encompassing a variety
of developments in intellectual culture, the arts and the fashion
industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Among the characteristic ges-
tures of postmodernist thinking is a refusal of the `totalizing'
or `essentialist' tendencies of earlier theoretical systems,
especially classic Marxism, with their claims to referential
truth, scientificity, and belief in progress. Postmodernism, on
the contrary, is committed to modes of thinking and representa-
tion which emphasize fragmentations, discontinuities and
incommensurable aspects of a given object, from intellectual
systems to architecture.
"Postmodernist analysis is often marked by forms of writing
that are more literary, certainly more self-reflexive, than is
common in critical writing - the critic as self-conscious creator
of new meanings upon the ground of the object of study, showing
that object no special respect. It prefers montage to perspec-
tive, intertextuality to referentiality, `bits-as-bits' to
unified totalities. It delights in excess, play, carnival, asym-
metry, even mess, and in the emancipation of meanings from their
bondage to mere lumpenreality.
Theorists of postmodernism include Jean Baudrillard, Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Fredric Jameson, Paul Virilio, Dick
Hebdige, Jean-Francois Lyotard, among others; a list whose male-
ness has not gone unnoticed (see Propyn 1987), but which may
immediately be countered by reading the exemplary essay by
Meaghan Morris (1988) which moves easily among postmodernism's
sense of multiple mobilities, bodily, temporal and textual,
without ever claiming postmodernist status for itself." (Tim
O'Sullivan, John Hartley, Danny Saunders, Martin Montgomery and
John Fisk. eds. KEY CONCEPTS IN COMMUNICATION AND CULTURAL
STUDIES. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994. 234-4)

{4.0}
PASSAGES FROM FREQUENTLY (and not so frequently) CITED COM-
MENTATORS AND POSTMODERNIST THEORY THEORISTS
(Or, a slide-show of twenty statements on the postmodern)

**

(1) "The case for its [postmodernism's] existence depends on the
hypothesis of some radical break or *coupure*, generally traced
back to the end of the 1950s or the early 1960s.
"As the word itself suggests, this break is most often related
to notions of the waning or extinction of the hundred-year-old
modern movement (or to its ideological or aesthetic repudiation).
Thus abstract expressionism in painting, existentialism in
philosophy, the final forms of represetnation in the novel, the
films of the great *auteurs*, or the modernist school of poetry
(as institutionalized and canonized in the works of Wallace
Stevens) all are now seen as the final, extraordinary flowering
of a high-modernist impulse which is spent and exhausted with
them. The enumeration of what follows, then, at once becomes
empirical, chaotic, and heterogeneous: Andy Warhol and pop art,
but also photorealism, and beyond it, the `new expressionsm'; the
moment, in music, of John Cage, but also the synthesis of classi-
cal and `popular' styles found in composers like Phil Glass and
Terry Riley, and also punk and new wave rock (the Beatles and the
Stones now standing as the high-modernist moment of that more
recent and rapidly evolving tradition); in film, Godard, post-
Godard, and experimental cinema and video, but also a whole new
type of commercial film...; Burroughs, Pynchon, or Ishmael Reed,
on the one hand, and the French *nouveau roman* and its succes-
sion, on the other, along with alarming new kinds of literary
criticism based on some new aesthetic of textuality or *ecri-
ture*... The list might be extended indefinitely; but does it
imply any more fundamental change or break than the periodic
style and fashion changes determined by an older high-modernist
imperative of stylistic innovation?" (Jameson 1-2).

**

(2) "For many theorists occupying various positions on the
political spectrum, the current historical moment signals less a
need to come to grips with the new forms of knowledge, experi-
ences, and conditions that constitute postmodernism than the
necessity to write its obituary. The signs of exhaustion are in
part measured by the fact that postmodernism has gripped two gen-
erations of intellectuals who have pondered endlessly over its
meaning and implications as a `social condition and cultural
movement' (Jencks 10). The `postmodern debate' has spurned little
consensus and a great deal of confusion and animosity. The themes
are, by now, well known: master narratives and traditions of
knowledge grounded in first principles are spurned; philosophical
principles of canonicity and the notion of the sacred have become
suspect; epistemic certainty and the fixed boundaries of
academic knowledge have been challenged by a `war on totality'
and a disavowal of all-encompassing, single, world-views; rigid
distinctions between high and low culture have been rejected by
insistence that the products of the so-called mass culture, popu-
lar, and folk art forms are proper objects of study; the
Enlightenment correspondence between history and progress and the
modernist faith in rationality, science, and freedom have
incurred a deep-rooted skepticism; the fixed and unified identity
of the humanist subject has been replaced by a call for narrative
space that is pluralized and fluid; and, finally, though far from
complete, history is spurned as a unilinear process that moves
the West progressively toward a final realization of freedom.
While these and other issues have become central to the post-
modern debate, they are connected through the challenges and
provocations they provide to modernity's conception of history,
agency, representation, culture, and the responsibility of
intellectuals. The postmodern challenge constitutes not only a
diverse body of cultural criticism, it must also be seen as a
contextual discourse that has challenged specific disciplinary
boundaries in such fields as literary studies, geography, educa-
tion, architecture, feminism, performance art, anthropology,
sociology, and many other areas. Given its broad theoretical
reach, its political anarchism, and its challenge to `legislat-
ing' intellectuals, it is not surprising that there has been a
growing movement on the part of diverse critics to distance them-
selves from postmodernism. (Giroux 1-2)

**

(3) "A provocative, comprehensive argument about the politics and
theories of `postmodernism' is made by Fredric Jameson (1984),
who argues that postmodernism is not an option, a style among
others, but a cultural dominant requiring radical reinvention of
left politics from within; there is no longer any place from
without that gives meaning to the comforting fiction of critical
distance. Jameson also makes clear why one cannot be for or
against postmodernism, an essentially moralist move. My position
is that feminists (and others) need continuous cultural reinven-
tion, postmodernist critique, and historical materialsm; only a
cyborg would have a chance. The old dominations of white capi-
talist patriarchy seem nostalgically innocent now: they normal-
ized heterogeneity, into man and woman, white and black, for
example. `Advanced capitalism' and postmodernism release
heterogeneity without a norm, and we are flattened, without sub-
jectivity, which requires depth, even unfriendly and drowning
depths." (Donna Haraway. _Simians, Cyborgs, and Women_. New York:
Routledge, 1991. 244-5, n4.)

**

(4) "The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained
the *total occupation* of social life. Not only is the relation
to the commodity visible but it is all one sees: the world one
sees is its world. Modern economic production extends the dic-
tatorship extensively and intensively. In the least industri-
alized places, its reign is already attested by a few star com-
modities and by the imperialist domination imposed by regions
which are ahead in the development of productivity. In the
advanced regions, social space is invaded by a continuous super-
imposition of geological layers of commodities. At this point in
the `second industrial revolution,' alienated consumption becomes
for the masses a duty supplementary to alienated production. It
is *all the sold labor* of a society which globally becomes the
*total commodity* for which the cycle must be continued. For
this to be done, the total commodity has to return as a fragment
to the fragmented individual, absolutely separated from the pro-
ductive forces operating as a whole. Thus it is here that the
specialized science of domination must in turn specialize: it
fragments itself into sociology, psycho-technics, cybernetics,
semiology, etc., watching over the self-regulation of every level
of the process." (Debord 1977, paragraph 42)

**

(5) "The frenzied expansion of the mass media [is a mark of our
postmodernity and] has political consequences which are not so
wholly negative. This becomes most apparent when we look at rep-
resentations of the Third World. No longer can this be confined
to the realist documentary, or the exotic televisual voyage. The
Third World refuses now, to `us,' in the West, to be reassuringly
out of sight. It is as adept at using the global media as the
old colonialist powers." (Angela McRobbie, "Postmodernism and
Popular Culture," in _Postmodernism: ICA documents_. Ed. Lisa
Appignanesi. London: FAB, 1989. 169.)

**

(6) "Postmodernism questions the efficacy of strategies of trans-
formation associated with autonomy, declaring that modernism
inexorably reaches a dead end. The modernist hope and belief
that intellectuals can occupy a space outside capitalist society
is not only illusionary but also artistically and politically
sterile. The purity of the alienated artist forecloses his [sic]
access to the energies and disputes that are lived within the
culture, while also severing his connection to any audience
beyond the purlieu of the artistic elite. The modernist places
himself high and dry. Mass or popular culture inevitably springs
up to fill the vacuum created by the elitist artists' divorce
from a wide audience. By following the path of its own aesthetic
revolution and its fetishistically precious values, modern art
distances itself from any social group large enough, central
enough, or powerful enough to effect a social revolution. Post-
modernism must entirely rethink the relation of intellectuals to
the rest of society. A model of engagement must replace the
model of alienation...." (McGowan 25)

**

(7) "What I want to call postmodernism in fiction paradoxically
uses and abuses the conventions of both realism and modernism,
and does so in order to challenge their transparency, in order to
prevent glossing over the contradictions that make the postmodern
what it is: historical and metafictional, contextual and self-
reflexive, ever aware of its status as discourse, as a human con-
struct." (Hutcheon 1988, 53)

**

(8) "Postmodernism is the somewhat weasel word now being used to
describe the garbled situation of art in the '80s. It is a term
which nobody quite fully understands, because no clear-cut
definition of it has yet been put forward. Its use arose
synonymously with that of pluralism toward the end of the '70s,
and at that point it referred to the loss of faith in a stylistic
mainstream, as if the whole history of styles had suddenly come
unstuck. Since then, under the more recent umbrella of Neo-
expressionism, the old stylistic divisions now mix, blend, and
alternate interchangeably with each other: dogmatism and exclu-
sivity have given way to openness and coexistence. Pluralism
abolishes controls; it gives the impression that everything is
permitted. Meeting with no limitation, the artist is free to
express himself in whatever way he wishes.
"If modernism was ideological at heart--full of strenuous dic-
tates about what art could, and could not, be--postmodernism is
much more eclectic, able to assimilate, and even plunder, all
forms of style and genre and circumstance, and tolerant of multi-
plicity and conflicting values." (Gablik 73)

**

(9) "Simplifying to the extreme, I define *postmodern* as
incredulity toward metanarratives." (Lyotard 1984, xxiv)

**

(10) "Lyotard explains the necessity of thinking in `open
systems' without internal unity on the basis of the disintegra-
tion of the possibility of maintaining a universal metalanguage.
This possibility presupposes that the individual language games
through which we perspectively live our Being-in-the-world can be
gone beyond by some sort of speech that itself is not relative.
Such nonrelative speech, for its part, presupposes an authority
that modern metaphysics conceives as `the Absolute.' If it can
be demonstrated--and Derrida has shown this more clearly than
Lyotard--that the thought of the Absolute itself cannot escape
the `structurality of structure,' then one can no longer lay
claim to a transhistorical frame of orientation beyond linguistic
differentiality. Systems without internal unity and without
absolute center become the inescapable condition of our *Dasein*
and our orientation in the world." (Manfred Frank. _What is
Neostructuralism?_. Trans. Sabine Wilke and Richard Gray. Min-
neapolis: U of Minn. Press, 1989. Trans. of _Was ist Neostruk-
turalismus?_. 1984.)

**

(11) "The postmodern would be that which, in the modern, puts
forward the unpresentable in presentation itself; that which
denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of taste
which would make it possible to share collectively the nostalgia
for the unattainable; that which searches for new presentations,
not in order to enjoy them but in order to impart a stronger
sense of the unpresentable. A postmodern artist or writer is in
the position of a philosopher: the text he writes, the work he
produces are not in principle governed by preestablished rules,
and they cannot be judged according to a determining judgment, by
applying familiar categories to the text or to the work. Those
rules and categories are what the work of art itself is looking
for. The artist and the writer, then, are working without rules
in order to formulate the rules of what *will have been done*.
Hence the fact that work and text have the characters of an
*event*; hence also, they always come too late for their author,
or, what amounts to the same thing, their being put into work,
their realization (*mise en oeuvre*) always begin too soon.
*Post modern* would have to be understood according to the
paradox of the future (*post*) anterior (*modo*)." (Lyotard 1984,
81)

**

(12) "The unity of all that allows itself to be attempted today
through the most diverse concepts of science and of writing, is,
in principle, more or less covertly yet always, determined by an
historico-metaphysical epoch of which we merely glimpse the
*closure*. I do not say the *end*. [...]

"Perhaps patient meditation and painstaking investigation on

and around what is still provisionally called writing, far from

falling short of a science of writing or of hastily dismissing it
by some obscurantist reaction, letting it rather develop its

positivity as far as possible, are the wanderings of a way of
thinking that is faithful and attentive to the ineluctable world
of the future which proclaims itself at present, beyond the
closure of knowledge.
"The future can only be anticipated in the form of an absolute
danger. It is that which breaks absolutely with constituted

normality and can only be proclaimed, *presented*, as a sort of
monstrosity. For that future world and for that within it which
will have put into question the values of sign, word, and writ-
ing, for that which guides our future anterior, there is as yet
no exergue." (Jacques Derrida, from the "Exergue" to _Of Gram-
matology_. Transl. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1974,
1976. 4-5. Transl. of _De la Grammatologie_. 1967.) (Note:
"Exergue (ig-zurg), n. the small space beneath the principal
design on a coin or medal for the insertion of a date, etc."
_Websters_, Pocket Books-Simon & Schuster, 1990.)

[Puss in Boots]

(13) "Postmodernity does not imply a *change* in the values of
Enlightenment modernity but rather a particular weakening of
their absolutist character. It is therefore necessary to delimit
an analytic terrain from whose standpoint this weakening is
thinkable and definable. This terrain is neither arbitrary nor
freely accessible to the imagination, but on the contrary it is
the historical sedimentation of a set of traditions whose common
denominator is the collapse of the immediacy of the *given*. We
may thus propose that the intellectual history of the twentieth
century was constituted on the basis of three illusions of
immediacy (the referent, the phenomenon, and the sign) that gave
rise to the three intellectual traditions of analytical
philosophy, phenomenology, and structuralism. The crisis of that
illusion of immediacy did not, however, result solely from the
abandonment of those categories but rather from a weakening of
their aspirations to constitute full presences and from the ensu-
ing proliferation of language-games which it was possible to
develop around them. This crisis of the absolutist pretensions
of `the immediate' is a fitting starting point for engaging those
intellectual operations that characterize the specific
`weakening' we call postmodernity." (Ernesto Laclau, "Politics
and the Limits of Modernity," in Docherty, op cit., 332).

**

(14) "Perhaps the clearest formulation of the difference of post-
modern invention from modernist innovation comes in _The Post-
modern Condition_, where Lyotard distinguishes the *paralogism*
that characterizes pagan or postmodern aesthetic invention from
the merely *innovative* function of art that is characteristic of
the modernist understanding of the avant-garde. Innovation seeks
to make a new move with the rules of the language game `art', so
as to revivify the truth of art. Paralogism seeks the move that
will displace the rules of the game, the `impossible' or
unforeseeable move. Innovation refines the efficiency of the
system, whereas the paralogical move changes the rules in the
pragmatics of knowledge. It may well be the fate of a paralogi-
cal move to be reduced to innovation as the system adapts itself
(one can read Picasso this way), but this is not the necessary
outcome. The invention may produce more inventions. Roughly
speaking, the condition of art is postmodern or paralogical when
it both is and is not art at the same time (e.g., Sherri Levine's
appropriative rephotographings of `art photography')." (Bill
Readings. _Introducing Lyotard: Art and Politics_. New York:
Routledge, 1991. 73-4).

**

(15) "Postmodern architecture finds itself condemned to undertake
a series of minor modifications in a space inherited from modern-
ity, condemned to abandon a global reconstruction of the space of
human habitation. The perspective then opens onto a vast
landscape, in the sense that there is no longer any horizon of
universality, universalization, or general emancipation to greet
the eye of postmodern man, least of all the eye of the architect.
The disappearance of the Idea that rationality and freedom are
progressing would explain a `tone,' style, or mode specific to
postmodern architecture. I would say it is a sort of
`bricolage': the multiple quotation of elements taken from ear-
lier styles or periods, classical and modern; disregard for the
environment; and so on." (Lyotard 1993, 76)

**

(16) "There is ... a wholesale espousal of aesthetic ideology in
the name of `postmodernism' and its claim to have moved way
beyond the old dispensation of truth, critique, and suchlike
enlightenment values. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this
current intellectual scene is the extent to which fashionable
`left' alternatives (like the ideas canvassed in MARXISM TODAY)
have set about incorporating large chunks of the Thatcherite
cultural and socio-political agenda while talking portentously of
`New Times' and claiming support from postmodernist gurus like
Baudrillard. For we have now lived on - so these thinkers urge -
into an epoch of pervasive `hyperreality', an age of mass-media
simulation, opinion-poll feedback, total publicity and so forth,
with the result that it is no longer possible (if indeed it ever
was) to distinguish truth from falsehood, or to cling to those
old `enlightenment' values of reason, critique, and adequate
ideas. Reality just *is* what we are currently given to make of
it by these various forms of seductive illusion. In fact we might
as well give up using such terms, since they tend to suggest that
there is still some genuine distinction to be drawn between truth
and untruth, `science' and `ideology', knowledge and what is pre-
sently `good in the way of belief'. On the contrary, says
Baudrillard: if there is one thing we should have learned by now
it is the total obsolescence of all such ideas, along with the
enlightenment meta-narrative myths - whether Kantian-liberal,
Hegelian, Marxist or whatever - that once underwrote their
delusive claims. What confronts us now is an order of pure
`simulacra' which no longer needs to disguise or dissimulate the
absence of any final truth-behind-appearances." (Norris 1990;
23).

**

(17) "I begin with what appars to be the most startling fact
about postmodernism: its total acceptacne of the ephemerality,
fragmentation, discontinuity, and the chaotic that formed the one
half of Baudelaire's conception of modernity. But postmodernism
responds to the fact of that in a very particular way. It does
not try to transcend it, counteract it, or even to define the
`eternal and immutable' elements that lie within it. Post-
modernism swims, even wallows, in the fragmentary and the chaotic
currents of change as if that is all there is. Foucault [in the
"Preface" to Deleuze and Guattari's _Anti-Oedipus_ (U of Minn.
Press, 1983. xiii)] instructs us, for example, to `develop
actions, thought, and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition,
and disjunction,' and `to prefer what is positive and multiple,
difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrange-
ments over systems. Believe that what is productive is not
sedentary but nomadic.' To the degree that it does try to legit-
imate itself by reference to the past, therefore, postmodernism
typically harks back to that wing of thought, Nietzsche in par-
ticular, that emphasizes the deep chaos of modern life and its
intractability before rational thought. This does not imply,
however, that postmodernism is simply a version of modernism;
real revolutions in sensibility can occur when latent and
dominated ideas in one period become explicit and dominant in
another. Nevertheless, the continuity of the condition of frag-
mentation, ephemerality, discontinuity, and chaotic change in
both modernist and postmodernist thought is important." (Harvey
44)

**

(18) "Postmodernism, then, is a mode of consciousness (and *not*,
it should be emphasized, a historical period) that is highly
suspicious of the belief in shared speech, shared values, and
shared perceptions that some would like to believe form our cul-
ture but which in fact may be no more than empty, if necessary,
fictions." (Olsen 143)

**

(19) "The point is that there *are* new standards, new standards
of beauty and style and taste. The new sensibility is defiantly
pluralistic; it is dedicated both to an excruciating seriousness
and to fun and wit and nostalgia. It is also extremely history-
conscious; and the voracity of its enthusiasms (and of the super-
cession of these enthusiasms) is very high-speed and hectic.
From the vantage point of this new sensibility, the beauty of the
machine or of the solution to a mathematical problem, of a paint-
ing by Jasper Johns, of a film by Jean-Luc Godard, and of the
personalities and music of the Beatles is equally accessible."
(Sontag 304)

**

(20) "All my life I have worked to establish distinctions with
the areas covered by umbrella-terms such as iconism, code,
presupposition, etc. Naturally I am intrigued by the term
`postmodern.' It is my impression that it is applied these days
to everything the speaker approves of. On the other hand, there
seems to be an attmept to move it backwards in time; first it
seemed to suit writers or artists active in the last twenty
years, then gradually it was moved back to the beginning of the
century, then even further back, and the march goes on; before
long Homer himself will be considered postmodern.
But I believe that this tendency is to some extent justified.
I agree with those who consider postmodern not a chronologically
circumscribed tendency but a spiritual category, or better yet a
*Kunstwollen* (a Will-to-Art), perhaps a stylistic device and/or
a world view. We could say that every age has its own post-
modern, just as every age has its own form of mannerism (in fact,
I wonder if postmodern is not simply the modern name for
*Manierismus*...). I believe that every age reaches moments of
crisis like those described by Nietzsche in the second of the
_Untimely Considerations_, on the harmfulness of the study of
history. The sense that the past is restricting, smothering,
blackmailing us." (Umberto Eco, "A Correspondence on Post-
modernism" with Stefano Rosso in Hoesterey, op cit., pp. 242-3).

{5.0}
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Note: There is a huge and growing literature on post-
modernism. This bibliography is selective and reflects the
author's own interests and background. It is more devoted to
cultural theory and philosophy than to fiction and the arts
generally, though see Ferguson and Gablik for extended interviews
and discussions on fine arts, and Venturi and Portoghesi on
architecture. For the relations between postmodernism and
science, I suggest that there are worse places to start than the
works of Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Bruno Latour, Michel
Serres, Katherine Hayles, Gregory Bateson and Donna Haraway.
One of the most extensive bibliographies available, though
only for material published prior to 1989, is in Connor. Other
useful bibliographies are in Hutcheon (1989; see especially the
"Concluding Note: Some Directed Reading," 169-70) and Docherty,
which offers more recent information (1993).

{5.1}
SOME PRINCIPAL THEORISTS

Baudrillard, Jean. _Simulations_. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983.

Debord, Guy. _Society of the Spectacle_. English Transl. 1970.
Rev. Transl. Detroit: Black & Red, 1977. Rpt. 1983. Trans. of
_La societe du spectacle_. 1967.

---. _Comments on the Society of the Spectacle_. Transl. Malcolm
Imrie. London: Verso, 1990. Transl. of _La Societe du spec-
tacle_. 1988.

Jameson, Fredric. _Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism_. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1991.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. _The Postmodern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge_. Transl. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Foreword
by Fredric Jameson. Minneapolis: U of Minn. Press, 1984. Transl.
of _La Condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir_. 1979.

---. _The Postmodern Explained: Correspondence 1982-1985_. Ed.
Julian Pefanis and Morgan Thomas. Transls. by Don Barry,
Bernadette Maher, Julian Pefanis, Virginia Spate, and Morgan
Thomas. Afterword by Wlad Gozich. Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota
Press, 1993. Transl. of _Le Postmoderne explique aux enfants_.
1988.

Portoghesi, Pier Paolo. _Aftern Modern Architecture_. New York:
Rizzoli, 1982.

Vattimo, Gianni. _The Transparent Society_. Transl. David Webb.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992. Transl. of _La societa
trasparente_. 1989.

Venturi, Robert, and Denise Scott and Steven Izenor. _Learning
from Las Vegas_. 1972. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977.

{5.2}
GENERAL WORKS, ANTHOLOGIES, INTERVENTIONS

Appignanesi, Lisa, ed. _Postmodernism: ICA documents_. London:
Free Association Books, 1989.

Best, Steven, and Douglas Kellner. _Postmodern Theory: Critical
Interrogations_. New York: Guilford Press, 1991.

Connor, Steven. _Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to
Theories of the Contemporary_. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

Docherty, Thomas. ed. _Postmodernism: a reader_. New York: Colum-
bia UP, 1993.

Elam, Diane. _Romancing the Postmodern_. New York: Routledge,
1992.

Featherston, M., ed. _Postmodernism_ London: SAGE, 1988.

Ferguson, Russell, et al., eds. _Discourses: Conversations in
Postmodern Art and Culture_. Cambridge: MIT Press; New York: The
New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990.

Foster, Hal, ed. _The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern
Culture_. Seatle, WA: Bay Press, 1985.

Foster, Hal. _Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics_.
Seatle, WA: Bay Press, 1985.

Giroux, Henry A. "Slacking Off: Border Youth and Postmodern
Education." JAC ISSUE 14.2 FALL 1994.
http://nsferau.cas.usf.edu/JAC/archive/dir142.html

Harvey, David. _The Condition of Postmodernity_. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1989.

Hoesterey, Ingeborg, ed. _Zeitgeist in Babel: The Postmodernist
Controversy_. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991.

Hutcheon, Linda. _The Politics of Postmodernism_. New York: Rout-
ledge, 1989.

---. _A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction_.
New York: Routledge, 1988.

Huyssen, Andreas. _After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Cul-
ture, Postmodernism_. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,
1986.

Jencks, Charles. "The Postmodern Agenda," in _The Postmodern
Reader_. Ed. Charles Jencks. New York: St. Martin's, 1992. 10-
39.

Lash, Scott. _The Sociology of Postmodernism._ New York: Rout-
ledge, 1990.

McGowan, John. _Postmodernism and Its Critics_. Ithaca: Cornell
UP, 1991.

Morris, Meaghan. "At Henry Parkes Motel," _Cultural Studies_
(1988) 2:1-47

Norris, Christopher. _What's Wrong with Postmodernism?_.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1990.

---. _The Truth about Postmodernism_. London: Blackwell, 1993.
Probyn, E. "Bodies and anti-bodies: feminism and postmodernism,"
_Cultural Studies_ (1987) 1:3, 349-60.

Squires, Judith. _Principled Positions: Postmodernism and the
Rediscovery of Value_. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993.

Zavarzadeh, Mas'ud and Donald Morton. _Theory, (Post)Modernity,
Opposition: An "Other" Introduction to Literary and Cultural
Theory_. Washington, D.C.: Masionneuve Press, 1991.

{5.3}
ON MODERNITY, MODERNISM AND THE AVANT-GARDE

Berman, Marshall. _All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experi-
ence of Modernity_. NY: Viking-Penguin, 1982. New Pref. 1988.

Bradbury, Malcolm, and James McFarlane, eds. _Modernism: A Guide
to European Literature, 1890-1930_. 1976. New Preface. New
York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Burger, Peter. _The Theory of the Avant-Garde_. Transl. Michael
Shaw. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1984. Transl. of
_Theorie der Avantgarde_. 1974.

Calinescu, Matei. _Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-
Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism_. 1977. Rev. ed. Durham,
NC: Duke UP, 1987.

Faulkner, Peter. _Modernism_. London: Methuen, 1977.

Gablik, Susan. _Has Modernism Failed?_. London: Thames and Hud-
son, 1984.

Giddens, Anthony. _Modernity and Self Identity_. Oxford: Polity
Press, 1991.

Habermas, Jurgen. _The Philosphical Discourse of Modernity:
Twelve Lectures_. Trans. Frederick G. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1987. Transl. of _Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne:
Zwolf Vorlesungen_. 1985.

Naremore, James, and Patrick Brantlinger. _Modernity and Mass
Culture_. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Taylor, Charles. _Sources of the Self_. Cambridge: Harvard UP,

1989.

Williams, Raymond. _The Politics of Modernism: Against the New
Conformists_. London: Verso, 1989.

{5.4}
POSTMODERNISM AND RELIGION

Smith, Huston. _Beyond the Post-Modern Mind_. 1982. New York:
Crossroad Publishing; Wheaton, IL: Quest-Theosophical Publishing
House, 1984.

POSTMODERNISM AND JAPAN

Miyoshi, Masao and H. D. Harootunian, eds. _Postmodernism and
Japan_. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1989.

POSTMODERNISM AND CYBERPUNK

Olsen, Lance. "Cyberpunk and the Crisis of Postmodernity," in
_Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative_. Eds.
George Slusser and Tom Shippey. Athens, GA: U of Georgia Press,
1992. 142-152.

[Puss in Boots]

{6.0}
******
A DIGEST OF AN EXCHANGE ON AN ALT.POSTMODERN THREAD IN FEBRUARY OF 1995
(Contributors: Omar Haneef, Mark Weinles, Gordon Fitch, David F. Black,
Michael McGee, N.S. "Cris" Brown, PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU and Andy Perry)
******

alt.postmodern

From: han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Thu Feb 09 01:02:31 EST 1995
Organization: Swarthmore College Engineering, Swarthmore PA

david black f (dbl...@mach1.wlu.ca) wrote:
> An unfortunate condition of contemporary culture is the
general
> aestheticization of experience--where images and aesthetic
criteria for
> interpreting those images come to dominate public life. This
phenomenon
> has a history.

Unfortunate? What you proncounce the "aestheticization of
experience" is really the end of logocentricism. The word is
dead, long live the image. The reasons probably have a lot to do
with saturation of information and the way pictures carry more
information than words. The written word became very important
when the printing press was estabilished because monks carried
around the medieval equivelant of powerbooks with more informa-
tion then anyone could carry in their heads and the elite proba-
bly enjoyed their exclusive ability to read. Now everybody reads,
there is more information "in the ether" then we can handle and
images are cheaply and easily recreated just like words. Welcome
to the era of the image. Why is this unfortunate? This might be
slightly more democratic since we all decode images at roughly
the same rate and the word is so huge and pretentious that it,
perhaps, deserves to die. The "kill your TV" anxiety that you
seemed to be faced with is a hiccup of Leavisism and his mass
cultural fear which probably dates back to the French Revolu-
tion's fear of the masses. You are not alone, there are proabably
plenty of others who agree with you "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
- Neil Postman is a recent example of this line of thinking.

> If modernity meant that the aesthetic category was sepa-
rated from
> moral (ethics) and practical (logic) reason (the breakdown of
the unified
> sensibility that T.S. Eliot mourned), the postmodern has seen
the revenge
> of the aesthetic, as a culture of images, spectacle and simula-
tion has
> subsumed the other two fundamental elements in human
sensibility. The
> aesthetic has become the dominant element in contemporary cul-
ture, and the
> difficult business of making value choices reduced to who or
what looks
> good.

But postmodernity called me up yesterday and explained to
me that it has collapsed these distinctions. The moral, the
aesthetic and the practical are ONE. Pomo does not revel in the
aesthetic, it revels in all three.
> The revenge of the aesthetic can be dated at least to
some
> of the early 20th century artistic modernisms. The example of
the
> Futurists--under their leader and muse, Marinetti--is instruc-
tive. In
> offering this example, of course, I am indebted to Walter Ben-
jamin's
> famous analysis of fascist aesthetics in his essay "Art in the
Age of
> Mechanical Reproduction." Susan Sontag has also written on the
> topic--with reference to Hitler's filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl--
in her
> Under the Sign of Saturn, an essay entitled "Fascinating Fas-
cism."
> Not for nothing did Futurism enjoy special patronage in
Benito
> Mussolini's fascism regime. For although direct collaboration
between
> Futurism and Fascism was limited, Futurism offered an ideology
of use to
> Fascism. Notably, it allowed politics--normally the place
where ethics
> and logic are brought to bear on human reality--to be
aestheticized. In
> celebrating speed, machines, the annihilation of history,
danger and
> energy, the group of Italian artists, writers, and thespians
identifying
> as "Futurists" offered myths, images, slogans and other
ideological props
> for a fledgling Italian Fascist system.
> The Futurists' oft-quoted slogan from Marinetti's 1909
"Foundation
> Manifesto of Futurism"--"We will glorify war--the world's only
> hygiene--militarism, patriotism, the destructive gestures of
freedom
> bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for
women"--could
> have been written by any one of the contemporary New Right.
Neo-conservative
> politicians today have been especially adept at taking
advantage of po-mo
> aestheticization; witness Reagan's mastery of the TV medium,
Newt
> Gingrich's information society utopianism (with debts to fellow
neo-cons
> Daniel Bell and Alvin Toffler).

Whoah! Postmodernism is aesthetic and relies on images. The
fascists relied on images. Pomos are fascists? Uh-uh. This is a
huge stretch. Everyone has always employed images: the com-
munists, the american, the christians, the muslims, the hindus,
the nazis, the lesbians, the jews, the academics, the media, the
law. Notice how an image may pop into your head when I mention
these "movements" : hammer and sickle, apple pie, the cross, the
crescent, that swastika looking symbol, the swastika, the pink
triangle (or more specificall, black), star of david, pen and
book?, the camera, the balance etc. This hardly means they are
all postmodern.
On the contrary, postmodernity is concerned with a
PROLIFERATION of images so that no one image stands out. It is
concerned with the multiplicity of images, a mass of images. It
is anti-fascist in that sense.

(When one talks of the postmodern aesthetic, I can only think of
MTV)
> I find in Cultural Studies a means to engage and decode
the
> aestheticization of experience, and a way to talk about values
while
> admitting that such discussion has now to take place with
reference to a
> world we know largely in picture form.

The world has ALWAYS been "largely in picture form". With
postmodernity DISCOURSE ITSELF is "largely in picture form."
Cultural studies is concerned, partly, with looking at this pic-
toral DISCOURSE while the rest of Lit Crit remains logocentric
examining the written word (even after Derrida pretty much killed
it).

> But a clinical separation of
> moral, practical and aesthetic reason I find impractical.

Then why do you do it?

-Omar Haneef

alt.postmodern

#2709
From: <PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Sun Feb 12 09:20:27 EST 1995
Organization: City University of New York/University Computer
Center
In article <3hcb5n$n...@larch.cc.swarthmore.edu>,
han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) says:
>david black f (dbl...@mach1.wlu.ca) wrote:
>> The Futurists' oft-quoted slogan from Marinetti's 1909
"Foundation
>> Manifesto of Futurism"--"We will glorify war--the world's only
>> hygiene--militarism, patriotism, the destructive gestures of
freedom
>> bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for
women"--could
>> have been written by any one of the contemporary New Right.
[...]
>>

The futurists glorified war because they thought it would gener-
ate class struggle which would lead to revolution. (see Perloff's
The Futurist Moment.) Perhaps their mistake was being naive
enough to assume they could somehow use the fascists to their own
ends... but then again, who could have anticipated the
holocaust....? Especially if you were a futurist with positivist
leanings and associated technical progress with civilized behav-
ior?
I think it is the luxury of your position, looking backwards
at the futurists through the holocaust, that enables you to
accuse them of supporting crimes they didn't even believe were
possible. There were many circumstances in which the Futurists
DIRECTLY confronted fascist policy. See Robert Motherwell's
anthology Dada. An excerpt from the diary of Mohol-Nagy's wife
(whose name I can't remember) describes a Nazi dinner party in
which Manaretti made a mockery of the occasion by reading
phonetic poetry and tipping the contents of the entire banquet
table onto the laps of the Nazi brass... including Goering him-
self.
I'm not sure what this anecdote really demonstrates besides
an equally valid reading of Futurism as a form of proto-
deconstruction perhaps. I would avoid statements such as
futurism=fascism. Everything the Nazi's touched didn't turn into
fascism... that is giving them far too much credit.

> On the contrary, postmodernity is concerned with a
PROLIFERATION of
>images so that no one image stands out. It is concerned with the
>multiplicity of images, a mass of images. It is anti-fascist in
that sense.
>

On the other hand, Adorno describes fascism (In Freudian Theory
and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda) as relying on the
proliferation of images. It is the tactic of fascism to repeat an
image endlessly and everywhere in order to generate an atmosphere
which will not only make it seem true, but restrict the range of
possible readings.

>(When one talks of the postmodern aesthetic, I can only think of
>MTV)

MTV, it might be added, is radically different than fascism
because it depends on the ability to posture as anti-
establishment. MTV is more concerned with encapsulating rebel-
lion. It is liberal. Fascist propaganda overtly rationalized mass
movements as normative...which means different things if you
really think about it.

End of article 2709

#2716
From: g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Date: Sun Feb 12 18:51:17 EST 1995
Organization: La Brume Philosophique

<PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>:
| ...
| On the other hand, Adorno describes fascism (In Freudian Theory
and the
| Pattern of Fascist Propaganda) as relying on the proliferation
of images.
| It is the tactic of fascism to repeat an image endlessly and
everywhere
| in order to generate an atmosphere which will not only make it
seem true,
| but restrict the range of possible readings.
| ...

I think this is a tactic of all forms of totalitarianism,
including, of course, our own, as a glance at a newsstand or
the supermarket shelves will tell you. The industrialism of
Authority, I suppose. What i[s] the cyberneticization of
Authority?

-- >< Gordon Fitch >< g...@panix.com ><
End of article 2716 (of 2819) -- what next? [npq] alt.postmodern

#2718
From: Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Sun Feb 12 23:59:06 EST 1995
Organization: Brown University Dept. of English
In article <3hm6tl$2...@panix.com>, g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
wrote:

> <PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>:
> | ...
> | On the other hand, Adorno describes fascism (In Freudian
Theory and the
> | Pattern of Fascist Propaganda) as relying on the prolifera-
tion of images.
> | It is the tactic of fascism to repeat an image endlessly and
everywhere
> | in order to generate an atmosphere which will not only make
it seem true,
> | but restrict the range of possible readings.
> | ...
>
> I think this is a tactic of all forms of totalitarianism,
> including, of course, our own, as a glance at a newsstand or
> the supermarket shelves will tell you. The industrialism of
> Authority, I suppose. What it the cyberneticization of
> Authority?

For those of us not up on our Adorno (although, to admit that at
Brown is dangerous. Don't tell anyone...), could you guys expand
on this a bit. I would assume that the proliferation of images
would expand, rather than restrict, the range of possible read-
ings, since each image would be disseminated through more dis-
parate interpretive contexts...
--
Andy Perry
Andrew...@Brown.edu
st00...@Brownvm.bitnet

#2725
From: g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Mon Feb 13 07:10:03 EST 1995
Organization: La Brume Philosophique

<PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>:
| > | ...
| > | On the other hand, Adorno describes fascism (In Freudian
Theory and the
| > | Pattern of Fascist Propaganda) as relying on the prolifera-
tion of images.
| > | It is the tactic of fascism to repeat an image endlessly
and everywhere
| > | in order to generate an atmosphere which will not only make
it seem true,
| > | but restrict the range of possible readings.
| > | ...

g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) wrote:
| > I think this is a tactic of all forms of totalitarianism,
| > including, of course, our own, as a glance at a newsstand or
| > the supermarket shelves will tell you. The industrialism of
| > Authority, I suppose. What it the cyberneticization of
| > Authority?

Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry):
| For those of us not up on our Adorno (although, to admit that
at Brown is
| dangerous. Don't tell anyone...), could you guys expand on
this a bit. I
| would assume that the proliferation of images would expand,
rather than
| restrict, the range of possible readings, since each image
would be
| disseminated through more disparate interpretive contexts...

I don't think the disseminators of the images see them that
way. About a year ago, I went to see an exhibition mounted
by Komar and Melamid which included a pyramid upon and
around which stood some seven hundred or so busts of Lenin.
The effect, which one might have thought would be comical,
was remarkably asphyxiating. This installation condensed, I
think, the desired effect of the proliferation of images,
one of power, suppression, and inevitability. However, I
don't know how they worked in real life, not having been a
Soviet Citizen in the time from whence these busts came.
Those I have met who were, seem unsuppressed; so my guess is
that the worshippers of the multiplied image put more faith
in it than it deserved.
--
>< Gordon Fitch >< g...@panix.com ><

#2741
From: <PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
[1] Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Tue Feb 14 08:37:24 EST 1995
Organization: City University of New
+ York/University Computer Center

g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) says:
>
><PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>:
>| > | ...
>| > | On the other hand, Adorno describes fascism (In Freudian
Theory and the
>| > | Pattern of Fascist Propaganda) as relying on the
proliferation of images.
>| > | It is the tactic of fascism to repeat an image endlessly
and everywhere
>| > | in order to generate an atmosphere which will not only
make it seem true,
>| > | but restrict the range of possible readings.
>| > | ...
>
>g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) wrote:
>| > I think this is a tactic of all forms of totalitarianism,
>| > including, of course, our own, as a glance at a newsstand or
>| > the supermarket shelves will tell you. The industrialism of
>| > Authority, I suppose. What it the cyberneticization of
>| > Authority?
>

In terms of aesthetic, I imagine it is much "faster" than facsist
propaganda. Jameson, in Late Capitalism, says something about how
the postmodern aesthetic can only be flawed by an interuption of
its ceaseless transformations... this makes me think of a liq-
uid... perhaps able to flow around everything. Fascist
propaganda, which I've seen, was rarely aqueous however.

>Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry):
>| For those of us not up on our Adorno (although, to admit that
at Brown is
>| dangerous. Don't tell anyone...), could you guys expand on
this a bit. I
>| would assume that the proliferation of images would expand,
rather than
>| restrict, the range of possible readings, since each image
would be
>| disseminated through more disparate interpretive contexts...
>

The spewing of propaganda excites and directs... and generates a
sort of backdrop for the leader which not only reinforces
validity, but encourages individualism and narcissism through
identification, which, in turn, limits interpretation. The group,
then, becomes a fragmented collection of little dictators
undermining any kind of interaction which might lead to critical
thinking. The presence of the dictator is a bit like the author
function for all propaganda as well as an author/model for ones
own behavior...which, of course, comes into play when interpret-
ing the propaganda. Advertising functions in a similar way by
making commodities for "you alone" and by appealing to standards
of normalcy... but it is not quite as centralized... I don't
think.

#2662
From: Mark.W...@launchpad.unc.edu (Mark Weinles)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Thu Feb 09 05:24:22 EST 1995
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin
Board Service
Originator: launch@lambada

In article <D3n8y...@info.uucp> dbl...@mach1.wlu.ca (david
black f) writes:

"An unfortunate condition of contemporary culture is the
general aestheticization of experience--where images and
aesthetic criteria for interpreting those images come to dominate
public life. This phenomenon has a history. [...] The aesthetic
has become the dominant element in contemporary culture, and the
difficult business of making value choices reduced to who or what
looks good. [...]"

Much as I admire Benjamin, I find his suggestion that
fascism is "the aestheticization of politics" to be one of the
least illuminating ideas that he ever set down. It may offer a
handy way to analyze Futurism, but I'd like to know why you
believe that it has a larger value, or, to put it another way,
why you consider that "the aesthetizing of experience" is neces-
sarily a misfortune. What about the other possibility that
"existence and the world are justified _only_ as an aesthetic
phenomenon"? (Emphasis mine.) And what do you think of the
criticism that your position derives from an animosity to
_style_?

-- Mark Weinles

#2703
From: nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
[1] Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Sat Feb 11 18:38:40 EST 1995
Organization: Intelligence Network Online,Inc.

Cris here. :)

[In response to David Black's post on the aestheticization of
politics and Futurism (essentially bemoaning the rise of style
over substance), Mark Weinless wrote:]

: Much as I admire Benjamin, I find his suggestion that
fascism
: is "the aestheticization of politics" to be one of the least
illuminat-
: ing ideas that he ever set down. It may offer a handy way to
analyze
: Futurism, but I'd like to know why you believe that it has a
larger
: value, or, to put it another way, why you consider that "the
aesthetiz-
: ing of experience" is necessarily a misfortune. What about the
other
: possibility that "existence and the world are justified _only_
as an
: aesthetic phenomenon"? (Emphasis mine.) And what do you think
of the
: criticism that your position derives from an animosity to
_style_?

Mark, I don't know what David will have to say to your assertion
that "existence and the world are justified _only_ as an
aesthetic phenomenon," but I concur wholeheartedly. I even end
up arguing that we've constructed the "laws of science" the way
we have more because of *us* and our need for order, rather than
because of anything "writ large on the cosmos." The Universe, if
it can be said to exist as an "it," is a canvas upon which we
paint our experience.

Just an opinion, worth what you paid for it. :)

Cris
End of article 2703 (of 2819) -- what next? [npq] alt.postmodern

#2712 (10 + 137 more)
From: Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Sun Feb 12 13:43:22 EST 1995
Organization: Brown University Dept. of English

In article <3hjhq0$l...@xcalibur.IntNet.net>,
nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS
Brown) wrote:

> Cris here. :)
>
> [In response to David Black's post on the aestheticization of
> politics and Futurism (essentially bemoaning the rise of style
> over substance), Mark Weinless wrote:]
>
> : Much as I admire Benjamin, I find his suggestion that
fascism
> : is "the aestheticization of politics" to be one of the least
illuminat-
> : ing ideas that he ever set down. It may offer a handy way to
analyze
> : Futurism, but I'd like to know why you believe that it has a
larger
> : value, or, to put it another way, why you consider that "the
aesthetiz-
> : ing of experience" is necessarily a misfortune. What about
the other
> : possibility that "existence and the world are justified
_only_ as an
> : aesthetic phenomenon"? (Emphasis mine.) And what do you
think of the
> : criticism that your position derives from an animosity to
_style_?
> Mark, I don't know what David will have to say to your asser-
tion
> that "existence and the world are justified _only_ as an
aesthetic
> phenomenon," but I concur wholeheartedly. I even end up argu-
ing
> that we've constructed the "laws of science" the way we have
more
> because of *us* and our need for order, rather than because of
> anything "writ large on the cosmos." The Universe, if it can
be
> said to exist as an "it," is a canvas upon which we paint our
> experience.

Note, however, that order does not equal beauty. There are many
theories of perception, truth, etc. which argue that the "laws of
science" are constructed based upon human needs for order or
prediction, which have nothing to do with aesthetics. Of course,
since I've already shown my Nietzschean colors around here on
numerous occasions, you may have gathered that I too have an
occasional sympathy for the aestheticization of life...

Andy Perry
Andrew...@Brown.edu
st00...@Brownvm.bitnet

From: nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Mon Feb 13 08:29:21 EST 1995
Organization: Intelligence Network Online, Inc.

Cris here. :)

[I wrote to Mark Weinles:]
: > Mark, I don't know what David will have to say to your asser-
tion
: > that "existence and the world are justified _only_ as an
aesthetic
: > phenomenon," but I concur wholeheartedly. I even end up
arguing
: > that we've constructed the "laws of science" the way we have
more
: > because of *us* and our need for order, rather than because
of
: > anything "writ large on the cosmos." The Universe, if it can
be
: > said to exist as an "it," is a canvas upon which we paint our
: > experience.

[Andy Perry replies:]
: Note, however, that order does not equal beauty. There are
many theories
: of perception, truth, etc. which argue that the "laws of
science" are
: constructed based upon human needs for order or prediction,
which have
: nothing to do with aesthetics. Of course, since I've already
shown my
: Nietzschean colors around here on numerous occasions, you may
have
: gathered that I too have an occasional sympathy for the
aestheticization
: of life...

I would agree that "order does not equal beauty," if by that
you mean that the two are not equivalent terms. They're not,
by any means. I think "beauty" is a superset, and "order"
one of its subsets. That is to say, I think we find beauty
in order, but we can also find beauty in not-order.

When we pass a carefully manicured lawn, freshly mowed and
edged, many are likely to say "What a beautiful lawn!" And
they're using the word "beautiful" correctly; for many see
that kind of order as beauty. (C.f.: an unkempt lawn with
shin-high grass, garbage lying around and a rusty old car
up on cinderblocks.)

Yet, most of us would find a perfectly conical mountain
"unnatural" and "ugly" compared to the rugged peaks of the
Rockies, and urban planners learned decades ago that
meandering streets have more "charm" than perfect grid-
work designs. Curiously, the field of fractal geometry
has shown that these seeming non-orders have an order of
their own, but you have to leave integer-dimensionality
to see that order. Fractal-generated music seems to be
aesthetically pleasing to many listeners; it's modelled
in 1.5 dimensions and if given a bit *more* order in terms
of repeating passages and movements, it's difficult to
distinguish from human-generated music. (See Peitgen &
Saupe, Eds., _The Science of Fractal Images_, (1988)
at 42-44.)

We rarely find *utter* randomness to be "beautiful."

Cris

From: mcm...@isocrates.win.net (michael calvin mcgee)
Date: Tue Feb 14 02:24:11 EST 1995

Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture

In article <3hjhq0$l...@xcalibur.IntNet.net>, NS Brown
(nsb...@news.IntNet.net) writes:

>[In response to David Black's post on the aestheticization of
>politics and Futurism (essentially bemoaning the rise of style
>over substance), Mark Weinless wrote:]
>
>: Much as I admire Benjamin, I find his suggestion that
fascism
>: is "the aestheticization of politics" to be one of the least
illuminat-
>: ing ideas that he ever set down. It may offer a handy way to
analyze
>: Futurism, but I'd like to know why you believe that it has a
larger
>: value, or, to put it another way, why you consider that "the
aesthetiz-
>: ing of experience" is necessarily a misfortune. What about
the other
>: possibility that "existence and the world are justified _only_
as an
>: aesthetic phenomenon"? (Emphasis mine.) And what do you
think of the
>: criticism that your position derives from an animosity to
_style_?
>
>Mark, I don't know what David will have to say to your assertion
>that "existence and the world are justified _only_ as an
aesthetic
>phenomenon," but I concur wholeheartedly.

Lest we forget, gentlemen, the association of fascism with this
thread of argument is not simply flaming. Mussolini especially,
and also Hitler, theorized "cultural politics" as the way both
to excite and to control the "experience of the masses." Insofar
as fascism is characterized by +any+ ideological uniformity, it
would be the firm commitment that politics (and even science) had
to be "aestheticized." When "existence and the world" are argued
for solely on a construction that they are "aesthetic phenomena,"
nothing is left to give the "artist" pause. Not only can this be
dangerous politically, but it is also a questionable stance from
an aesthetic viewpoint, because +negation is a necessary posture+
for all artists. "Pure creativity" cannot be "art," for it has
no means to reject its "false starts." Without such terms as
"grace," "eloquence," "style," etc. +you can't have an
aesthetic,+ and without an aesthetic, you have no justification
for your experientialism.

michael
End of article 2736 (of 2819) -- what next? [npq] alt.postmodern

#2776
From: nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Wed Feb 15 20:51:52 EST 1995
Organization: Intelligence Network Online, Inc.
Cris here. :)

[I wrote:]
: >Mark, I don't know what David will have to say to your asser-
tion
: >that "existence and the world are justified _only_ as an
aesthetic
: >phenomenon," but I concur wholeheartedly.

[Michael Calvin McGee replies:]
: Lest we forget, gentlemen, the association of fascism with this
: thread of argument is not simply flaming. Mussolini espe-
cially,
: and also Hitler, theorized "cultural politics" as the way both
: to excite and to control the "experience of the masses."
Insofar
: as fascism is characterized by +any+ ideological uniformity, it
: would be the firm commitment that politics (and even science)
had
: to be "aestheticized." When "existence and the world" are
argued
: for solely on a construction that they are "aesthetic
phenomena,"
: nothing is left to give the "artist" pause.

Viewing life as an aesthetic (experiential) phenomena is not
at the root of facism. Indeed, experientialism notes that we
each construct our *own* experiences, and that there is no
Absolute Truth by which we can determine whose experiences are
true or false. This would *not* fit well in a facist state,
because they *do* believe there is Absolute Truth ... and
they've found it!

Facism is a distinctly *modern* political scheme. It takes the
notion of a mechanistic universe and applies it to the body
politic. It claims to have Absolute Truth, and demands that
every aspect of society be subservient to and directed toward
that Absolute Truth. Art becomes propaganda (rhetoric), yet
another cog in the wheels of politics. Minorities and unde-
sirables are systematically "Othered" to provide a scapegoat
for the ills that remain.

Notions of certainty are crucial to the formation of facism.
Notions of certainty are notably lacking in the idea that we
construct our own experiences.
--MORE--(97%)

: Not only can this be
: dangerous politically, but it is also a questionable stance
from
: an aesthetic viewpoint, because +negation is a necessary pos-
ture+
: for all artists. "Pure creativity" cannot be "art," for it has
: no means to reject its "false starts." Without such terms as
: "grace," "eloquence," "style," etc. +you can't have an
aesthetic,+
: and without an aesthetic, you have no justification for your
: experientialism.

Interesting statement, though it has little to do with exper-
ientialism. That is, you're arguing against positions that
I don't hold ... swinging at straw men of your own creation.

Cris

#2691
From: nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
[1] Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Fri Feb 10 22:12:08 EST 1995
Organization: Intelligence Network Online, Inc.

Cris here. :)

[David Black wrote:]
: [...]
Neo-conservative
: politicians today have been especially adept at taking
advantage of po-mo
: aestheticization; witness Reagan's mastery of the TV medium,
Newt
: Gingrich's information society utopianism (with debts to fellow
neo-cons
: Daniel Bell and Alvin Toffler).

Sloganeering and image-over-substance are hardly new phenomena.
They are the traditional tools of political minorities, who are
in the fortunate position of being able to make a lot of noise
without having to *do* anything. Now that the rad-cons are at
the helm, they'll be backing down from their tall talk in short
order. It's already happening, as clause after clause of the
Contract With (On!) America is being quietly shuffled off to the
shredder.

It's easy to quote Shakespeare's "Power corrupts; absolute power
corrupts absolutely" when one is one step removed from the
throne. Once one takes the throne, the truth of the statement
becomes apparent (at least to everyone else).

Just an opinion, worth what you paid for it. :)

Cris

******
##END## ##OF## ##DIGEST##
******
{6.1}
FINAL WORD

That concludes this FAQ file. I hope it's been useful to you.
Send comments, complaints, additions, suggestions, recommendations, ideas
to "vpi...@falstaff.indiana.edu". 9/30/95

[Puss in Boots]

>Van Piercy

>English Dept.
>Indiana University
>An alt.postmodern newsgroup FAQ file
>Version 1.01, Sept. 1995.
>Last Revised Oct. 4, 1995.

>{1.0}
>Permission to copy and share this file without monetary profit is granted
>provided this statement and the author's name (as an acknowledgement)
>appears in the file.

[Author was Van Piercy -- vpi...@falstaff.indiana.edu. -- M.]

[Jaakko Hucklebee]

Puss in Boots wrote:
>
> {6.0}
> ******
> A DIGEST OF AN EXCHANGE ON AN ALT.POSTMODERN THREAD IN FEBRUARY OF 1995

..._ons of certain

Postmodern means "with": Modern means "against."(note the quotation
marks)
Hucklebee