modernism and poststructuralism
Aidan Tynan
classified as postmodern. Postmodernism has been a non-european,
predominantly American (north and south) phenomenon. Initially, the
nodal points where south America (where the term originated), and
Canada (President of the Conseil des Universities of the government of
Quebec commisioned Lyotard's Postmodern Condition, the first book to
appear with the term in its title). The most important theorist of
postmodernism today is arguably Fredric Jameson. So why are thinkers
like Derrida, Barthes and Foucault implicated? Derrida's
poststructuralism is a very modernist pan-textualism, while most of
Foucault's most important ideas (panopticism, archeaology,
pouvior/savior) are related to the enlightenment and modernity. The
only thinker identified as poststructuralist who could also be called
postmodern is Deleuze, and even that is problematical since his main
philosophical touchstone is Nietzsche, who theorised modernism more
extensively than anyone else.
-Aidan
James Whitehead
"Aidan Tynan" <aty...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b9d7466.04092...@posting.google.com...
The term post-modernism was around during 1920s i thought, and i think
Derrida at times has distanced himself from the term, but i would suggest
that such a distancing is in part a rejection of the idea of
classification - or certain ideas within and around classification. From my
own perspective i see post-modernism as the acceptance of certain
disturbances which modernity sort to deal with. When i say acceptance i mean
more a change in attitude.... play ... use ...
Kater Moggin
> I've read in various places that poststructuralism has been wrongly
> classified as postmodern. Postmodernism has been a non-european,
> predominantly American (north and south) phenomenon. Initially, the
> nodal points where south America (where the term originated)
You're probably thinking about Federico de Onis -- but the
term "post-modernism" goes back at least to one Rudoplph
Pannwitz, who used it in 1917 in talking about Nietzsche's idea
of nihilism.
Pannwitz may have been preceded by a British painter named
John Watkins Chapman.
The word also turns up early in Toynbee, who was referring
to the rise of mass society after WWI, and Bernard Iddings
Bell, concerning the failure of secular modernism and prospects
for religious renewal. Both 1939.
> Canada (President of the Conseil des Universities of the government of
> Quebec commisioned Lyotard's Postmodern Condition, the first book to
> appear with the term in its title).
Nope, Ihab Hassan's _The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward
a Postmodern Literature_ was published before Lyotard's
_Postmodern Condition_: 1971 for Hassan vs. 1979 for Lyotard's
book.
-- Moggin
Telicalbook
>pouvior/savior) are related to the enlightenment and modernity.
Foucault is more of a Nihilist which somewhat associates
him with Post-modernism. He comes to espouse that everything
is associated with the will to power, which isn't a very Enlightenment-
centered viewpoint. I wonder if one can trace back the idea of the
will to power in Enlightenment texts and see how it was handled then.
--
Robert Pearson
http://www.rspearson.com/
ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net
Ted Lechman
> Foucault is more of a Nihilist which somewhat associates
> him with Post-modernism. He comes to espouse that everything
> is associated with the will to power, which isn't a very Enlightenment-
> centered viewpoint. I wonder if one can trace back the idea of the
> will to power in Enlightenment texts and see how it was handled then.
"Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send
hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs
and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the
day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first
fell out with one another....."
Ted
Kater Moggin
> > Foucault is more of a Nihilist which somewhat associates
> > him with Post-modernism. He comes to espouse that everything
> > is associated with the will to power, which isn't a very Enlightenment-
> > centered viewpoint. I wonder if one can trace back the idea of the
> > will to power in Enlightenment texts and see how it was handled then.
eastw...@yahoo.com (Ted Lechman):
> "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
> countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send
> hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs
> and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the
> day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first
> fell out with one another....."
Remember that power in Foucault and Nietzsche is more than
bonking your neighbor on the head, just as sex in Freud
extends far past boinking your neighbor's wife or husband. I'd
call it metaphysical (no offense), as much to do with "the
counsels of Jove" as "the anger of Achilles" that fulfills them.
-- Moggin
G*rd*n
> > him with Post-modernism. He comes to espouse that everything
> > is associated with the will to power, which isn't a very Enlightenment-
> > centered viewpoint. I wonder if one can trace back the idea of the
> > will to power in Enlightenment texts and see how it was handled then.
eastw...@yahoo.com (Ted Lechman):
> "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
> countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send
> hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs
> and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the
> day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first
> fell out with one another....."
What god was it then set them together in bitter collision?
Zeus' son and Leto's, Apollo, who in anger at the king
drove the foul pestilence along the host, and the people perished,
since Atreus' son had dishonored Chryses, priest of Apollo.
Lorenzo the Magnificent
"G*rd*n" <g...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:cjjos5$q38$1...@panix1.panix.com...
Now Chryses had come to the
ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a
great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo
wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but
most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.
"Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods
who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach
your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for
her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove."
On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for
respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not
so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away.
"Old man," said he, "let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor
yet coming hereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall
profit you nothing. I will not free her. She shall grow old in my
house at Argos far from her own home, busying herself with her loom
and visiting my couch; so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the
worse for you."
The old man feared him and obeyed. Not a word he spoke, but went
by the shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo
whom lovely Leto had borne. "Hear me," he cried, "O god of the
silver bow, that protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest Tenedos
with thy might, hear me oh thou of Sminthe. If I have ever decked your
temple with garlands, or burned your thigh-bones in fat of bulls or
goats, grant my prayer, and let your arrows avenge these my tears upon
the Danaans."
Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came down
furious from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver
upon his shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the rage
that trembled within him. He sat himself down away from the ships with
a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot
his arrow in the midst of them. First he smote their mules and their
hounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at the people themselves,
and all day long the pyres of the dead were burning.
Lorenzo the Magnificent
"Kater Moggin" <kimm...@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:kimmerian-D2704...@news.verizon.net...
I don't necessarily disagree. Sometime a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes
it's not - ask Monica Lowinsky.
The point, as I understand it is as follows:
1. If Philosophy is footnotes to Plato, then Homer is Platos text book.
2. I lump the Enlightenment and the Renaissance together: that which the
Renaissance discovered, the Enlightenment implemented - for example, the
discovery of the Americas and the Rights of Man/ Declaration of
Independance.
The glory of the Humanists of the Renaissance (as well as the Philosophs of
the Enlightenment) were the Classics - that is the rediscovery of Greek and
Roman literature, history, etc after the thousand year submersion of the
classics by Christian dogma and scholasticism. This makes "The Iliad" as
much an Enlightenment Text as a Greek one. It deals with the "the will to
power" and the associated source of "ethics".
3. The gods in Homer represent mans Fate as well as define the natural order
of things. The will to power MUST go against both and consequences result.
4. Nietz. was obsessed with the Iliad. His Zarathustra paraphrases many
lines out of the Iliad. I belive that Nietzche is considered a high
modernist, particularly by the pomos.
5. Life if full of real consequences, both in the small (our personal lives)
as well as in the large - the fate of nations, religions, clash of
cilviliations, etc. Theres no point to ignore this.
Similarly many people don't like the gore in the Iliad. They prefer their
heros to die in their beds while sleeping rather then while at their lifes
works struggles . They also prefer their greek sculpure made of pure white
marble without the intense surface painitings that was actually the real
look of those painitings we are all familiar with. Homer's Iliad preserves
that color.
Aidan Tynan
Yes, but do you have an opinion on any of it?
-Aidan
Kater Moggin
> Yes, but do you have an opinion on any of it?
Sure. It has a good beat and you can dance to it. I give
it a 93.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
Kater Moggin
> You are asking an opinion from a search engine?
Aiden was talking about post-modernism. I'm explaining to
him that its history differs in certain ways from the
description he gave. And now you're offering one of your usual
contributions.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
topic - so you need to sort that out - for another - in your case recently i
began not with a question but by pointing out where you appeared to have
made a mistake. As for explaining - you have done no such thing - but rather
like a search engine just list sources without any explanation of your own -
hence my little joke. Elsewhere to cite dictionary entries explains
nothing, or can anyone seriously suppose the dictionary could be used as
such, it only takes a little thought about how dictionaries are compiled to
figure this out, someone - somewhere needs to be creative- do some work -
like explain - e.g. the basis of an ethical injunction... torturing is
wrong? why? - lets see if you will explain this? can explain?
Kater Moggin
> No its not usual -
Yes, it's just the usual. I pointed out a couple or three
things about the history of post-modernism. You responded
with your standard nattering. Same old, same old. It's likely
to happen again.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
A list is not a history- and certainly your list was other than trivially
amusing not much to do with the actuality of the history of post-modernity.
Rather than a list of who used the term first, it represents certain
movements, theories in the arts.... which have little or nothing to do with
post-impressionism but specifically relate in art to a reaction, collapse in
theory of high modernism and conceptual art. It presents a site of
difficulty and trivialization, maybe such as listing rather than theory -
something facilitated by the internet, and presenting problems for anyone
looking for structure. As such your methodology is typically post-modern -
even to the alternative religious spin., acceptance of science fiction in
theory, and i'm not criticising this at all.... i think its a kind of
reaction to the structures of modernity, if its consious of this or not
would be interesting to know.
Kater Moggin
> A list is not a history-
How nice that you would think so. Anyway, I mentioned two
or three things about the history of post-modernism, in
response to Aiden's description. You've contributed your usual
nattering.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
> James Whitehead <ja...@jliatt.xsnet.co.uk>:
>
> > A list is not a history-
>
> How nice that you would think so. Anyway, I mentioned two
> or three things about the history of post-modernism,
no - you did a google on post-modernism and posted what you found, which was
to do with the history of the words usage - not its concept.
Kater Moggin
> no -
Oh, yes: definitely. Aidan said that the term originated
in South America (I'd guess he was referring to Federico de
Onis), adding that Lyotard's _The Postmodern Condition_ was the
first book with the word in its title. But Hassan's _The
Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature_ dates
back nearly a decade before Lyotard's book, and Onis was
preceded by one Rudolph Pannwitz, referring to Nietzsche's idea
of nihilism.
The word also turns up early (1939) in Toynbee, discussing
the rise of mass society after WWI, and in Bernard Iddings
Bell, concerning the failure of secular modernism and prospects
for religious renewal.
Now and then somebody will mention a British painter named
John Watkins Chapman who may have used the term during the
19th century. Possible, of course, but I've never seen a quote.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
question "What is Post Modernism". It is composed of three parts,
the assembly, a bibliography, and a conversation. An innocent might
well ask upon reading it, "What the fuck is this?".)
-- Moggin
From: Puss in Boots (mog...@mindspring.com)
Subject: An alt.pomo FAQ (part 1)
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.postmodern
Date: 1998/06/05
Summary: FAQ for alt.postmodern
{1.0}
Permission to copy and share this file without monetary profit is
granted provided this statement and the author's name appear 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.
Van Piercy
English Dept., Indiana University
Copyr. 1996. An alt.postmodern FAQ file, Version 1.05
Last Revised April 1996.
{1.01}
LATEST VERSION CHANGES
In versions 1.01 through 1.05 most of the changes are cosmetic. More
typos have been corrected, elements of format have been made more
consistent, the digest streamlined and supplemented, and a few additions
made to the bibliography sections.
{1.02}
FUTURE INTENDED CHANGES
Some suggestions for changes to this FAQ include: expanding the digest
section to include different threads and voices on the group; a resource
guide for items on the internet that discuss the postmodern; and more
bibliographic sections and short introductory essays on topics closely
associated with ideas about the postmodern, e.g., semiotics,
architecture, fiction, fine arts, etc.
My gratitude to everyone who has been in e-mail contact with me
discussing this FAQ, its plusses and minuses. If you'd like to author a
section in this FAQ or have ideas about it contact VPI...@INDIANA.EDU.
WHAT THIS FILE CONTAINS:
*****
1.0 Statement of limited copyright and notice of fair use.
1.01 Latest version changes.
1.02 Future intended changes to this FAQ.
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 various answers.
It is not exhaustive.
A number of users cruising this newsgroup before 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 postmodernism?" "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 knowledge 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 examination 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 bibliographic
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 Interpretation_ (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 condition
of modernity is often spoken of as the rapid pace and texture of life
in a society experienced as the result of the industrial 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 surprisingly
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 controversy, 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 Disadvantage
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
Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari_
(MIT Press, 1992). By no means is this group of suggested readings
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, gender 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. Different
disciplines have participated in the post-modernist movement 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 sometimes 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 multinational and technological identity.
"Its all-embracing nature thus makes post-modernism as relevant 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." (THE PRENTICE HALL GUIDE TO ENGLISH LITERATURE, Ed.
Marion Wynne-Davies. First Prentice Hall edition, copyright 1990 by
Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd. 812-13)
(B) "Postmodernism and postmodernity[,] a cultural and ideological
configuration variously defined, with different aspects of the general
phenomenon emphasized by different theorists, postmodernity 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 representation 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.' Capturing the new orientation characteristic of
postmodernism, compared 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 carries this
movement a stage further. Another feature of postmodernism 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). According 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 gestures 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 representation 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 perspective, intertextuality to referentiality,
`bits-as-bits' to unified totalities. It delights in excess, play,
carnival, asymmetry, 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 maleness 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)
Kater Moggin
> What is this?
That's James in his usual confusion. He's pasted in Van's
old alt.pomo FAQ, or some part of the thing, along with my
previous post and a fragment of Richard's commentary on the FAQ
I put together way back when.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
you put them together - and like your previous post - dancing - have been
made to delete them all...
Kater Moggin
> > > What is this?
Kater Moggin <kimm...@fastmail.fm>:
> > That's James in his usual confusion. He's pasted in Van's
> > old alt.pomo FAQ, or some part of the thing, along with my
> > previous post and a fragment of Richard's commentary on the FAQ
> > I put together way back when.
James:
> you put them together
Um, no. You quoted Van's FAQ, my post, and a small piece
of Richard's commentary on the FAQ I assembled. Seems you
bewildered yourself in the process, since you asked what you'd
done. I was nice enough to tell you.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
> James Whitehead <ja...@jliatt.xsnet.co.uk>:
>
> > > > What is this?
>
> Kater Moggin <kimm...@fastmail.fm>:
>
> > > That's James in his usual confusion. He's pasted in Van's
> > > old alt.pomo FAQ, or some part of the thing, along with my
> > > previous post and a fragment of Richard's commentary on the FAQ
> > > I put together way back when.
>
> James:
>
> > you put them together
>
> Um, no.
No? - you mean when you said above " I put together " you didnt? - leave
this point scoring ..
"Um" - very interesting such a pause - very unlike you - a sign of a pause -
double take - doubt... even..
- this is good - very good.... but why should i think this?
You quoted Van's FAQ, my post, and a small piece
> of Richard's commentary on the FAQ I assembled. Seems you
> bewildered yourself in the process, since you asked what you'd
> done. I was nice enough to tell you.
>
> -- Moggin
but you didn't assemble it - or did you - not agreeing with what you
assembled? - whoa - a creator who fucks up? Yahweh ... Um is good - ecce
homo....
Kater Moggin
> > You quoted Van's FAQ, my post, and a small piece
> > of Richard's commentary on the FAQ I assembled. Seems you
> > bewildered yourself in the process, since you asked what you'd
> > done. I was nice enough to tell you.
James Whitehead <ja...@jliatt.xsnet.co.uk>:
> but
But nothing. You were confused by your own cut-and-paste
job. I explained it to you.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
How can nothing explain anything, especially as i wasn't asking for an
explanation in the first place? As you say i never asked a question but
quoted Van's FAQ, my post, and a small piece > > > of Richard's commentary
on the FAQ I assembled. If you are referring to the title - that again is
not my question. By the way your answer was wrong - i quoted some of your
latest post on definitions and some of richard's commentary - to a question
i didnt ask - well done!
Kater Moggin
> explanation in the first place? As you say i never asked a question
Yeah, you did. You asked "What is this?" The answer was
very simple: it was your own cut-and-paste job. You had
quoted Van's FAQ, one of my posts, and a fragment of Richard's
commentary on my FAQ. But you confused yourself in the
doing, since you wondered what you'd done. Luckily I was here
to explain it to you.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
> James Whitehead <ja...@jliatt.xsnet.co.uk>:
>
> > explanation in the first place? As you say i never asked a question
>
> Yeah, you did. You asked "What is this?"
No i didnt - that was what Richard asked
The answer was
> very simple: it was your own cut-and-paste job. You had
> quoted Van's FAQ, one of my posts, and a fragment of Richard's
> commentary on my FAQ. But you confused yourself in the
> doing, since you wondered what you'd done. Luckily I was here
> to explain it to you.
>
> -- Moggin
You have explained quite allot- but as you have recourse to forgery your
explanations have other motives i suspect. Though i'm not sure of the source
of your ire, and not particularly bowled over by you abusive language it
does serve to open - or make a point about meaning - what you feel and
language what you write. You maybe wont see this or wont want to see it -
but even i have sufficient ability regarding writing - poor as it is - to
force you into such activity- its the underlying psychology which language
needs to now address, but how can it do so without degenerating into name
calling - as if it would! Can the civilizing logic of language - which in
fact overwhelms the individual - (a power) be avoided without this. can we
move on to use language not as a weapon - either emotively or logically,
legalistically, and is anyone bothered.
The last question is yes - James and Moggin are - though its a strange
pantomime double act....
Kater Moggin
> You have explained quite allot-
In this case a little. You got mixed up while cutting and
pasting from various places. I explained what you'd done.
_Why_ you were doing it we can leave as a matter of speculation
for the interested reader, if there is one.
-- Moggin
James Whitehead
Kater Moggin
> > ... You got mixed up while cutting and
> > pasting from various places. I explained what you'd done.
> > _Why_ you were doing it we can leave as a matter of speculation
> > for the interested reader, if there is one.
James Whitehead <ja...@jliatt.xsnet.co.uk>:
> Then your
Then I'm explaining what you did and leaving the reader to
speculate on your motivations.
-- Moggin
shoggoth
wrote:
>I've read in various places that poststructuralism has been wrongly
>classified as postmodern. Postmodernism has been a non-european,
>predominantly American (north and south) phenomenon. Initially, the
>nodal points where south America (where the term originated), and
>Canada (President of the Conseil des Universities of the government of
>Quebec commisioned Lyotard's Postmodern Condition, the first book to
>appear with the term in its title). The most important theorist of
>postmodernism today is arguably Fredric Jameson. So why are thinkers
>like Derrida, Barthes and Foucault implicated? Derrida's
>poststructuralism is a very modernist pan-textualism, while most of
>Foucault's most important ideas (panopticism, archeaology,
>pouvior/savior) are related to the enlightenment and modernity. The
>only thinker identified as poststructuralist who could also be called
>postmodern is Deleuze, and even that is problematical since his main
>philosophical touchstone is Nietzsche, who theorised modernism more
>extensively than anyone else.
>
>-Aidan
Poststructuralism is a catch-all phrase designed, at the time,
to unify a bunch of writers who are pretty diverse. it's not so
much that Poststructuralism IS something as that it's not
Structuralism. I think some poststructuralism is postmodern but
much of it definitely isn't. Why is Barthes implicated in here?
Surely not as a postmodernist? If so, who says so?
Foucault's notion of panopticism & pouvoir/savoir can be read as
a "critique" of enlightenment. Read Foucault's inaugural lecture
to the College de France (Dec 1970) to get a feel of just how
postmodernist he was at the time. As for Foucault's notion of
power - blame (or credit) that to the bad French translations of
Nietzsche current at the time! Foucault wrote Madness and
Civilization about 1960, way before Jameson.
I'm slightly sympathetic to your interpretation of Derrida as a
not completely willing postmodernist but surely you must agree
that Foucault was?
I'd say that Nietzsche theorized anti-modernism (a from of
postmodernism in my dictionary) rather than modernism - such
that he theorized at all. Most of the time Nietzsche just
repeated himself.
Lyotard was theorizing postmodernism in the 1970's. Pomo is came
to being as a body of thought mid/early-1970's France.
Definitely not an American thing. If you want to contradict that
can you give me your pre-1970's American philosophical
references?
James Whitehead
"shoggoth" <shog...@ryleh.con> wrote in message
news:b4hpq0leneqondjci...@4ax.com...
There seems to be a difference between such terms as post-structuralism and
post-modernism in that the latter is a much more general term - not confined
to certain particular literary methods etc. Post modernity is found in most
of the arts, literary criticism and maybe philosophy, its gained a general
cultural significance, which undermines the more theoretical and theorizing
aspects of attempts here to define it. In the arts it can imply for instance
deliberate shallowness - irony - wit and popularism - to the extent that
high and low art is no longer differentiated- no such move seems to have
been made in theory. the important part played here by American culture was
its lack of formal structures of taste etc. A significant trend in Pop art
and architecture which looks to Las Vegas... as such the term relates i
think more to an epoch - than particular formal structures. I academic terms
the removal of hierarchies - disciplines etc. is perhaps the best example -
Nietzsche for instance has become cattle fodder.