NationStates Jolt Archive

Your thoughts please...

To kick off I dont think it exists but that its a concept for a possible condition of existence which may very well come about as a result of recent trends in western society. In other words we dont yet live in an entirely mediated world but we are getting there. I think we are living in final stage modernism and that certain characteristics such as nostalgia and global inter connectivity have been amplified by it, which entails advancements in technology particularly in the realm of communications. This is why we cannot define our period dialectically.

What exactly is postmodernism? I've heard of Alan Sokal's criticisms of the idea, and the whole deconstruction thing, but I've never really understood what it actually is.

interesting, ill have to read up on that guy. Yes deconstructionist thought does seem to run through postmodernism. bleh, imo its a series of cultural effects brought on by changes in a global intensified economic system. Attempting to get at the essence of it is meaningless. Its only possible to look at it in terms of its effects. So one would be nostalgia craze, another, the breakdown of meta narratives etc. Although the breakdown of meta narratives is incorrect as postmodernism is a meta narrative. Meta narratives have been compromised but not obliterated. This is why I dont think it exists, it can exist, society seems to be going that way but it doesnt exist yet.

I think it has had a devastating effect on English Lit, politics and many other areas. It leads to very fuzzy thinking, and rose up as a direct response to Marxist Materialism. (Yes, its roots go back that far, though it gained in popularity in the post wwii years.)

In PM everything exists in a vacuum, it's very divisive and strikes me as a weird sort of nihilism in that there is no hope of absolute interpretation or even of knowing what it is that needs interpreting (history, facts, etc) and it wouldn't matter anyway.

In English Lit it most often takes the form of deconstructionism and leads to some extremely annoying class discussions and precludes the idea of universality in that every story will be interpreted differently by everyone (almost true) and so you cannot hope for getting a message accross that will be the same to everyone. It obliterates the idea of the Human Condition.

I'm...erm..not a fan.;)

yes that is one aspect of it, nihilism. Some postmodern films like sin city really annoy me, they are all about surface appearance and while they critique the capitalist system in terms of urban decay and social alienation they equally ridicule any attempts at decisive political action. The fact that the film was marketed as the coolest one you have to own confirms that its all about the image, there wasnt much content in it despite its high existential pretensions.

The whole nostalgiasm of postmodern is irritating too. There are so many bands trying to re hash the 80s, bands like the artic monkeys. And in postmodernism music becomes more about image than music, so people begin to like bands for what it says about them as individuals, as a means of representing who they are in a world which increasingly besought by representation/imagism rather than appreciating the music such bands produce, although the bands that tend to be most sucessiveful in these terms are ones that are more about image than music (hence the 80s nostalgia acts, the post punk bands that are so "cool" these days even though imo the music they manufacture is limited and boring). Magazines like the "NME" say "oh yeah this music is really cool, if you want to be cool then you have to like it." Such magazines are comprised of journalist hacks who couldnt make it as musicians and so they want to control bands in making and breaking them through representing them to the public. Any band that transcends a scene or doesnt conform gets lambasted, e.g. queen or radiohead (at least in the early part of their career for not being "brit rock" and being successful in america). Even the Stone Roses despite having actual songwriting talent were more about the image than the music. As soon as they went in a more rock direction and deviated from the what the fans and the journalists wanted them to be in order to re-affirm their collective identities, they were written off. These days their "terrible" second album is being re-evaluated as the scene they were connected with has died away, this scene being one which people appropriated as what it said about them as individuals.

Punk music is often said to be a postmodern music form and Id agree to an extent. It was originally a fashion (how more superficial and imagistic can you get) and the music that came out of that discredited rock as an artistic form. Its nihilism x2. Moreover its populist and so it enables people to assert their identity over the music, which shouldnt be the case, the artist should make music according to their own ambitions and shouldnt be forced to conform to the demands of the people. I remember Lars Ulric giving a reason for making that album everyone hated because they departed from the image ascribed to them: "nobody is going to tell metallica what they should be." I agree with this sentiment entirely. When your making music or any other artistic product you shouldnt have to bow to the will of others. Postmodernism is ultimately responsible for the crap on the radios and what its promoted by conceited magazines like The NME and HotPress. Theres a lyric by Graham Coxen which sums up the supposedely "cool" music tastes of someone who listens to music approved by journalists and self appointed "cool" people- "shes so cool and her records are all boring".

Interesting, to be honest I'd never really thought of music under the influence of PM- though I do believe PM is insidious and so don't know how that one escaped me.

On punk music- well, there are a couple of things going on there- the totally manufactured and marketed aspects (ala Malcolm MacLaren) and the other, more earnest bands and musicians (Joe Strummer and the clash, despite having a major deal). PM's insidiousness lies in its ability to fuzzy the view, so you end up equating one with the other- it erases degrees and differentiations (which might or might not be a word).

The nostalgia can be used to good or ill effect, though I do agree that it has been overdone. Looking at *images* of the past do a good job of obscuring the facts of the past and the direction of the future- good call, too, on the message of hopelessness in Sin City.

(Brazil used nostalgic imagery quite effectively, by contrast, though it, too is very depressing- if you see the director's cut, the debate is open as to the ability of affecting change. But really, Baron Munchausen serves as the ending to what Gilliam designed as a trilogy, and it breaks through the nihilism and offers a ray of hope.)

Tarantino springs to mind as a great perpetrator of pointless nostalgia- he admits his films are "homages" to about a bazillion others he watched while working as his video store- what they really are are hopeless pastiches re-inforcing the nihilistic visions. He has taken the most violent aspects of his favourite films and expanded on them beyond any (even contrived) redeaming message which might have been contained in the originals. It's too bad, really.

Style over substance.

yes that is one aspect of it, nihilism. Some postmodern films like sin city really annoy me, they are all about surface appearance and while they critique the capitalist system in terms of urban decay and social alienation they equally ridicule any attempts at decisive political action. The fact that the film was marketed as the coolest one you have to own confirms that its all about the image, there wasnt much content in it despite its high existential pretensions.

The whole nostalgiasm of postmodern is irritating too. There are so many bands trying to re hash the 80s, bands like the artic monkeys. And in postmodernism music becomes more about image than music, so people begin to like bands for what it says about them as individuals, as a means of representing who they are in a world which increasingly besought by representation/imagism rather than appreciating the music such bands produce, although the bands that tend to be most sucessiveful in these terms are ones that are more about image than music (hence the 80s nostalgia acts, the post punk bands that are so "cool" these days even though imo the music they manufacture is limited and boring). Magazines like the "NME" say "oh yeah this music is really cool, if you want to be cool then you have to like it." Such magazines are comprised of journalist hacks who couldnt make it as musicians and so they want to control bands in making and breaking them through representing them to the public. Any band that transcends a scene or doesnt conform gets lambasted, e.g. queen or radiohead (at least in the early part of their career for not being "brit rock" and being successful in america). Even the Stone Roses despite having actual songwriting talent were more about the image than the music. As soon as they went in a more rock direction and deviated from the what the fans and the journalists wanted them to be in order to re-affirm their collective identities, they were written off. These days their "terrible" second album is being re-evaluated as the scene they were connected with has died away, this scene being one which people appropriated as what it said about them as individuals.

Punk music is often said to be a postmodern music form and Id agree to an extent. It was originally a fashion (how more superficial and imagistic can you get) and the music that came out of that discredited rock as an artistic form. Its nihilism x2. Moreover its populist and so it enables people to assert their identity over the music, which shouldnt be the case, the artist should make music according to their own ambitions and shouldnt be forced to conform to the demands of the people. I remember Lars Ulric giving a reason for making that album everyone hated because they departed from the image ascribed to them: "nobody is going to tell metallica what they should be." I agree with this sentiment entirely. When your making music or any other artistic product you shouldnt have to bow to the will of others. Postmodernism is ultimately responsible for the crap on the radios and what its promoted by conceited magazines like The NME and HotPress. Theres a lyric by Graham Coxen which sums up the supposedely "cool" music tastes of someone who listens to music approved by journalists and self appointed "cool" people- "shes so cool and her records are all boring".

Awesome post!

Honestly, I wouldn't say that post-modernism is about style over substance. It seems as if PM suggests that there is no such definitive thing as substance. Tarantino and Sin City, by contrast, definitely have substance to them.

It might be more helpful to lay out a clear definition of postmodernism before we say clearly whether certain works or creators are or are not postmodern. Postmodernism, as much as its worldview, seems like a really fuzzy and ill-defined concept.

Honestly, I wouldn't say that post-modernism is about style over substance. It seems as if PM suggests that there is no such definitive thing as substance. Tarantino and Sin City, by contrast, definitely have substance to them.

It might be more helpful to lay out a clear definition of postmodernism before we say clearly whether certain works or creators are or are not postmodern. Postmodernism, as much as its worldview, seems like a really fuzzy and ill-defined concept.

It is fuzzy. I am going to look for a series of lectures I attended this summer and post a link to the first one- it was on PM in political thought particularly, and it did a good job of identifying some of the major modern players as well as tracing its origins.

It is almost a style as substance thing when it comes to the arts. (And, increasingly, politics.)

ETA:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/le12-a30.shtml

One of many salient passages:
What, then, is postmodernism? Permit me to quote, as an explanation, a passage written by a prominent academic defender of this tendency, Professor Keith Jenkins:

“Today we live within the general condition of postmodernity. We do not have a choice about this. For postmodernity is not an ‘ideology’ or a position we can choose to subscribe to or not; postmodernity is precisely our condition: it is our fate. And this condition has arguably been caused by the general failure—a general failure which can now be picked out very clearly as the dust settles over the twentieth century—of that experiment in social living that we call modernity. It is a general failure, as measured in its own terms, of the attempt, from around the eighteenth century in Europe, to bring about through the application of reason, science and technology, a level of personal and social wellbeing within social formations, which, legislating for an increasingly generous emancipation of their citizens/subjects, we might characterize by saying that they were trying, at best, to become ‘human rights communities.’

“... [T]here are not now—nor have there ever been—any ‘real’ foundations of the kind alleged to underpin the experiment of the modern.” [3]

Permit me, if I may use the language of the postmodernists, to “deconstruct” this passage. For more than two hundred years, stretching back into the eighteenth century, there were people, inspired by the science and philosophy of the Enlightenment, who believed in progress, in the possibility of human perfectibility, and who sought the revolutionary transformation of society on the basis of what they believed to be a scientific insight into the objective laws of history.

Such people believed in History (with a capital H) as a law-governed process, determined by socio-economic forces existing independently of the subjective consciousness of individuals, but which men could discover, understand and act upon in the interests of human progress.

But all such conceptions, declare the postmodernists, have been shown to be naïve illusions. We now know better: there is no History (with a capital H). There is not even history (with a small h), understood merely as an objective process. There are merely subjective “narratives,” or “discourses,” with shifting vocabularies employed to achieve one or another subjectively-determined useful purpose, whatever that purpose might be.

From this standpoint, the very idea of deriving “lessons” from “history” is an illegitimate project. There is really nothing to be studied and nothing to be learned. As Jenkins insists, “[W]e now just have to understand that we live amidst social formations which have no legitimizing ontological or epistemological or ethical grounds for our beliefs beyond the status of an ultimately self-referencing (rhetorical) conversation... Consequently, we recognize today that there never has been, and there never will be, any such thing as a past which is expressive of some sort of essence.”
--------end quote thing--------

All this was part of a series of lectures on the Russian Revolution and the unresolved issues of the 20th century.

Interesting. I usually associated post-modernism with the rise of legal realism in legal theory and deconstructionism in English rather than anti-Marxism, but he makes a persuasive point that post-modernism screws with the Marxist project significantly.

Well, if that is the definition, then I would definitely say that Sin City and Tarantino are not post-modern: there is a definite linearity and cause-and-effect relationship apparent in both works, as well as a clear (however crude) sense of justice. Neither is a concept post-modernists have much use for if the article mentioned is correct.

So postmodernists really reject the concept of objective truth? Damn, that's just insane. I'd often heard that they do, but I never believed it.

Punk music is often said to be a postmodern music form and Id agree to an extent. It was originally a fashion (how more superficial and imagistic can you get) and the music that came out of that discredited rock as an artistic form. Its nihilism x2. Moreover its populist and so it enables people to assert their identity over the music, which shouldnt be the case, the artist should make music according to their own ambitions and shouldnt be forced to conform to the demands of the people.

1: It wasn't originally a fashion. It was a few guys who wanted to make music that was totally different from the bloated Glam Rock, and they succeeded.

2: Again, no. It was all about the music with the original bands. It got out of hand really fast, though, and it eventually did become a fashion... Something that was more about appearance than what people were creating. Bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and The Damned didn't give a shit about what people thought of their work. They were gonna do it, and that was that.

Sorry about getting off-topic there, but I felt that I needed to address this. And on Postmodernism... I'm not exactly a fan.

I see your point on Tarrantino and Sin City. The same site did a fair review of Sin City from a Materialist perspective.

In any event- I am glad to see that not everyone is subscribing to PM thought.

Your thoughts please...

To kick off I dont think it exists but that its a concept for a possible condition of existence which may very well come about as a result of recent trends in western society. In other words we dont yet live in an entirely mediated world but we are getting there.

That isn't postmodernism as such: rather just hyperrealism which is a single thread in postmodernist thought. Rejecting the idea of the hyperreal rejects only an aspect of postmodernist theory, not the whole thing.

Punk music is often said to be a postmodern music form and Id agree to an extent. It was originally a fashion (how more superficial and imagistic can you get) and the music that came out of that discredited rock as an artistic form. Its nihilism x2.

What you fail to recognise is that punk quickly evolved into a strong DIY ethic which valued a vague and ill-defined, but vigorously defended, notion of 'authenticity' above all else: thus it can be seen to be a return to modernism, not an escape from it.

1: It wasn't originally a fashion. It was a few guys who wanted to make music that was totally different from the bloated Glam Rock, and they succeeded.

I would argue that the Sex Pistols were no real break from glam rock as far as the music goes: certainly their worship of both the New York Dolls and early Roxy Music is both well known and well documented.

That isn't postmodernism as such: rather just hyperrealism which is a single thread in postmodernist thought. Rejecting the idea of the hyperreal rejects only an aspect of postmodernist theory, not the whole thing.

that was just one example, there are many others, also how do you explain the existence of modernist strands of culture within postmodernism. The theories outlined by postmodernists have not come fully into existence yet, many of the claims made about postmodernism are highly contestable. Say for example that it rejects all meta narratives, yet its one itself! and what about the actual existence of meta narratives anyway?

Ok, I agree with some of the points made on punk but it still went some way in devaluating rock music from being a revered "modernist" art form.

Post modernism is amoral, intellectually cowardly excrement.

On punk music- well, there are a couple of things going on there- the totally manufactured and marketed aspects (ala Malcolm MacLaren) and the other, more earnest bands and musicians (Joe Strummer and the clash, despite having a major deal). PM's insidiousness lies in its ability to fuzzy the view, so you end up equating one with the other- it erases degrees and differentiations (which might or might not be a word).



Better not let Pot see this...

Trust me, the members of the Pistols were not manufactured by McClaren, they were just destroyed by him. There's a difference (this is a topic of huge revisionist history, so I'm gonna go with the more reliable music historians on the topic, and not McClaren's wankfest in The Great Rock and Roll Swindle).

I can't say I can honestly make out what Postmodernism is, exept in the broadest concepts of the idea. Having gone to wiki and looked it up and only managed to give myself a headache (although, from what I understand, that lack of good definition could be what's postmodern about it), I can honestly say that what I understand seems a cross between smart phillosophy and bad artistic pretention. Since artistic pretention is one of those things that crosses all boundaries (or should that be violates all boundaries), I wont stick the blame for that on postmodernism.

However, I've got a lot of respect for any phillosophy that's non absolutist, individualist, and anti utopianist, even in the exeedingly confused, pretentious way that PM seems to be.

I can't say I can honestly make out what Postmodernism is, exept in the broadest concepts of the idea. Having gone to wiki and looked it up and only managed to give myself a headache (although, from what I understand, that lack of good definition could be what's postmodern about it), I can honestly say that what I understand seems a cross between smart phillosophy and bad artistic pretention. Since artistic pretention is one of those things that crosses all boundaries (or should that be violates all boundaries), I wont stick the blame for that on postmodernism.

However, I've got a lot of respect for any phillosophy that's non absolutist, individualist, and anti utopianist, even in the exeedingly confused, pretentious way that PM seems to be.

Indeed. I'd agree totally.

Individialism is fine- Isolationism is not so hot. Which is where Pm totally falls down, when, taken to its extreme, it states that there's no way anyone can understand anyone else because they come from diferent experiences which are interpreted differently due to being experienced by different people. (Ow, my head!) And in that it seems pretty *dystopic*, surely as great a philosophical sin as utopianism (which I am also against).

Inclusiveness and tollerance are fine, and necessary to survival. But there are limits to what is tollerable- think of three things which you absolutley cannot (large scale, not just some dumb band) tolerate. Why don't you find these things tollerable? Likely because you see a Better Way. Under PM, what is intollerable MUST be tolerated, because it's all down to your point of view. This lets in too much. It excuses excesses.

from what I garner from your post, postmodernism engenders relativistic thinking which is a self negating concept. Postmodernism negates itself as a metanarrative. Although this can be displaced under the assumption that capitalism has expanded to the extent that it is no longer possible to perceive it as an artificial system (postmodernism and capitalism being interchangeable, postmodernism as the cultural variant of capitalism). However Im talking right now about capitalism as an artifice so the negation is re-instated. This is why I think postmodernism does not yet exist as theorists tend to describe it. Modernism persists even today. The whole question of postmodernism being in fact another stage in modernism and issues revolving how to dialectically define our own historical situation in terms of postmodernism, leads me to think that these cultural forms are really cultural expressions of the capitalist economy as it was in the 18th and 19th centuries as it is today in its late stage. So with a more intensified version of contemporary capitalism your going to have a different form of moderism with characteristics unique to it but one which still cannot be disassociated from its earlier forms and which bears similarities with them. Basically we are living through one big modernist/capitalist era so how can we begin to historically define the present?

from what I garner from your post, postmodernism engenders relativistic thinking which is a self negating concept. Postmodernism negates itself as a metanarrative. Although this can be displaced under the assumption that capitalism has expanded to the extent that it is no longer possible to perceive it as an artificial system (postmodernism and capitalism being interchangeable, postmodernism as the cultural variant of capitalism). However Im talking right now about capitalism as an artifice so the negation is re-instated. This is why I think postmodernism does not yet exist as theorists tend to describe it. Modernism persists even today. The whole question of postmodernism being in fact another stage in modernism and issues revolving how to dialectically define our own historical situation in terms of postmodernism, leads me to think that these cultural forms are really cultural expressions of the capitalist economy as it was in the 18th and 19th centuries as it is today in its late stage. So with a more intensified version of contemporary capitalism your going to have a different form of moderism with characteristics unique to it but one which still cannot be disassociated from its earlier forms and which bears similarities with them. Basically we are living through one big modernist/capitalist era so how can we begin to historically define the present?

Yikes and kind of. I think you do gather my points well. I need to think about the conclusions you put forth. But, basicaly, yes. Especially about the capitalism/post-medernism connection. Though I would disagree that we are not living in PM times-even though I would say as well that are also still in modern times. They can and do exist concurrently. It's a philosophical war.

yes I agree, its a transitionary period. Real postmodernism would be a nightmare and we wouldnt be discussing it right now if it existed as all we would all exist in a hyper reality of endless consumption and meaninglessness. I think technological advancements akin to the matrix would bring this about just as it has this tense transitionary period (globalization-communication tech et al)

Real postmodernism would be a nightmare and we wouldnt be discussing it right now if it existed as all we would all exist in a hyper reality of endless consumption and meaninglessness

America as a postmodern state, eh?

America as a postmodern state, eh?

It's an unfortunate example right now. I don't think that consumerism is the be all of it, though it does play a part. Define yourself by what you own or listen to.

Major meandering digression which you can skip if you want:
I was thinking a couple of years back about how there are no places to just go and sit without having to buy something (or with the understanding that if you don't buy something, someone's going to glare). This lead to thinking about how this affects discourse- if you can't sit and talk, how do you communicate, etc? (For the record, I bought a cup of coffee as my access price to this internet session. It's good coffee, and I like coffee, but still. What if they didn't have something I wanted, but withheld something I needed until I bought something anyway?)

i once had the pleasure of filming a homosexual fan of emotional hardcore referncing himself very slowly.

Yes, he was a Po-mo Emo Homo in Slo-mo.

Cheap Gags r Us. Ten for a pound.

i once had the pleasure of filming a homosexual fan of emotional hardcore referncing himself very slowly.

Yes, he was a Po-mo Emo Homo in Slo-mo.

Cheap Gags r Us. Ten for a pound.
Colour me amused!