Rantings & Ravings

The term "Postmodernism" is unique in that it sprung up part and parcel with the postmodern movement itself. It is an example of humans trying to interpret culture as it happens, and it is a dangerous practice–one that belies the problems in the social sciences. The physical scientist sticks to hard facts and merely observes. The same cannot be said of the philosopher or the sociologist. In an ideal state, we would attempt to define culture only after it has run its course, for tampering with the culture during its infantile stages can be hazardous to its adult life. So here we have Postmodernism, cursed at the outset by scores of scholars who couldn't help but theorize about its future. And then, flash forward thirty years, the Postmodern "movement" has nearly run its course, and still, no one has arrived at an agreed-upon definition.

It is seeming to me more and more attractive to accept the possibility that this whole attempt at definition is pure folly – which could, in the end I suppose, make me the one to eat my words. The postmodernists have always espoused that "postmodernism can only be described, not defined." And yet these same scholars still slap a label on the whole movement, which suggests the existence of a unifying factor. Harumph.

Unifying factor there may be, but all things are similar in at least one way. Everything is composed of matter, for instance. This doesn't mean that we should spend thirty years of our life trying to come to terms with the differences between every thing. Most people would agree on that. So what do these Postmodernists see in their loose collection of art, song, literature and cinema that so compels them to group them together? Is it wishful thinking or is there really something there? And, the ultimate question in cultural analysis–at what point does the scientist cease to merely observe and begin to actively affect that which he is observing?

So what can we conclude from all this? Cultural movements, like all things, must come and go organically. They cannot be created in the stiflement of the university. The cultural movement of Postmodernism ultimately exists as wishful thinking in the imaginations of a few upper-echelon docorates. Postmodernism was borne out of intellectualism, it remained in intellectualism for the course of its lifetime, and now, today, it dies in intellectualism. Cultural critics may identify change in their thought patterns, but the sad truth is that the extent of that change exists only in the initial identification. Nothing else has changed.

It is my opinion that cultural theorizing is dangerous when done for its own sake. Hassan, Lyotard, et al, were still feeling the after-effects of Modernism. They assumed that our labels would continue to evolve, as reflected by the de facto nomenclature "Postmoderism." But labels don't evolve, culture does.

The hypothesis that I've been hinting at, but haven't had the nerve to say outright, is that cultural periodization is meaningless at worst, extremely limited at best. People are born, people die. No matter what time period they are born in, they continue to find ways to express themselves with the tools available. To attempt to understand the forces that work upon the individual in a culture and then go on to identify how these forces evolve over time, is – quite frankly – impossible. Any systematic framework is automatically too vague, and can never address every force. We've all heard of the butterfly effect. Even the gust of air from a butterfly's wings can brew into a hurricane with time. The same applies to history. We can never look into the past and seperate from the great braid of time each individual strand and follow it into the present, because they're all wound together, inextricable.

Midterm Report

Midterm Report
Austin Emerson
What did I set out to do? For my directed study, I originally set out on a multi-disciplinary quest to "study societies", such as those that existed during historical highlights like The Enlightenment, The Renaissance, Modernism, and, in conclusion, the present. I began by studying Modernism, mostly because it had the most information, and I quickly found myself embroiled in a previously unheard-of sea of academia. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Luckily, I was hooked up with a book, The Modern Mind, which seemed to objectively render the period of Modernism.
Weeks slid by and I still didn't feel like I was anywhere near the conclusion of my research into Modernism. So I changed my project, eliminating the potential murkiness of studying the Renaissance and Enlightenment and focusing on the 20th century. Even this was a huge undertaking, and I have not really come to any solid conclusions that I have full faith in. But I have learned an immense amount of information, at the very least. I now have a vague familiarity with nearly every intellectual figure since 1900, and I would probably dominate in an "Ideas of the 20th Century" trivia contest.
Where am I now? Good question. Well, I prematurely cut off my studies of Modernism, or rather, delayed them. I felt like The Modern Mind was merely imparting factual information rather than giving me any useful insight. I plan to return to Modernism, and examine it as one imbued with the retrospective knowledge of Postmodernism, which is what I am currently studying.
Postmodernism is unique in that its defining feature is a lack of definition. Its scholars seem to schizophrenically both desire a systematic regime for the definition of postmodernism and at the same time define it on such terms as "uncertainty, indeterminacy, indefinability." From the perspective of a relative outsider (myself), the practitioners of PoMo seem torn between anarchy and order, stuck in a mindset halfway between Modernism and some new sensibility. They want to patch up the fragments of Postmodernism – the disparate elements, verily, the entire spectrum of culture contained in the chronos from 1939 onward – into a unified whole, yet, like patching up a hole in a bucket with chicken wire, they go forth in doing this with the conviction that you can't define Postmodernism. In this I see a tendency toward the certainies of Modernism. It seems our postmodern scholars haven't completely broken free of it.
The primary question that has been in the back of the mind throughout all this research is “what am I going to have to show for all my research once these months are over with? Despite the brilliant luxury of time afforded to me, I still feel like I'm racing the clock in many ways. Which is probably not inaccurate. I've undertaken a huge project, and an hour and a half a day is a relatively short period of time to digest such a wealth of information, the result of a hundred years' worth of scholarship.
I set out on this project with the assumption that something happened during the dawning of the 20th century that changed man irrevocably. I'm not sure if I can still believe in that.
One thing I would like to do is return to reality a little bit. I spent most of last week reading Ihab Hassan, who is an amazing writer–almost Coltrane-esque in his wordplay–, but one whose theories remain firmly entrenched in the vague and theoretical. One thing that has separated me from a lot of the other scholars I've read is that I am constantly seeking evidence behind claims. I know all too well how a writer's personal perceptions can influence pronouncements they make on the rest of society, and I refuse to fall into this trap. And, I haven't found many answers. Ms. Snider was at a loss when I asked her if there were elements of postmodernism reflected in the current popular culture, and the writers I've read haven't given much concrete evidence either. I still want to stick to the sociological element of my project, the more scientific, grounded-in-hard-facts element, and that is what I plan to be involved in the coming weeks.

Moving On

Well, yesterday I interviewed Ms. Cynde Snider, and it was a very enlightening conversation. We mostly discussed Postmodernism, but we also talked about its differences with Modernism. I feel as though I am generally correct in my analysis that Modernism was characterized by a sense of progress, and this is evident even in the critical pieces, like T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. At the core of this optimism was the sense that there was objective truth at the heart of everything. That perfection could be achieved and that there really are answers to the questions that we find ourselves asking over and over again.

When pressed for to describe Postmodernism "in a word," the best thing Ms. Snider could come up with was "Uncertainty." She went on to describe how the atom bomb both literally and figuratively blew away the past and served as an unsubtle beginning to the brave new world of postmodernity. We also discussed how periodization is frowned upon by postmodernists, which would obviously undermine my project, but that is only from a Postmodern point of view. I, personally, am not quite ready to accept that the concept of historical periods is false, although I am ready to acknowledge the problems of such generalizations. Ms. Snider explained to me an alternate view of history, one that pinballs between the romantic and the classical, until what was once romantic becomes staid and constricting –in a word, classical – and is exploded. The cycle begins anew. To use an example that is both relevant and clarifying, the concept Postmodernism is now in its classical twilight. In the 60s and 70s, there was no attempt to observe what was happening, it was merely happening. Then, as time wore on, scholars began to try to pin down exactly what postmodern meant, in the process adversely affecting the very subject they were trying to observe. Now, we are definitively out of postmodernism, which means that my project just acquired a new dimension – to define the times we live in now, the time of post-postmodernity.

It sounds ambitious, but I have some ideas. One is that we as a people, tired of the labrynthine perspectivism of postmodernism and the complex theorization of modernism, have returned to pragmatism, to science, philosophy and psychology that really works.

...There goes the bell, but I'll blog more on this.