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.