Postmodernism

[Kevin Won]

I understand the temptation to reduce PM/PS to some core "position" or "arguement"--but PM/PS *is* (put a line through that word) not a *thing* so treating it as such only leads to metaphors of rationalism such as "decay" and "the time is over or comming to an end", etc.  Postmodernism is not a "period" of thought like others in the sense that it has definable positions, a defined corpus, etc.  It, instead, delimits the edges of previous thoughts, it tears down structures that were not really foundational after all.

 A statement like "the times of PM and decon are over"  only makes sense when wrapped in a *rational* cloak.  Of course talking about such issues is always already wrapping it as well. . ..  such is the quandry of admitting the shame of rational discourse.  Language structuralizes and rationalizes a priori.

If anything (and of course this is simple conjecture on my part) the edges and fault-lines of rational discourse that Nietzsche articulated over a hundred years ago will only continue to grow as rational expression pushes the limits of its own body.   As physics pushes farther, as genetic engeneering continues, as the cutting edge of rational discourse refines, the limitations, in my judgement, of said discourse will only become clearer and more prominant.  It may be called "PM" or something else, but the issue is the same.

>>> Heikki Raudaskoski <hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi> 05/19 5:30 AM >>>


On Fri, 19 May 2000 KXX4493553 at aol.com wrote:
> I agree with Terrance that the times of postmodernism and deconstructivsm 
are 
> over. The reason for this is that "anything goes" has led us into the
chaos 
> of the world economy of today. We are not only a Western world but a
world 
> full of Ruandas, Burundis, Sierra Leones and Yugoslavias. 

It is hard to see what "anything goes" and/or "postmodernconditionalism" 
could possible have in common with deconstruction. (For Derrida's strong
NO to "anything goes", see "Afterword", _Limited Inc__. For interesting,
often polemical essays  on _Specters of Marx_ by Toni Negri et al + JD's 
reply, see _Ghostly Demarcations_ ed. by the great late Michael Sprinker. 
For postcolonial issues and deconstruction, see anything by Pheng Cheah,
e.g. "Spectral Nationality" in one of the 1999 numbers of _Boundary 2"_.  
Etc.)

Heikki