globalization & Pynchon?

[Jane Sweet]

One of the myths that I think goes along with the
globalization myth is the postmodern/globalization Art myth.
We often read that the artist is now suddenly global, a
curator, but Art did not suddenly become global or broaden
itself at the end of the 20th century. Such currents in Art,
all the arts and sciences and disciplines reflect the
ongoing convergence of modern and pre-modern, Eastern and
Western Civilizations,
and the continuous transformation of all human activities by
global or worldwide political, economic, cultural, forces. 

The new terminology--globalization-postmodern  "  put it in
quotes here   "     and the fact that we are living in a
SEMANTIC epoch, a period obsessed with language,
representation and the like, is evidenced by the fact that
we are discussing this topic on the world wide web with
words. A question that P asks or better stated that I ask
myself as I read Pynchon is, how have postmodernism's
definitions of, say Art, or Modernism, or Postmodernism
itself, elucidated and determined this so called
globalization/broadening/curatorship?  

We've mentioned Japan. Japan, under this pomo rubric,  as
culture, could be  considered the ultimate  showcase or
museum, its people curators in this global/pomo/curator
world. 


But Pynchon is global, his books have been translated,
traded across the sea, he is an AMerican and writes about
America, but he draws on the long Western tradition, the
Greeks of course and like many a global artist in the West,
he turns a little East and he searches for lost or nearly
lost culture in the cracks and crannies of this fissured
globe. Just like T.S. Eliot's plays are based on Greek plays
and so are
Freud's major theories, Pynchon's books thread through these
to the global or universal in Man.  Both men broadened our
views of the 20th century. Perhaps Pynchon will one day be
said to have done so too. P is, like Santayana, a
cosmopolitan artist. Looking East or to the Earth is nothing
new in American fiction under this Western sun, before
Freud, didn't Schopenhauer and Nietzche, bring Hinduism and
Buddhism, and other Eastern
religions into a common purview of discussion with the
Classical Greek and Christian traditions?  Hegel trace this
broadening, this intercultural exchange, East and
West ANd didn't 18th century philosophers introduce a "New
World" that was global, intercultural, broadened? The
Renaissance? What about those crusty Victorians? Oh yes,
Hardy began with Greek literature and after his bold
broadening in Jude the Obscure, never wrote another novel.
Some one mentioned Leibnitz, maybe it was me, what was he up
to besides tossing cannon balls off of high places and
counting his delta tees? Didn't he turn to China? He
searched for a "principle of all principles", and for what?
Why to reconcile the paradigms of the ancient, medieval, and
modern, philosophers, not to mention scientists, alchemists,
and cabalists. What about Wagner? Picaso? 

Globalization. What is it? I think it's a term they use on
TV. Since I don't watch TV, I've only come to have a vague
idea that anything Post has been two scooped into my raisin
brand modernism. Modernism and Globalization are  NOT what
postmodernism claims, not even close. I'm not defending the
exploitation of the earth or the destruction of culture or
the abuse of the poor (that would be rather sick), but
Modernism is getting a bad rap from postmodernism and so I
think is history and the cross cultural exchange that has
been going on and will be and should be if we are going to
save this little blue marble.  In literature, for example,
Modernism is most of what Postmodernism claims Modernism is
not, actually the pomo often make Modernism out to be an
evil anal rentative monster with three heads one of them
being T.S. Eliot climbing the tower of London waiting for
the brand to come. But modernism is not only not what Pomo
says it is, it is what pomo says it aint. Check it out. The
next time you read a definition of pomo see if they don't
make Modernism out to be some kind of evil monster. Then, go
back and read what people said Modernism was 15 years ago
or so and have your jaw drop as you realize that pomo is MO,
just mo mo, more of the same. And globalization, it's mo mo
too. Mo  involves a radical rethinking about
the relationship between fictions and reality. Its roots are
EXCEPTIONALLY broad because it is a result of cultural
broadening and the cross-fertization between cultures,
between art forms and between disciplines. Kinda like
knocking down boundaries, but not being so destructive and
self-serving about it. It's good to learn new words, like
pomo and globalization, to get all this information about
what's going on, where the deals are being made, who is
getting hurt and who is getting rich, but it's nothing new
really, it's not pomo, it's not global, it's life and life
only and it's awlright ma. 

So don't fear if you hear a foreign sound in your ear it's
awl
right ma were only bleeding.

http://orad.dent.kyushu-u.ac.jp/dylan/itsalrma.html