PoMo Studies Hoax (gets taken seriously)

[John Bailey]

When I first studied a smattering of pomo theory at university I found
it a wonderfully useful way of sidestepping a bunch of power
structures that otherwise seemed unchallengeable in our society.
Later I taught a course in it and found myself much more ambivalent
about that usefulness.
A long while later, today, I think the best thinking on postmodern
theory remains Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism, or The Logic of Late
Capitalism (which also popularised the term itself). Jameson's was a
very critical analysis of a network of cultural artefacts he thought
said something about late capitalism, ie postmodernism is the cultural
face of hyper-capitalism. I haven't found anything to refute this and
it's why I think postmodernism is both very troubling and absolutely
of our times.
On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 1:32 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> yes.
>
> I like the word "real' here in its straightforward, hard-working way. Some
> say Reality, a real conception of it as real,[sic] so to speak, has been
> weakened in our understanding because of Po-Mo. I can't judge.   I do like
> this nuanced statement and only want to accent Kafka on the 'art' of a
> 'book/novel':  It must be like an axe to crack the frozen ice within us.
>
> "The real issue with all arts is the degree to which it generates genuine
> awe, insight, laughter, enjoyment, and the degree to which it stirs the
> waters and compels us to think and question and see in fresh ways."
>
> And I think talking about any work of art clearly and with whatever
> intelligence we can bring to it is what criticism is--or should be.
>
> On Sat, Oct 6, 2018 at 10:41 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> > While I find Morris's insults juvenile and unnecessarily troll-like. I
> > remember when I first joined the list and Post Modernism was used by most
> > participants as hip and insightful and descriptive of Pynchon.I was openly
> > dubious. I tried to get a grasp on what it was and found strains of thought
> > that were important: cultural and personal context as needed to understand
> > a phenomena, deconstrution as a tool, the rejection of isms you mention,
> > and to a lesser degree the difficulty or in some arguments the
> > impossibility of all communication mediated by language or symbols. I just
> > never saw the value or intelligence of the term itself, which seemed mostly
> > a way to seem hiply contemporary. It has the same obvious flaw as the term
> > modernism; it just can’t last. It also became obvious that people meant
> > different things when they used it.
> >
> >  At the time I had come to the conclusion in thinking about the labels
> > applied to art history that there was something misleading about these
> > labels. Can a “modern” artist be inspired by ancient tribal arts? But more
> > than such anomalies it is the individual nature of making art, the
> > uniqueness of artists and their work that is the problem. Often a single
> > one or 2 two artists or artist fit the label  and others are ineptly
> > crammed into the package. If these labels were really needed and helpful
> > they would be more justified but they seem to be a by-product of a cultural
> > obsession with labels rather than a clarifying and informing use of
> > language. Some such terms are more useful than others. Art nouveau was a
> > style movement affecting many products and buildings and evokes a useful
> > image to anyone who has seen some of the work. Of course if you tranlate it
> > into English it would be called new art and no-one would know what you are
> > talking about.
> >
> > For me the problem with these “conservative” thinkers is that they apply
> > what could be called post modern analysis to Post Modernism but they refuse
> > to apply this same critical thinking to their own meaningless labels and
> > cultural blind spots. They themselves want to be associated with
> > “traditional” values, but they are not Christians, they are not
> > capitalists, they are not constitutionalists, they despise other people’s
> > “freedom”, and it is virtually impssible to tell what the fuck they want to
> > “conserve”. Do they really love the flag in some bizarre symbolic
> > relationship or is it the ultimate representative of their violent embrace
> > of conformity and the identity politics they claim to despise?
> >
> > The real issue with all arts is the degree to which it generates genuine
> > awe, insight, laughter, enjoyment, and the degree to which it stirs the
> > waters and compels us to think and question and see in fresh ways.
> >
> >
> > > On Oct 5, 2018, at 1:24 AM, Matthew Taylor <matthew.taylor923 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > You: David Morris
> > > Me: Matthew Taylor
> > >
> > > (Did I do that right?)
> > >
> > > My point was that postmodernism is as misunderstood as it is denigrated,
> > > and Jordan Peterson—who is (unfortunately) extremely popular and
> > > influential right now—has popularized the term as a bogeyman among a
> > bunch
> > > of people who have confused and contradictory ideas about what it means.
> > > You can't really talk about contemporary popular understandings of
> > > "postmodernism" or "myth" or "archetypes" without at least mentioning
> > him.
> > > I was responding to John Bailey, agreeing with his point that it is now
> > the
> > > "catch-all term encompassing everything despised by the conservative
> > > neolibs who follow Jordan Peterson and the like."
> > >
> > > Peterson himself politicizes the term, trying to associate it with things
> > > like Marxism. My post also argued that whatever postmodernism may or may
> > > not be, it sure as hell *isn't* that. I wasn't talking about politics to
> > > "ignore" postmodernism, I was saying that a great deal of the popular
> > > discourse about postmodernism politicizes it in a way that is flat-out,
> > > demonstrably wrong. I think any discussion about contemporary
> > understanding
> > > of postmodernism has to contend with Jordan Peterson—he is a force to be
> > > reckoned with even if he's a dummy. Writing a bestselling book and
> > getting
> > > ~$80k/month on Patreon means he has a hell of a platform, and I think a
> > lot
> > > of the misunderstanding of what postmodernism might mean can be
> > attributed
> > > directly to him.
> > >
> > > "Like" it or not, I think it's probably important to at least have an
> > > accurate understanding.
> > >
> > > On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 9:24 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> You: I genuinely don't know what you mean by saying that my post
> > "confirms
> > >>> PoMo school to be drowning in politics."
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >> Me: your post focused on a political asshole, and ignored anything about
> > >> what PoMo is/was.
> > >>
> > >> David Morris
> > >>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>>>>
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> > --
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> >
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