Mo v Pomo and the ancient BS of binary opposition

[Joseph Tracy]

Mo v Pomo and the ancient  BS of binary opposition

Websters on Modern:
adjective
of or relating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past: the pace of modern life | modern U.S. history.
• characterized by or using the most up-to-date techniques, ideas, or equipment: they do not have modern weapons.
• [ attrib. ] denoting the form of a language that is currently used, as opposed to any earlier form: modern German.
• [ attrib. ] denoting a current or recent style or trend in art, architecture, or other cultural activity marked by a significant departure from traditional styles and values: Matisse's contribution to modern art.

Wikipedia on  Modernism:
In this spirit, its innovations, like the stream-of-consciousness novel, atonal (or pantonal) and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art, all had precursors in the 19th century.
A notable characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness and irony concerning literary and social traditions, which often led to experiments with form, along with the use of techniques that drew attention to the processes and materials used in creating a painting, poem, building, etc.[4] Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism[5][6][7] and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody.[8][9][10]

Wikipedia on Post-Modernism
Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,[9] a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a "grand narrative" of Western culture,[10] a preference for the virtual at the expense of the Real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)[11

One question concerning the Peterson project is how the publishers of the papers saw the papers. If, for example,  they saw them as legitimate mockeries in the mode of Monty Python of the language of POMO criticism, this would fit the pomo paradigm. How did the publications defend their actions? But the whole idea of a publication whose language is so arcane as to allow them to publish crap without knowing it is not so much a critique of the original writings that led to the existence of the publication as a classic example of the idea that Ghostbusters 7 is probably going to suck.

  In both Wikipedia articles on these isms,  both irony and  playfully re-using works of the past are cited as methods of the new ism. Both are couched as response to bad stuff in mass culture. To find something totally new in either is hard to impossible.  I would argue that neither term is  fundamental to important artists, philosphers writers or  the major theorists thought to exemplify the movement. The arguments underlying these movements and countermovements go back into ancient times, and have their own versions in non-literate tribal societies.  Generalities and the politics of name-calling tend to short circuit the wisdom that can emerge from respectful dialog. True dialog is not contending straw-man arguments, but requires respect and accountability. This is why so many intelligent humans move through ideas toward an un aligned position regarding big answers and even big rejections. Orwell was a forthright socialist, but was powerfully critical of the danger that class revolution can lead to totalitarianism.  The physicist, thinker, and theorist of neurobiology David Bohm was harassed and excluded from Princeton despite the positive invitation of Albert Einstein because of his early membership in the communist party. He rejected this affiliation because of Stalin, but continued thoughout his life to advocate open dialog as the basis of science and understading.

Every generation seems to want to assert that they have put the ignorance of the past behind, rejected the false and embraced the real. This temptation is clearly part of the appeal of these isms. One finds it in  artists and  academics, theorists and pragmatists,  fascists  and communists and it gets as ludicrous and dangerous as Fukuyama’s declaration of the End of History. Frequently the critiques that start big ideas, like Marx’s critique of capitalism are profound, informative and needed for positive and even radical reform. But claims of final freedom so far have always been self-serving madness and the methods of criticism have not yet led to the deep change that is needed to avoid catastrophe let alone begin a golden age. In fact anger and rancor seem to egulf us like so many billions of pieces of un assimilable plastic. When we are no longer as a species engaged in mass killing and exploitation, when the vast majority are safely part of a loving human community, when we have stopped raping the planet and learned sustainable ways to live, then we can talk about post racial, post ismic, post stupid, post patriarchal, post war, post hate, post fear, post separate from life, death, soil, air water and begin to understand and enjoy this dear sweet visit to life on earth.