Can anyone explain to me what is meant by 'Post-Modernism'.

[Orlion]

It's good to know that I scored 'Modernist' based on my Modernism v. Post-modernism posts here. Though it would have been funny if I did score as a Post-modernist

I imagine my reading patterns affect my worldview, in that I'm sure if I had taken the quiz a few years ago, I would have been a Romantic, but now that I am reading a lot of modernist fiction, my views tend towards that worldview.

[peter]

Yeah - sorry about that U. Sometimes the judgemental/negativity thing runs away with me a bit (but I always realise it after the post is made ). I'm pleased by the way to hear that meta-fiction figures in post-modernist literature because the few run-in's I've had with this have been in the main good experiences.

A few points. One thing that seemed to come out of my read in respect of the development of art through post-modernism seems to be the increasing role of the 'art community' in deciding what constitutes art - and paralelled with this the decreasing role of the artist him/herself. The aesthetic no longer seems to be something that the artist brings to the table, but rather it is what the gallery/museum curators will display, what the auction houses will sell and perhaps most importantly of all, what the punters will pay for that provides the legitimisation of a piece as a ''work of art''. Viewed in this light Damien Hirst's auction of his works in which he bypassed the gallery stage altogether and went straight to the auction house itself, raising, was it nearly £100 million in one night can be seen as the ultimate po-mo 'happening' where meaningless works of art transformed themselves into meaningless sums of money while the disinterested and uninvolved artist sat at a friends house playing scrabble.

A few posts ago some references were made to 'art mimicking life' or vica-versa. Can I just quote from my book on this subject. The section is entitled 'The Simulacrum' and goes, "It seems that the gaeneology of post-modern art can only be sepparated from the modern in theory. theory is not in this sense a culmination but a negation. The french sociologist Jean Baudrillard posits the extreme post-modernist conclusion that the representational image sign goes through four succesive stages; it reflects basic reality, it masks and perverts basic reality, it marks the absense of a basic reality and finally it bears no relation to any reality whatsoever - it is it's own pure simulacrum. At this point the boarder between art and reality has utterly vanished, as both have collapsed into the universal simulacrum. The simulacrum is arrived at when the distinction between representation and reality - between sighns and what they refer to in the real world - breaks down. Reality has been rendered redundant and we have reached a hyper-reality."

Vraith - hack the thread baby, hack the thread! Full permission granted - I'm about to set a sterner test for you guys anyway!

Would anybody care - and it's a big ask - to try to coign the 'central dogma' of constructivism, structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstructionism for me. These movements seem to be central to an understanding of post-modernism and yet defy easy definition. A plain sentance pertaining to the central belief of each might give me a framework on which to hang some of the other aspects of po-mo beyond the art (eg the anthropology or linguistic) that hitherto are a closed book. No probs if this is not possible and thanks in advance to any who have a stab.

[lucimay]

great thread peter, very enjoyable to read everyone's thoughts on this subject.

not gonna blather away on this cause i think everyone else here has pretty much nailed post modernism in the way i think of it.

having said that, there is, for me, a very fine line between the self-reflective and experimental modernists (faulkner, picasso, conrad, joyce, elliot, monet, klimt, cummings, thomas, woolf..and the like, whom i love) and the post modernists who took (and continue to take) those experimental self-reflective tendancies to a further extreme with their ironic and disoriented (or maybe disaffected?) parodies (auster, garcia-marquez, wm gibson, sexton, neal stephenson, vonnegut, warhol, pk dick, etc...all of whom i also love.)

once again, am really enjoying reading this thread!

[Vraith]

A few points. One thing that seemed to come out of my read in respect of the development of art through post-modernism seems to be the increasing role of the 'art community' in deciding what constitutes art -

In one way, that has always been the case...in another...well, is it better to have some Doge, trying to impress other Doges, and advised by hermetically sealed sycophants decide what is art?

and paralelled with this the decreasing role of the artist him/herself. The aesthetic no longer seems to be something that the artist brings to the table, but rather it is what the gallery/museum curators will display, what the auction houses will sell and perhaps most importantly of all, what the punters will pay for that provides the legitimisation of a piece as a ''work of art''. Viewed in this light Damien Hirst's auction of his works in which he bypassed the gallery stage altogether and went straight to the auction house itself, raising, was it nearly £100 million in one night can be seen as the ultimate po-mo 'happening' where meaningless works of art transformed themselves into meaningless sums of money while the disinterested and uninvolved artist sat at a friends house playing scrabble.

The first part of this is a misunderstanding, sometimes an intentional taking out of context, rooted in Foucault's "What is an Author?"
The bulk is just another example, which I keep pointing out, of modernist structure. There is a veneer of post-modern, but the table is cheap, mass produced/marketed/consumed/thrown away modern...and that's even ASSUMING Hirst is post-modern and an artist, which is debatable.

The french sociologist Jean Baudrillard posits the extreme post-modernist conclusion that the representational image sign goes through four succesive stages;{1}it reflects basic reality,{2} it masks and perverts basic reality,{3} it marks the absense of a basic reality and {4} finally it bears no relation to any reality whatsoever -{5} it is it's own pure simulacrum. At this point the boarder between art and reality has utterly vanished, as both have collapsed into the universal simulacrum. The simulacrum is arrived at when the distinction between representation and reality - between sighns and what they refer to in the real world - breaks down. Reality has been rendered redundant and we have reached a hyper-reality."

Numbers mine, to say:
1-That's only true if art is representational. But it isn't, at least not entirely, and it never has been.
2-Really? Isn't it meant to reveal/enhance/illuminate reality? Even, or especially IF it is questioning it?
3-It doesn't mark the absence of reality, it marks the perceptual basis/gap in our ability to directly "know" reality.
4-Of course it has a relationship with reality, but due to 1,2, and 3, it explores what that relationship IS, and how it works...or doesn't.
5-Is a meaningless conclusion given 1,2,3, and 4. Especially since the reference space between signifier and signified really exists. It isn't something created/invented/imagined by post-modernism. Every philosophy we have any record of, from the very oldest, must and does address/struggle with the issue in one way or another.

Would anybody care - and it's a big ask - to try to coign the 'central dogma' of constructivism, structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstructionism for me.

The only way to do that is to be impossibly reductive, ignore the entirety, and admit that dogma is the basis which it often isn't except for those violating their own premisses.
But:
constructivism: through our own experiences/understandings, we create reality. [the pure versions say it is contradictory to say our version is true]
structuralism: examining [something] by comparing/contrasting its basic elements with each other. [roughly a variation of thesis/antithesis] Signifier/signified relations is one, or THE basic question. But structuralism, for most, is not a description of how things are, it's a way of doing things. It also doesn't work very well without constructivism as a basis.
post-structuralism: in many ways does what I suggested: it combines the constructive with the structural. You can't ONLY look at the thing, you have to also look at the [constructed] reality it sits in/led to its production. And the relations are not only, or primarily "binary."
deconstruction: oppositions are necessary for meaning...BUT we must look at those oppositions, both resolve and dissolve them...but not destroy them, not think they disappear, display the old and create the new from them. They will always continue playing in the background. A kind of thesis/antithesis/synthesis, but continuing in many directions. At some point synthesis will regenerate both thesis and antithesis [though perhaps in different contexts] as well as generating new theses/antitheses/syntheses...which will regenerate and generate yet again.
As I said, these are oversimplified/incomplete and represent/present my concerns/understanding.
And probably the opposite of helpful. But I tried.

[peter]

Seriously Vraith - I appreciate that effort at what was I know an impossible ask. You would be supprised however how an odd sentance, a particular turn of phrase can be the 'fulcrum' (if you like) that allows you to lever the top off a particular can of worms( ) and actually begin to see what it is about.

The thread has been instructive in helping me to grasp a little of what the book is saying - and it has to be said the book has done the same re the thread! I'm on my second read now and in a sort of weird disjointed way I think some of it is starting to click. I've got a long way to go - but as with quantum physics (at the popular level I hasten to add) if found if I read enough books enough times, all of a sudden without realising how I knew what they were on about.

Thanks for the kind words lucimay - I love to read the guys getting to grips eachother over a deep point of one kind or another. This really makes me smile. Interesting names you cite on both sides of the modernist/post-modernist divide (as you say - not so much a divide as an at times apparently imperceptable line). I'm suprised how many I have actually read on the pm side, and never really looked at their writings from that point of view. I have some serious re-reading to undertake, I can see. I think 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' might be a good starting point.

[ussusimiel]

I won't go for the whole hog (not qualified to anyway!), but I'll add a couple of observations to Vraith's erudite efforts above.

constructivism: through our own experiences/understandings, we create reality.

I'm not sure that constructivism is that important as a theory compared to the others. In fact I'm not sure that it was ever really formulated as some sort of overarching theory at all. I know that, in my experience, it is not taught in the same way that the others are.

(Again it is important to note that it is distinct from (though maybe not unrelated to) the the artistic movement of the same name.)

The idea or theory of constructivism generally seems to appear in relation with other disciplines e.g. social constructionism (sociology), constructivism (learning theory), constructivism (psychology). (I would not have been able to make as clear a connection with structuralism as Vraith has.)

My experience is with social constructionism as it applies to feminist theory. Here the theory states that masculinity and femininity are totally socially constructed (basically a nurture over nature argument). While this argument doesn't hold up in the long run it does pose some interesting questions that can lead to a valuable deconstruction (heh!) of gender.

structuralism: examining [something] by comparing/contrasting its basic elements with each other. [roughly a variation of thesis/antithesis] Signifier/signified relations is one, or THE basic question. But structuralism, for most, is not a description of how things are, it's a way of doing things. It also doesn't work very well without constructivism as a basis.

Structuralism is a different beast altogether and it is still a potent force today in the contemporary academic world because many current ideas and concepts are based on extensions and critiques of it. To get a grip on structuralism it is necessary to engage with Saussure and the linguistic concepts of the signifier and the signified. Without this basis much of what comes afterwards is likely to be gobbledygook. After that the most interesting way to engage with structuralism is through anthropology (especially Levi-Strauss) because this is the best place to view the primary structures that (theoretically) shape all societies. (Fascinatingly, one of the conclusions of structuralism is that the shape of society is based on the shape of language which is based on the neurological shape of the brain )

That's all for now. I hope to comment on the other two soon.

u.

[peter]

Points:-

Does that sentance on consructivism imply that reality is a different thing for each and every one of us according to our own particular set of experiences and our own ability to overlay meaning/undestanding on to them.

I got far enough with Saussere to grasp the relationship between the signifier (the word) and that which is signified (the object *or* the concept of the object - which was the case seemed still to be a scource of disagreement) - and to tie them together into the sign, but then things started to get a bit hazy.

Just one short anecdote. A few years ago in Kuala-Lumpar I took the opportunity to take a run out into the surrounding countryside and visit the 'Orang-Asti Museum' - a small house sized building out in the sticks by the side of the forrest. I was blown away when on purchasing my ticket the curator told me I was the first Western visitor they had ever had to the diplay of artifacts of forrest dwelling culture.
As I walked alone around the two story exhibition hall I became slowly more and more entranced by what I was seeing. The totems and household artifacts, the photo's and written descriptions all told of a people who had lived unchanged and unchanging for thousands of years in absolute balance with their surroundings. There was nothing their collective experience had not prepared them to deal with; there was nothing for which their habitat did not provide. There was in short, nothing we could do for these people that they had not long worked out to do for themselves. As I moved on I saw with a clarity that belies description the depth of harmony and balance of their society and the contrasting simplicity and childishness of our own. We destoy that which we proclaim to love and squander our riches to the everlasting expense of those who would follow us. Our 400 years of development sits poorly along side the tens of thousands of the Orang-Asti and I learned that day that it is we who are the children of this world not they: children who would do well to sit once in a while and take a lesson from those against whom our experience is as of nothing.

I have a feeling that Levi-Strauss would have sympathised with me on this.

(Edit 10 Mins later. I have just realised how shallow and dim my story will seem in it's 'new-agy' conclusions, but this is not the point. The point is it really happened. As I went round that place something deep inside me was touched, something was connected with that I didn't know was there. What I saw just felt right and I mourned for what we had lost.)

[ussusimiel]

Our 400 years of development sits poorly along side the tens of thousands of the Orang-Asti and I learned that day that it is we who are the children of this world not they: children who would do well to sit once in a while and take a lesson from those against whom our experience is as of nothing.

Good story, peter. I agree with much of what you conclude.

*rant begins*

The 'Greek Miracle' and the subsequent rise of rationality and science (and capitalism) have created wonders in a fragment of time: vast wealth, hugely extended lifetimes, medical wonders, scientific marvels, theories of unbelievable beauty and so on. Yet, a bit like the new kid on the block, in fighting to be taken seriously all other contenders were seemingly defeated and so dismissed. IMO, it's a case of the baby-with-the-bathwater. One of my constant bugbears with science is its arrogance (I like to use the word hubris ). There is a lack of humility which I fear. The lack of doubt and questioning. As well as the dismissal of tens of thousands of years of knowledge.

While I think that it's valid to think that we live in the best and most exciting age of humanity, I do not think that that means that we are better than out predecessors. Genetically we are basically identical, when all out modern trappings are stripped away we are basically (bar better nutrition) the same animals. IMO, that should be a humbling awareness that acts as a balance to the elevated feelings our technological wizardry naturally gives us.

*rant over*

u.

[Vraith]

Points:-

Does that sentance on consructivism imply that reality is a different thing for each and every one of us according to our own particular set of experiences and our own ability to overlay meaning/undestanding on to them.

Well, yes and no. Reality exists, is what it is, independent of us. It is our knowledge of/the meaning of reality that is constructed. Basically, no matter what we do we will always be talking about/with/from/through/between our model[s] of reality, never the reality itself. But peeps can more or less agree on models and to the extent they do they more or less agree on "reality."

I got far enough with Saussere to grasp the relationship between the signifier (the word) and that which is signified (the object *or* the concept of the object - which was the case seemed still to be a scource of disagreement) - and to tie them together into the sign, but then things started to get a bit hazy.

Suassere specifically insists the signified is NOT the object. I don't know if this will help with the haziness/next step, but maybe: the word "Tree" + the concept "Tree" is the "Tree Sign", BUT the "Tree Sign" in turn gets it's meaning only in relationship with other signs that are not "Tree signs"...ground-sign, air-sign, sun-sign, etc. [[it's funny to me that everyone seems to use "trees" in these kinds of discussions].

[aliantha]

peter, you are the most interesting convenience store worker I've ever met. You went to Malaysia? That's cool!

[One of my constant bugbears with science is its arrogance (I like to use the word hubris ). There is a lack of humility which I fear. The lack of doubt and questioning. As well as the dismissal of tens of thousands of years of knowledge.

Not knowledge so much as wisdom. And while our resident rationalists would vehemently disagree with you, I tend to agree with you about the lack of doubt and questioning. Not that science doesn't ask and seek answers to questions all the time, but I suspect that scientists rarely ask themselves the meta-questions about what we, as a culture, might be losing by institutionalizing this hyper-rational approach.

And going back to peter's comment about being the first Westerner to visit that museum, I have to wonder whether the West hasn't ignored this culture precisely because we can't sell them anything.

[peter]

Haven't got my book handy Vraith - but yes, I do believe the idea of sighns being of no significance exept in the context of the sighns that surround them occurs pretty soon after the introduction of Saussere and his binary model.

Ali - you might not think so if you had to work alongside me eight hours a day . Alas, the west has not ignored the Orang-Asti - only the rich and complex society they had evolved. The youth of that tribal society (there were at one time scores if not hundreds of sepparate forrest dwelling tribes in Malaysia) are as suceptable to the lure of technology and 'modern' living as anyone else and for this reason the exodus from the forrests to the cities is now all but irreversible. Only the old stay and they are dying out fast.

My broadband connection has been 'down' for 24 hours and the effect it has had on me has been a sobering experience. For all my comments above I have been pacing the halls of my house, chewing my fingernails with a sunken face and wild rolling eyes. Not good I tell myself - not good!

Well guys - my hols from work have come about and tomorrow I'm of to London for a few days then Abu-Dhabi to get some sun on my old bones. See you in 10 or so days and thanks for being a great crowd to talk to. It's you guys who keep me (just about!) sane .

[Orlion]

peter, you are the most interesting convenience store worker I've ever met. You went to Malaysia? That's cool!

[One of my constant bugbears with science is its arrogance (I like to use the word hubris ). There is a lack of humility which I fear. The lack of doubt and questioning. As well as the dismissal of tens of thousands of years of knowledge.

Not knowledge so much as wisdom. And while our resident rationalists would vehemently disagree with you, I tend to agree with you about the lack of doubt and questioning. Not that science doesn't ask and seek answers to questions all the time, but I suspect that scientists rarely ask themselves the meta-questions about what we, as a culture, might be losing by institutionalizing this hyper-rational approach.

And going back to peter's comment about being the first Westerner to visit that museum, I have to wonder whether the West hasn't ignored this culture precisely because we can't sell them anything.

I was going to hold off, but I can't takes it no more!

Science is nothing but doubts and questioning. That is the foundation of science, otherwise you would not have even had (for example) that guy question if neutrinos could travel faster than the speed of light (in a vacuum) and other scientists ready to sink millions of dollars into verifying the research before the problem with the experiment was found. Things are always changing as new info is learned, planets become planetiods, brontosauri are found to have never existed, etc.

And I also sometimes wonder if romanticists question that the things lost due to cultural evolution are best lost

Anyway, u, I think your main problem is with Modernists. Those would be the ones that would look at science as the divine, that to question their assertions is tantamount to being a moron. They also generally have no idea about the science they are espousing. They actually tend to be just as ignorant about it as the fundies that proclaim creationism as a valid science.

Then you get the few scientists that are also Modernists, and well, I think Jonathon Swift portrayed those types best in Gulliver's Travels.

[ussusimiel]

Enjoy your break, peter. Your sanity-promoting questions work in both directions

Anyway, u, I think your main problem is with Modernists. Those would be the ones that would look at science as the divine, that to [question] their assertions is tantamount to being a moron. They also generally have no idea about the science they are espousing. They actually tend to be just as ignorant about it as the fundies that proclaim creationism as a valid science.

[Brackets added to foil dreaded adbots!]

I think you are right. My [rant][/rant] tags are an indication that I know it's a 'hot button' for me although I'm still not sure why (the questioning continues ).

[rant]My ire is reserved for the Sciencists of the Dawkins ilk who respond to any questioning of science or suggestion that might be a single other way of gaining knowledge (alternative, homeopathic, energetic, psychic, shamanic etc.) as a threat. Honestly, we're not trying to take away your power, or toys Richard

The inability of such people to apply the same scientific principles they evangelise about to the very human activity that they are engaged in (see Paul Feyeraband (sociology of knowledge)) winds me up. It is not so much their blinkered outlook as their aggression in attacking other possible sources of knowledge. For those whom knowledge is supposed to be a goal they act as if anything not discovered by them doesn't exist [/rant]

And I also sometimes wonder if romanticists [question] that the things lost due to cultural evolution are best lost

[Adbot-foiling brackets mine.]

I have been that windmill-tilting Knight Errant! The pills work when I remember to take them

It may be the assumption that these things have to be, by necessity, lost. I'm not sure that this is the case. A new way of knowing should add to the possibilities of understanding our humanity rather than reductively enshrining one particular form of seeing the world as the only one.

u.

[Vraith]

It may be the assumption that these things have to be, by necessity, lost. I'm not sure that this is the case. A new way of knowing should add to the possibilities of understanding our humanity rather than reductively enshrining one particular form of seeing the world as the only one.

u.

heh...another agree/disagree, though I think at a "meta" [I freaking hate meta cuz it's become so popularly used and misused] level more a than d.
I think the scientific method is the best we have now, and best for the future until/unless we come up with a more viable/demonstrable path that supersedes it for physical reality.
I also think less is "lost" than people suppose...maybe you should start a thread about it, cuz it seems important to you, and peter too, and me as well, and I have the impression there are many people here who would follow that topic that don't give a flying f()& about post-modernism....I'd love to explore it...it is a huge, multi-tentacled topic.
I understand your example [dawkins]...but there are a lot of actual scientists who are, in ways, "idealist," "romantic," "post-modern"...and MOST of them, while perhaps "materialist" as far as facts of reality, are nothing of the kind when it comes to [as you say] "our humanity."
There are good reasons why no one I've seen is purely anything in the "test" [besides the obvious flaws in the test itself]
There are reasons why I call myself [both accurately and inaccurately] a "mystic atheist" on facebook.
Heh...if you start it soon, and link it in this thread, peter will have a ton of stuff to catch up on and ask questions about when vacation time is over.

[aliantha]

And I also sometimes wonder if romanticists question that the things lost due to cultural evolution are best lost

You must be referring to somebody else.

Romanticist 38%

[ussusimiel]

Heh...if you start it soon, and link it in this thread, peter will have a ton of stuff to catch up on and ask questions about when vacation time is over.

Any suggestions for a thread title? The ones I'm coming up with all carry the blazon of my bias

u.

[aliantha]

And this is a problem how, exactly?

[Vraith]

And this is a problem how, exactly?

Agree...feel free to set your bias a-blazon.

[ussusimiel]

And this is a problem how, exactly?

Agree...feel free to set your bias a-blazon.

Almost funny, as usual! I forget that this is the Close and my 'Tank-coloured khaki is not necessary

u.

[Avatar]

Pffft, the 'Tank is not exactly immune to or reticent about bias.

--A