Jim Doherty wrote:
My curiosity is overcoming my reluctance to display my
ignorance. What, exactly, is "po-mo?"
************** More than you ever wanted to know, sliced out
of last September:
In 1916 the collected lectures of Saussure were published
posthumously in a thin volume titled Course in General
Linguistics. Called structuralism, it introduced a
revolutionary concept into the field of linguistics.
Formerly, the study of language emphasized the history of
words, a field called etymology that examined the slow
evolution of word similarities and derivatives. Structuralism
stressed differences instead, stating that words are defined
by difference rather than similarity. Saussure referred to
words as signifiers, the idea or thing that it stood for as
the signified, and the word and idea together was the sign.
Saussure's book on linguistics lighted a slow-burning fuse
that took over forty years to make the transition into
literary criticism. In the sixties, Roland Barthes and
Jacques Derrida seized upon structuralism's emphasis on
differences and extrapolated it out to binary opposites,
concentrating on constructs such as light and dark, good and
evil, male and female.
Ten years later postmodernism was born. The movement
originated with the restoration of peace after the violent
student rioting in France during the late sixties. A
transmogrification of structuralism, postmodernism declared
the binary opposites of structuralism as non-neutral
constructs that supported a philosophic bias, with one end of
the spectrum seen as more desirable or privileged than the
other. By an often contrived process, the postmodernists
revealed the privileged construct and proceeded by a process
called deconstruction to use minor or obscure details to
demonstrate conflicts in the underlying philosophy of the
text. The bottom line was an established methodology for
demonstrating that the validity of absolutely everything can
be denied. This, of course, is not an original school of
thought but rather a rehash of the Greek sceptics. Postmodern
scepticism is founded upon a conclusion drawn from two
premises. First, human perception of reality is based almost
exclusively on language. As Roland Barthes's dramatically
stated, "There is nothing outside the text." Second, language
is a notoriously unreliable media for portraying reality with
any degree of accuracy.
So what do you find in postmodern fiction? A standard theme
is the purposeful disruption of any sense of realism.
Postmodernism considers realism to be bogus because they
consider language to be an inadequate tool for conveying
reality. Therefore, realism in writing is dishonest, and a
writing style that brings attention to the contrivance of the
story is desirable. Authorial intrusion upon the text is one
technique used to disrupt realism. The story is interrupted
by editorial commentary from the author in a manner that
accents the artificiality of the text. It might be a
discussion of a possible event in the author's life that
inspired the story, like in Tim O'Brien's The Things They
Carried, or the author might talk about his price
negotiations for the novel at hand, like in Nick Tosches's In
the Hand of Dante. Another technique commonly used to impart
a postmodern flavor is manipulation of the narrative.
Narrative structure with the usual suspects moving through a
reasonably contolled timeline is old school. The narrative
might be scattered, perhaps with many different characters
doing inconsequential bit parts, sometimes so convoluted and
confused that it simply doesn't carry much of anything
identifiable as a story.
Another common postmodern theme is the deconstruction of
ideals and absolutes. Around the mid-twentieth century there
was a strong belief that moral right and wrong were founded
on immutable and absolute principles. Postmodern scepticism
eschews any kind of certainty, and denies the validity of
these absolutes.
In postmodern fiction, any character with strong moral
beliefs will likely be proved to be a fool or a fraud. Julian
Barnes demonstrates this in his Arthur and George. Arthur
Conan Doyle, author of the popular Sherlock Holmes stories,
appears as a character in Barnes's novel. What first appears
to be respectable motives and upright Victorian morality is
deconstructed into pathetic hypocrisy and stupidity by the
end of the book. There is an exception to their objection to
absolutes. In postmodernism, the United States typically
stands as a symbol for many of the ideals that it disdains.
As a result, the moral stance of anti-American characters is
likely to be bolstered, without being subjected to the usual
postmodern criticism.
Another theme found in postmodern fiction is marginalization.
Although language is deemed undependable, it can nevertheless
wield great power. Foucault identified certain schools of
thought that centered around the favoring of some binary
opposites.
Calling them discourses of power, he noted that they
empower particular groups of people while isolating others in
a marginalized state. Originally, Foucault concentrated on
crazies and criminals as marginalized by the social mores of
the eighteenth century, but eventually Western democracy was
targeted by postmodernism as a dominant discourse of power,
and the portrayal of those marginalized by it became a
popular theme. So instead of a bastion of freedom and the
epitome of Enlightenment philosophy, Western democracy is
deconstructed into an expansionist tyranny. Pamuk's Snow
demonstrates how deeply religious Muslims are pressured by
Western oppression into terrorist acts of liberation.
Barnes's Arthur and George portrays Victorian society as
racist and sexist.
The establishment of the sanctity of the individual was the
supreme philosophical achievement of the Renaissance, and a
philosophy of natural rights and a structure of government
that supported it was the apogee of the Enlightenment. In
postmodernism, the individual loses importance and becomes
little more than an arbitrary intersection of varying and
dubious discourses, so debunking the value of the individual
is a primary postmodernism theme. Postmodern characters are
often drab, uncommitted, uninspired, and lifeless, often
little more than text on the page.
In postmodern thought, this is not bad writing; it is
the intended effect. Generally, the characters accomplish
little. Any significant accomplishment would have the
suspicious aura of mattering, a dangerous flirting with the
obviously bogus concept of an ideal worth working towards. In
a postmodern mystery novel, the mystery most likely won't get
solved, and if it is solved, it won't matter to anyone. If
it's a crime novel, nobody will pay for the crime, but on the
outside chance that somebody does, it won't be the person who
committed the crime and, again, it won't really matter.
miker
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