I avoided chiming in during miker's criticism month, but I'm
home sick today, so what the hell.
As a grad school escapee, I too agree that the overwhelming
majority of postmodernist critical product and artistic
product is stupid crap. That said, I also think that the
postmodern critical perspective does a better job of
illuminating both art and "the real world" than earlier
critical strategies.
Some of the generally accepted postmodern tenets (all systems
break down, language itself creates/distorts/determines
reality, the power structures of race/class/gender etc.) are
visible on the front page of every newspaper every day, and
are not some hypothetical "left-wing pseudo-intellectual
horse shit." Without engaging in any political discussion
whatsoever, I submit that such words as "conservative"
and
"torture" are rather in flux at the moment in the United
States.
Many recent vigorous rara-avis discussions (Long Goodbye,
moral obligations of the author, what's "new" in
hardboiled/noir) are the types of questions postmodernism
grapples with: how producer/consumer/language/society
together create "text" , or the meaning of originality. To
ask an on-topic question: are the Marlowe stories set in
stone, belonging to a past when men were men, etc. etc.
(please define your own etc.s), or are they living texts
adaptable to new ideas of the detective and a changing
society? If updated, are they still the Marlowe
stories?
I commend David David for his shot at explanation, but for a
not half bad brief introduction to the subject that still
involves some slogging through grim reading, try the
Wikipedia entry (of all places) for "postmodern." Moe
Szyslak's quotation is also pertinent.
Awaiting lengthy Doherty parsings,
Bob V in NYC
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Michael Robison
<miker_zspider@...> wrote:
>
> JIM DOHERTY wrote:
>
> So, if I understand you correctly, "po-mo,"
briefly,
> is short for "post-modern," and "post-modern" is a
lot
> of left-wing, pseudo-intellectual horse
shit.
>
> Have I got that right?
>
> *****************
> Yup.
>
> miker
>
>
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Mar 2007 EDT