May 12
The paradoxes of postmodernism
It is, I suspect, almost impossible not to be either tempted by postmodernism if you inhabit Western culture. We are, loosely, shaped by late or post- modernity. But my recent conversation with Stephen has left me surprised that my resistance to it has strengthened rather than diminished over the years.
I think there are two reasons. The first is that I struggle, as I struggled with relativism beforehand, to see any way around the paradox at the heart of the post-modern vision. The rejection of meta-narratives grows out of a meta-narrative. And if the truth of “it depends where you stand” depends on where you stand, then sometimes (at least) it’s not true. Of course, it is always uttered as the truth that doesn’t depend on where you stand. I sometimes feel that postmodernists miss this paradox much as the author of Titus seems to miss Epimenides’. (See Titus 1:12)
I have been attracted to post-modernism’s ability to encourage us to notice the unheard voices of the minorities in history and the present. On the other hand, I am unconvinced by the unrelenting post-modern meta-narrative which interprets all lost voices as those marginalized or suppressed by the people with power. Sometimes ideas die out because they’re bad. Sometimes communities die out because they’re unhealthy and dysfunctional. And there are myriad other explanations, which do not necessarily compete, but may complement each other. It is another curious paradox that so many disparate groups, culturally and historically simultaneously have their diversity noticed and celebrated, while their disappearance is described by the same unified and overarching story of power.
I do think post-modernism chastens us moderns, though I suspect in a hundred years time we will see it as late modern rather than postmodern. I don’t think it has sufficient coherence to stand on its own feet, but is a symbiotic parasite with the preceding modern culture, through which relationship both can benefit. The paradoxes at its heart, however, seem to me to be inherently unstable.
That’s just from where I stand.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I suspect you simply view “postmodernism” through a modern lens. Why not try the anti-modern views of C. S. Lewis, a prepostmodernism if you will? If the metanarrative, whichever it is, is a big ship, you might think of Lewis and Derrida or others as simply saying: “We can always torpedo this big thing when the captain goes around claiming that all must get aboard it, because there’s already been an Ark and there are rainbows of grace and promise all around.” Lewis, of course, looked to Myth and to the Tao and to all other such varieties of things like a Christian read of the Hebrew Psalms. The point is that neither he nor the Frenchmen who came after him as post-moderns were ever ever eager to build The Ship. They always were content just poking little or big holes in the Sides. Maybe The Tower (as of Babel) is a better metaphor, but its so phallic and runs us off in a completely different direction. Anti modernists and postmodernists such as Lewis and Derrida absolutely loathed “sufficient coherence” and purposeful, arrogant “standing on one’s own feet.” And they hardly denied the necessity of postmodernism to modernism, as “a symbiotic parasite”–if ever modernism would die, so will po-mo. Same reason that feminists will always be around as long as there is sexism. And that the humble 12 steps of the American-born AA (anonymous) will be around as long as there is alcoholism. The only “meta-narrative” that the “rejection of meta-narratives grows out of” is The modern One, whichever one that still is. Post-modernism will make to you a very frustrating target it seems. It’s not absolute relativism as much as it might be comfortable pluralism. Humility is the key, if I do say so myself. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You know, things none of us really can manufacture in ourself. Which is why some of us are constantly surprised by Joy.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Doug said:
The rejection of meta-narratives grows out of a meta-narrative. And if the truth of “it depends where you stand” depends on where you stand, then sometimes (at least) it’s not true.
N. T. Wrong
Your conclusions rest on a false understanding of the argument against metanarratives.
The criticism of metanarratives is a descriptive: ‘Metanarratives are always open to disruptive critique’. There are always new ‘moves’ being introduced in a language game that change the nature of that game. There always exists powers within these systems that destablilize the capacity for explanation, that signal paralogy.
But a metanarrative is inherently prescriptive: ‘all narratives should be understood within the structure of the metanarrative’.
If one were to oppose a prescriptive with a prescriptive, this would result in the ‘paradox’ (in fact, ‘internal contradiction’) you describe. (I.e. If I say “There should not be metanarratives, I appeal to some higher principle, some “metanarrative” in order to criticise metanarratives). But if I describe the internal mechanism of the metanarrative in such a way as to reveal a paralogism at work (the sublime, the differend, the sign, the event, the ‘jew’, etc, for Lyotard–the coiner of the ‘metanarrative’), this does not involve any prescription of a metanarrative. The conclusions result from demonstration, in the descriptive phrase regimen.
There is no internal contradiction in Lyotard’s opposition to metanarratives. Only when he is misinterpreted as speaking in the prescriptive mode can you come to such a (false) conclusion. Moreover, Lyotard’s central work (The Differend) is based on this very need to distiguish the descriptive from the prescriptive. A reading of Lyotard’s actual words seems to be required, rather than repeating the popularist caricatures of postmodernism.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Just got around to reading Stephan’s manifesto. Hmm, Foucault and the lot might be suspicious of his representations as The Truth about Postmodernism.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
There always exists powers within these systems that destablilize the capacity for explanation, that signal paralogy.
This is why postmodernism comes to a halt and why it has been something of a tired mode of ethics. While some understandings of postmodernism (for there is nothing called “postmodernism” but its very nature is plural) still offer useful methodology for epistemological critique, the problem exists in its ability to effect action. Hence, Habermas who rightly interprets it as a logical telos of certain aspects of modernity is I think quite accurate. Both the Frankfurt school and pragmatism sit on the tangent between modernism and postmodernism and both Habermas and Rorty offer compelling analyses of why postmodernism is a problem and how to act within a different world that we make in spite of our assumptions about truth.
So the question is, if we are to enact Lyotard, what does it actually look like? If knowledge regimes result quite by necessity in paralogy, by what means to we understand truth, beauty, and goodness? It seems that Baudrillard who is truly an intentional postmodern in his later works is the logical conclusion - implosion is the result.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
In answer:
a) there are many people who claim to followers of Derrida, Lyotard, etc, and talk nonsense, employing their buzzwords to write gobbledegook. But I’m not as interested as you in the lowest common denominator. I’m more interested in the better accounts.
b) Lyotard is consistently descriptive. His discussion even of justice is in the terms of definition and possible definitions, paralogism.
And, incidentally, whether any person ‘privileges’ my reading of Lyotard is of no interest to me. Again, you point to imaginary paradoxes derived from caricatures.
Incidentally, on which of Lyotard’s works on metanarratives were your comments based?
May 12th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
if we are to enact Lyotard, what does it actually look like?
Well, if I were to answer that, I would not have enacted Lyotard, would I?
May 12th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I have comparatively little problem with Lyotard’s work of description. I do however, think that if it stays at the level of description it says not only comparatively little, but less than Lyotard derives from it. My comments, however, were geared much more to those (the majority perhaps?) who style themselves post-modern, yet are (a human trait?) fundamentally prescriptive.
Since Derrida is at least as influential as Lyotard in shaping postmodernism, it is difficult for you to offer a defence of postmodernism on the basis of authorial intention. Of course, the dismissal of authorial intention is prescriptive. In my view, Lyotard’s dismissal of metanarratives also ends up being prescriptive. You may disagree, and you may claim that those who claim Lyotard for a prescriptive post-modernism misinterpret him, but who’s to say your interpretation of Lyotard should be privileged?
NB I got through that without any ironic comment on your choice of anonymous identity. I should at least be applauded for restraint.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Oops, sorry a whole bunch of comments came in while I was re-editing mine, and now this looks like a lot of non-conversation. Ironic, huh?
May 12th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Hmmmm … your comments disappear, but my replies to them remain. I hope nobody else tries to follow this.
Does Lyotard say ‘comparatively little’ by making a descriptive criticism rather than a prescriptive criticism? I don’t quite know how you might go about measuring that. I guess it might depend on your own expectations and desire for prescription.
I didn’t mention ‘authorial intention’ - you did. I’m reading a text, not an author.
I’m also not “privileging” my reading. I’m unconcerned about privilege. But, like both Derrida and Lyotard, I do consider it important to make a close reading of texts in question. Like Derrida and Lyotard, I am not a relativist.
May 13th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Maddening, ain’t it? Can I suggest you use your blog to open some of this stuff out for us sceptics?
I gave up, largely, on Lyotard with The Post-modern Condition not long after it was published. Most everything since then has been an occasional dipping in rather than any sustained engagement. I would still argue, however, that, irrespective of foundational texts, postmodernism now is much more the cruder version I’m criticizing than the subtle reading you’re advancing. (Incidentally, ignore my next post if you value your sanity!)
May 13th, 2008 at 12:31 am
I’ll write something about Lyotard on my blog in July.
We devotees of Lyotard are known as Tards.
May 13th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Help. I can’t resist this. If you doubt Lyotard, but then come back to his teaching, are you known as reTards?
May 13th, 2008 at 12:53 am
May 13th, 2008 at 1:12 am
“Well, if I were to answer that, I would not have enacted Lyotard, would I?” And that’s why postmodernism implodes. It is socially anemic. That’s also, incidentally why the emergent conversation will implode as well. It eschews facticity by necessity and therefore jettisons the necessity for action in order to make a situation more plausible in terms of the good. Critical theory and pragmatism correct this problem. Marxism, to a degree, also does this as a critique of postmodernism.
So a the end of my hermetic journey through postmodernism I ask the question “So what?” with Miles Davis playing in the background to give the question some semblance of jouissance.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Thanks for your persistence on this, Doug. You might have noticed that a while back I changed the tag for my blog to “Postmodern perspectives on the globalized Gospel…” There were a couple of reasons for that. First, I wanted to see how people would react (No one did.). Second, I wanted to explore more the idea of postmodernism as a meta-narrative
We are of course blind when identifying the trend that we are “living in.” And though I would never have thought of my self as postmodern, I began to wonder, “What if I am this thing but don’t realize it?” I could say more but I’ll only expose my ignorance to all the names you’ve mentioned above so I’ll save it for my own blog.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:01 am
While I know I have some postmodern ideas, I reject being classified as postmodern (is that a postmodern thing to do?), not least because I don’t want to be associated with a bunch of scholars in leotards.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Postmodern Pooh absolutely the very best book ever written on something (the best other than its companion predecessor The Pooh Perplex which has the better (pooh-ppy) title.)
Hélas! Ni l’un ni l’autre n’est traduit en Français.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Kurk, I’m sure there’s a dreadful bilingual pun there on Pooh and merde just waiting to be made.
May 14th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Poo explains much of postmodernism.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:04 am
It takes a bear of little brain to understand and explain what sends humans of great brain into total confusion!
May 14th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I wondered how long it would take to mention leotards.
From a European evangelical perspective, I love the way that post-modernism is moving us on from endless debates about the timing of the millennium or whether or not evolution or creation is true etc. It’s true that some people still bang on about this stuff, but they are becoming a minority interest. I can’t accept the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth, but I’m very happy to become less certain that I actually know what that truth is in all its minutiae.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I can’t keep up with all the names and philosophies. I see plenty in modernism and postmodernism that causes me to raise my eyebrows. And I see angles in both that I think are important to grapple with, but which also keep me from sitting firmly in either camp (which I suppose would mean that I default more towards postmodernism, whether I want to or not, no?)
I found Eddie’s last sentence to be a helpful summary and articulation of my take on the bits of these discussions that I can follow.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:36 am
There are hints of postmodernism long before the 19th century, and there are hints that modernism will be around long after the 21st. The reality is that globalization has brought about pluralism. I live in China, and there are no signs that postmodernism has made any significant difference. Many of the educated have read Foucault, Derrida, et. al. but were unmoved.
I think that Derrida is clearly anti-modern (along with Lewis as mentioned above), but that Foucault and Lyotard would clearly be postmodern. With that said, I can’t see their influence moving beyond the Western world (and I’m not even sure I would include the eastern edges of the West).
Furthermore, our world has always been pluralistic, we just didn’t have the technology or information to realize it. For instance, much of the ancient eastern religions would more adequately be described using postmodern terms than anything modern (and we have failed time and time again analyzing them through modern lenses).
May 16th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Ranger, I think that you will find much of this movement in pragmatism. James is quite clear in how pragmatism splits the difference between rationalism on the one hand and empiricism on the other. However, Nietzsche is often proposed as the source. best and Kellner do a nice job of tracing this development in their book the Postmodern Turn which I highly recommend as a fantastic primer on several different types of postmodernism, mainly from the cultural/aesthetic side.
BTW the term “postmodern” did begin as an aesthetic principle in architecture.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
[...] a short break, Stephen comes back swinging in response to this post. Fascinatingly, he seems to me to be just as good, if not better, at putting words into my mouth as [...]