In response to the Malpas reading, I would have to consider myself a mix of both modern and postmodern, leaning more towards postmodern. Of the words listed on pg.7 by Ihab Hassan, I can relate more easily to the words in the postmodernism column: play, chance, anarchy, antiform, desire, mutant, schizophrenia, difference, in contrast to the words in the modernist column. As Malpas goes on to discuss, the modernist words evoke ideas of “closure and rigid organization (8)” while the postmodern words exhibit a more openness.
The most telling point I got out of the reading is that both modern and postmodern seek to display the dirty secrets of a culture or society. They both seem to represent a quest for truth about human nature, government, and power by displaying disfunctionality. As the world becomes smaller due to media and technology, the hidden taboos of a society or culture become harder and harder to hide, and modernism and postmodernism attempt to bring these disfunctions to light. I am all in favor of airing out dirty laundry, so these forms of doing such are very appealing to me. I know that I personally dont fit a particular “norm”, and would not want to be classified or put into a box. Further on in the reading, Malpas brings up the criticism of Lyotard who compares modern and postmodern to the “sublime” as oppose to the “beautiful.”Lyotard goes on to say “The postmodern artist of writer is in the position of a philosopher: the text he writes or the work he creates is not in principle governed by preestablished rules and cannot be judged. . . such rules and categories are what the work or text is investigating.Lyotard is implying that postmodern represents the exploration of society and the rules that guide it, at the same time as attempting to destroy them.
The line that stood out to me the most during the reading was that postmodernism “presents culture as a continually mutating entity that is made up of a series of challenges and readjustments (31).” Society evolves, individuals evolve, thought evolves, and postmodernism is just another stop on the evolutionary journey.
September 3, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Hi Misty,
I like your interpretation of a modern and postmodern “airing [of] dirty laundry.” I too find both appealing in that regard. I get all giddy when the drapery drops on the Great and Powerful Oz, revealing the wimpy, little wizard-punk he truly is.
My only concern with postmodernism comes into play when fiction mixes with history and truth is only relative to the elements contained within the story. Last night I watched The Last King of Scotland, a movie about the former Ugandan President and ruthless dictator, Idi Amin. The story follows a young Scottish doctor who becomes aid to the president and ensnared within his twisted world. Using Amin and his slaughter of 300,000 Ugandans from the late 60′s to the early 70′s as an historical backdrop, I was initially unaware that the doctor was a fictitious device. In fact, one of the most disturbing events in the movie involves the doctor and the president’s second wife, Kay. It was created by the film crew to “represent” the evil side of Amin. The event itself never occurred.
Why was this mix of fiction and reality troubling for me? Because the DVD extra features spoke of the children of Uganda and their lack of historical education. One Ugandan, an extra on location, said that his father, murdered by Amin’s army, had been buried in a mass grave. He knew, first hand, the problems associated with this vile and vicious government figure. He was glad that the children of Uganda could now learn of how Amin came to power and what it took to oust him so they wouldn’t ever let it happen again. If this movie is the only historical reference for uneducated children, how will they come to know which parts of this depiction are real or unreal?
So what IS the best way to educate the future citizens of the world? I have no idea. My head is spinning. I guess, in this case, I agree with Jameson that historical credibility is in danger of being lost thanks to postmodern representation. And then I’m in conflict with myself because I also agree with the value of Hutcheon’s “historiographic metafiction” where “[fiction's] focus on history opens up problems about the access to a ‘true past’ as a way of denaturalising present ideas and institutions” (26). Maybe the central ideas, and not necessarily the “facts,” are enough.
September 4, 2007 at 6:33 am
i like the idea of the two ism pulling out the dirty secrets of society. i wonder if this is really a new idea? there have always been unconvetional people in society that have tried to uncover what the mainstream doesn’t know. but maybe this is the first time in history that out mainstream entertainment has been this “dirty laundry”. could this be the overload of information and stimulation that society has given us? now we have to seek the worst part of society to be interested since we are so desensitised?
September 5, 2007 at 2:34 pm
I like the quote you pulled from Lyotard- the postmod product puts into play the text or subject it is attacking. So, there is a purpose- but, is there a path to the purpose. Is there a how to book on being a postmod? Postmodernism for dummies? If you don’t throw anything eccentric into your investigation as a postmodern thinker then wouldn’t it just be modern? Both schools of criticism bring lite to cultural trends or taboos, but in different manners (I think). Your breakdown of the text helped me gain some control over what I tried to digest. Gracias.
October 16, 2007 at 5:18 am
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