I've been in a retro mood lately. Below is a retro offering for those of us of a certain age. Enjoy this blast from the past (hat tip to FJ, who left the link in the comments section here at Always On Watch):
Yes, in this transition to a new metamodern age (following our current post-modern age) we have become sick of the post-modern tendency to dismiss all singular objective truth claims and re-express them as a result of some multiplicity of subjective hidden (not Divine) power mechanism (ie- white supremacy).
Our transition to a post-post-modern age will be one of performatism, an across-the-board cultural reaction to post-modernism that began in the 1990's. It can be described as an epochal development that replaces post-modern "irony and skepticism" with artistically mediated belief and the experience of transcendence. A good formal definition of the 'performance' in performatism is that it demonstrates with aesthetic means the possibility of transcending the conditions of a given (post-modern) frame. This goes back to the Latin root per forma, which means doing things through form. This suggests that narrative works of art are using formal means to create fictional conditions for experiencing love, beauty, transcendence, and similar positive states of social interaction.
The "Life of Pi" is a good example of this. Which story do you choose to believe? The one with the evil cook, or the one with the tiger? Aren't both stories "true to their frame" with one "more aestheticized" than the other? Is there not a "truth in fiction" that comes through?
We've grown tired of dwelling upon the mendacity of the petty, evil and rather mundane minds and subjective motives of men. We want to rise above it and live in a "better" world, ruled by "good" intentions towards us, and towards all humanity. Post-modernism prevented that.
And so some retreat into into nostalgia. Others posit new frames with new possibilities. The transition to metamodernism is performative, experimental, artistic. We may return to a 'Christian" frame for our narrative, or progress to something new.
...but it won't likely result in a "singular" or "universal/ global" framing narrative (much as Christianity or Islam was). It will likely be 'Meta'. We will have to learn to live with and trust in others, as well as learn to contend and cope with the violent and hostile frames that 'Others' choose to adopt.
“When I hear ‘culture’.I unlock my Browning!.”(“Wenn ich Kultur höre.entsichere ich meinen Browning!”)- Hanns Johst (1890-1978) German playwright and Nazi SS officer.
HENRY MILLER’S GENIUS VARIATION: “When I hear the word Culture I reach for my revolver. Remember that? So, too, when I hear the word Genius. ”Henry Miller (1891-1980) American novelist and painter In Henry Miller on Writing (1964)
GROUCHO’S VERSION: “When I hear the word culture I reach for my wallet!” Attributed to Groucho Marx American comedian, writer, stage, film, radio, and television performer Attributed to Groucho in Urban History: Volume 22(1995), published by Cambridge University Press
THE POSTMODERN VARIATION: “When I hear the word ‘postmodern’ I reach for the remote control. I want to change channels immediately, before I get instantaneously and totally bored. ”McKenzie Wark Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at The New School in New York City In his book Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events(1994)
A WINE LOVER’S VERSION: “When I hear the word culture I don’t reach for an Uzi, I reach for a corkscrew and a bottle of venerable and well chilled sauterne. Viniculture. Noble rot, mutating nobler by the minute. ”Glenn O’Brien American journalist In an article included in his book Soapbox: Essays, Diatribes, Homilies and Screeds(1997)
A PRODUCER’S VIEW OF GOVERNMENT: “It is unlikely that the government reaches for a revolver when it hears the word culture. The more likely response is to search for a dictionary. ”David Glencross (1936-2007) Television executive and producer for Britain’s ITV Comment at the Royal Television Society conference on the future of television in November 1988 Quoted in the Oxford Essential Quotations Dictionary (1998)
A LOVE HATER’S VERSION:“When I hear the word love, I reach for my revolver.”Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American-born novelist, screenwriter and playwright Quoted in the bookS and M, Studies in Sadomasochism (1983), edited by Thomas S. Weinberg and G. W. Levi Kamel
STEPHEN HAWKING’S CAT QUIP:“When I hear of Schrödinger’s cat, I reach for my pistol. ”Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) British theoretical physicist and cosmologistA favorite Hawking quip that ’soften mentioned in articles about him. It refers to Erwin Schrödinger’s famed “thought experiment” about a catthat is simultaneous dead and alive. The “Schrödinger’s cat” paradox highlights a problem inherent in certain aspects of quantum theory.
Atheists and agnostics reject the notion, but we all have a God-shaped hole. God fits perfectly, but like selfish and stubborn little kids with the wooden puzzle toy, we try to pound the wrong shapes (illicit sex, drugs, materialism, power) into the hole with our little wooden hammers.
This is the kind of nonsense we get when we abandon God, religion and the social mores that flow from there. Society benefited even from the hypocritical acknowledgement and respect of the culture by non-believers. (See La Rochefoucauld)
We have always had sinful behavior, but people who indulged in it at least gave a respectful nod to societal morals by retreating to hidden dens of iniquity (that all adults knew about anyway) to engage in their sinful behaviors.
The West is now entering a neo-pagan age. Lord help us.
I hate to say this, but the global reach of our highly-efficiently-scaled corporations in the "developed" world severely diminish the opportunities for business and commercial success of second and third-world economies. Ultimately, this is why the "Arab Spring" in Tunisia started. Poor/ average citizens in these countries have been deprived of most means of making ends meet. Their home-grown and inefficiently-produced products cannot compete with a can of mechanized-farmed and mass-canned and transported canned or frozen vegetables from first world agro-businesses like Libby's or General Mills.
The "holy grail" of pursuing aggregate efficiencies (progressivism) must end. It requires both greater authoritarianism and leads to an unhealthy level of "cultural homogenization".
Interesting... I was just looking at "Howdy Doody Times." We yearn for the simpler times. At least we had a childhood which is more than I can say for the kids today.
Simplicity is the great promise of out "Society of Control" if you can credit the arguments of Adam Curtis' "Hypernormalisation" and "Can't Get you Out of my Head".
HyperNormalisation” tells the story of how politicians, financiers and “technological utopians” constructed a fake world over the last four decades in an attempt to maintain power and control. Their fake world is simpler than the real world by design, and as a result people went along with it because the simplicity was reassuring.
@AOW I yearn for those times. I am sad our children and grandchildren can no longer be children but are forced into cyber space with school computers and tablets and at home too, not to mention cell phones. Furthermore, when I tried introducing my granddaughter to this video some time back and other "innocent videos" she said they were boring. Truly sad. I miss those days and after my daddy died I was depressed I watched a Disney movie with Annette Funicello, one of her original ones when she came from the farm to live with her aunt and uncle in the city. After that I watched Family from the 1970's. Made me feel closer to a time when God and people mattered. Neighbors cared and sat in front of their homes in the evening and were neighborly. When you went to the grocery store they thanked you for your patronage. Today is disgusting. I would rather live in lala land looking at the good ole days than the sick and perverted ways of today. Kids are no longer kids. Post more of these oldies but goodies. I love it!
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Yes, in this transition to a new metamodern age (following our current post-modern age) we have become sick of the post-modern tendency to dismiss all singular objective truth claims and re-express them as a result of some multiplicity of subjective hidden (not Divine) power mechanism (ie- white supremacy).
ReplyDeleteOur transition to a post-post-modern age will be one of performatism, an across-the-board cultural reaction to post-modernism that began in the 1990's. It can be described as an epochal development that replaces post-modern "irony and skepticism" with artistically mediated belief and the experience of transcendence. A good formal definition of the 'performance' in performatism is that it demonstrates with aesthetic means the possibility of transcending the conditions of a given (post-modern) frame. This goes back to the Latin root per forma, which means doing things through form. This suggests that narrative works of art are using formal means to create fictional conditions for experiencing love, beauty, transcendence, and similar positive states of social interaction.
The "Life of Pi" is a good example of this. Which story do you choose to believe? The one with the evil cook, or the one with the tiger? Aren't both stories "true to their frame" with one "more aestheticized" than the other? Is there not a "truth in fiction" that comes through?
We've grown tired of dwelling upon the mendacity of the petty, evil and rather mundane minds and subjective motives of men. We want to rise above it and live in a "better" world, ruled by "good" intentions towards us, and towards all humanity. Post-modernism prevented that.
And so some retreat into into nostalgia. Others posit new frames with new possibilities. The transition to metamodernism is performative, experimental, artistic. We may return to a 'Christian" frame for our narrative, or progress to something new.
It should prove to be an interesting journey.
...but it won't likely result in a "singular" or "universal/ global" framing narrative (much as Christianity or Islam was). It will likely be 'Meta'. We will have to learn to live with and trust in others, as well as learn to contend and cope with the violent and hostile frames that 'Others' choose to adopt.
Delete...and as in coping with 'the others'... some Caritas may be in line.
Delete"Culture is, before all things, the unity of artistic style, in every expression of the life of a people." - Nietzsche
Delete“Culture” is the name for all those things we practice without really believing in them, without taking them quite seriously." - Slavoj Zizek
This is the "culture war" we've been fighting.
“When I hear ‘culture’.I unlock my Browning!.”(“Wenn ich Kultur höre.entsichere ich meinen Browning!”)- Hanns Johst (1890-1978) German playwright and Nazi SS officer.
DeleteHENRY MILLER’S GENIUS VARIATION: “When I hear the word Culture I reach for my revolver. Remember that? So, too, when I hear the word Genius. ”Henry Miller (1891-1980) American novelist and painter In Henry Miller on Writing (1964)
GROUCHO’S VERSION: “When I hear the word culture I reach for my wallet!” Attributed to Groucho Marx American comedian, writer, stage, film, radio, and television performer Attributed to Groucho in Urban History: Volume 22(1995), published by Cambridge University Press
THE POSTMODERN VARIATION: “When I hear the word ‘postmodern’ I reach for the remote control. I want to change channels immediately, before I get instantaneously and totally bored. ”McKenzie Wark Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at The New School in New York City In his book Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events(1994)
A WINE LOVER’S VERSION: “When I hear the word culture I don’t reach for an Uzi, I reach for a corkscrew and a bottle of venerable and well chilled sauterne. Viniculture. Noble rot, mutating nobler by the minute. ”Glenn O’Brien American journalist In an article included in his book Soapbox: Essays, Diatribes, Homilies and Screeds(1997)
A PRODUCER’S VIEW OF GOVERNMENT: “It is unlikely that the government reaches for a revolver when it hears the word culture. The more likely response is to search for a dictionary. ”David Glencross (1936-2007) Television executive and producer for Britain’s ITV Comment at the Royal Television Society conference on the future of television in November 1988 Quoted in the Oxford Essential Quotations Dictionary (1998)
A LOVE HATER’S VERSION:“When I hear the word love, I reach for my revolver.”Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American-born novelist, screenwriter and playwright Quoted in the bookS and M, Studies in Sadomasochism (1983), edited by Thomas S. Weinberg and G. W. Levi Kamel
STEPHEN HAWKING’S CAT QUIP:“When I hear of Schrödinger’s cat, I reach for my pistol. ”Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) British theoretical physicist and cosmologistA favorite Hawking quip that ’soften mentioned in articles about him. It refers to Erwin Schrödinger’s famed “thought experiment” about a catthat is simultaneous dead and alive. The “Schrödinger’s cat” paradox highlights a problem inherent in certain aspects of quantum theory.
Perhaps some of the aesthetics from the old Micky Mouse Club will be retained... who knows?
DeleteLet's just hope that the "commercialism" that influenced and taught "how" and "what" kid's should desire, does not.
Delete...sorry, Coca-Cola!
DeleteAtheists and agnostics reject the notion, but we all have a God-shaped hole. God fits perfectly, but like selfish and stubborn little kids with the wooden puzzle toy, we try to pound the wrong shapes (illicit sex, drugs, materialism, power) into the hole with our little wooden hammers.
DeleteThis is the kind of nonsense we get when we abandon God, religion and the social mores that flow from there. Society benefited even from the hypocritical acknowledgement and respect of the culture by non-believers. (See La Rochefoucauld)
DeleteWe have always had sinful behavior, but people who indulged in it at least gave a respectful nod to societal morals by retreating to hidden dens of iniquity (that all adults knew about anyway) to engage in their sinful behaviors.
The West is now entering a neo-pagan age. Lord help us.
I hate to say this, but the global reach of our highly-efficiently-scaled corporations in the "developed" world severely diminish the opportunities for business and commercial success of second and third-world economies. Ultimately, this is why the "Arab Spring" in Tunisia started. Poor/ average citizens in these countries have been deprived of most means of making ends meet. Their home-grown and inefficiently-produced products cannot compete with a can of mechanized-farmed and mass-canned and transported canned or frozen vegetables from first world agro-businesses like Libby's or General Mills.
Deleteps- The French eat culture all the time, from stinky frommages to yucky escargots...
DeleteThe "holy grail" of pursuing aggregate efficiencies (progressivism) must end. It requires both greater authoritarianism and leads to an unhealthy level of "cultural homogenization".
DeleteSometimes even some highly polarizing figures can help elucidate our predicament by giving it some historical context.
Delete:)
DeleteWell said, Farmer. Global corporations are destroying societies worldwide.
DeleteOur world won't end if we can no longer get strawberries out of season.
Interesting... I was just looking at "Howdy Doody Times." We yearn for the simpler times. At least we had a childhood which is more than I can say for the kids today.
ReplyDeleteBunkerville,
DeleteWe yearn for the simpler times.
I hear ya!
I had such an idyllic childhood. That kind of childhood is no longer possible in the shadow of even a small metropolis now.
Simplicity is the great promise of out "Society of Control" if you can credit the arguments of Adam Curtis' "Hypernormalisation" and "Can't Get you Out of my Head".
DeleteHyperNormalisation” tells the story of how politicians, financiers and “technological utopians” constructed a fake world over the last four decades in an attempt to maintain power and control. Their fake world is simpler than the real world by design, and as a result people went along with it because the simplicity was reassuring.
"Russia bad... invade Ukraine." Simple.
Delete@AOW I yearn for those times. I am sad our children and grandchildren can no longer be children but are forced into cyber space with school computers and tablets and at home too, not to mention cell phones. Furthermore, when I tried introducing my granddaughter to this video some time back and other "innocent videos" she said they were boring. Truly sad. I miss those days and after my daddy died I was depressed I watched a Disney movie with Annette Funicello, one of her original ones when she came from the farm to live with her aunt and uncle in the city. After that I watched Family from the 1970's. Made me feel closer to a time when God and people mattered. Neighbors cared and sat in front of their homes in the evening and were neighborly. When you went to the grocery store they thanked you for your patronage. Today is disgusting. I would rather live in lala land looking at the good ole days than the sick and perverted ways of today. Kids are no longer kids. Post more of these oldies but goodies. I love it!
Delete