is 'modernism' the reigning american, possibly world, discourse?

this is key, i assume.

So anyway, the "most powerful men in the world" use whatever means they can to achieve their nefarious ends. If you're a politician you might find metanarratives useful to frame events in your country's history to pretend it's all part of destiny. You can believe it or not yourself - if you don't and you're aware of how your rhetoric works, then you'd be emloying postmodernist modes, I guess. If you're e.g. an ad exec, an understanding of postmodernist frames of creativity might be more helpful in coming up with a campaign, or you might seek to situate the product's narrative in a metanarrative. Or both.

Discourses don't reign, really. I know it's a metaphor but I'm not sure it reflects the discourse different discourses have with each other. It's not a matter of whether modernism or postmodernism has the upper hand - some academics don't "believe" in po/mo but it's just their tough luck that it exists. More people use modernist expressions than postmodernist, but the generation of children now have pretty much been brought up in a self-reflexive kind of media culture and it won't be an issue for them.

xpost

Postmodernism is incompatible or useless faced with 11 September 2001 because you can't hope to stop a plane flying into a building by shouting at it: "I'm having a different experience of these events than the person standing next to me and there's no such thing as objectivity." As far as the aftermath goes, I think there's a clear choice: See the world in absolutes and continue the death and destruction; or try and understand more clearly why people see the world differently to you and hope to address the points of conflict which arise between viewpoints. This, I believe, is a practical and U&K use for postmodernist politics. Again, I'm arbitrarily creating a narrative which says if you don't believe in relativism you're a bad person.

could you say that postmodernisms at least.. sleeping? save.. i don't know, "curb your enthusiasm"? (okay okay, and a whole mess of other things)

xxxpost

Postmodernism is awake or alive or whatever in all expressions of culture from art to politics because nobody can help being self-reflexive, self-referential, meta etc. The most conservative, reactionary, anti-philosophical politician displays this by wondering what s/he should wear for best effect on tv. Another way of phrasing your question, or maybe what I think you're hinting at at any rate, is: Will (meta)narratives always be employed? The answer to that is yes, I believe. Will people be increasingly aware of the multiplicity of consciousnesses and associated relativism? Yes. Will people always believe in gods? Probably.

Postmodern identity politics -- the somewhat narcissistic splitting off of minorities on the grounds of race, gender and sexual orientation, their renegotiation of their social status, and their attempts to induce guilt and reparation in the host culture -- has become a horrible parody of itself in today's US, where it has reached the elites and turned itself completely inside out. For, strange as it is to say, the current US administration is run by a minority group who have put their single-issue interests ahead of all others, and are militant about it. Like gays in the 70s, they refuse to feel guilty. Like feminists, they harp on their victimhood (9/11 being their symbolic 'rape'), and like the black power movement they demand empowerment and reparation. It's a ghastly parody of identity politics, a parody which means that the actual appeals of actual minority groups will fall on deaf ears. For there is no longer a liberal-humanist 'father' at the centre of 'patriarchy'. There is a reckless and irresponsible 'son' who thinks he's just as big a victim as anyone else. It is both the culmination and the end of identity politics.

More in these essays:

The US becomes 'situated'

Stigma on steroids

As far as Marxism providing a more useful frame for understanding - seeing everything in terms of class is pretty similar to seeing everything in terms of gender. I reject Marxism in the sense that I don't believe in the destiny of any class at all. On the other hand I find Marxism really valuable as a tool among many.

oh xpost.... There's too much for me to discuss right now. I'll come back later

But because of the high visibility of those minorities in the era of late 20th century identity politics, the American public doesn't think they're 'disenfranchised' or 'voiceless' at all. They think they're powerful and strident. The term 'political correctness' arrived in the late 80s to mark the point at which people thought it had become impossible to speak in any language but the language of identity politics, reparation, and the guilt the establishment should feel about its long persecution of blacks, women and gays. At from the moment that term 'political correctness' took hold, the backlash began. Very cleverly, the right co-opted the very techniques that minorities had used. They exploited the fears militant minorities (often articulate, affluent, middle class and urban) stirred in the poor, and formed an alliance between the super-rich and the very poor. Now the super-rich and the poor are in league against the militant minorities they both hate. They're holding hands, as it were, over their heads. And they're both wreaking revenge for the long years in which the militant minorities seemed to become a new orthodoxy, and seemed to make identities like 'white male' or 'Christian' seem tantamount to crimes.

A political movement based on classic Marxist class consciousness, if we can imagine such a thing in America, would not have allowed the opposition to get so scattered, or lose touch so badly with the working classes.

Bush fils has been stupid enough to dispense with such meta-narratives. Tough talk and tough action plays well to his electoral base, but very badly everywhere else. Very few believe that democracy is being brought with bombs. The battle raging right now against Iraqi citizens in Falluja is proof enough of that. Without meta-narratives like legitimacy, liberalism, and the appearance of disinterestedness, you cannot run an empire, no matter how much military force you have.

Ahimsa isn't just applicable to violent situations - it encompasses all aspects of life, but is especially useful in political discourse. The left, and it's allied 'special interest' groups must face face hatred with calmness, understanding and firm resolve. The humility necessary to use ahimsa could help diffuse the rights fear of the left's power, while I believe that such techniques are the best way for common humanity to cut through ideological fogs. Practically, such techniques are difficult, but non-violence training has taken place in the US before, during the civil rights movement, and I think everyone would benefit from a new, large scale training in ahimsa. There are other areas I see a key need for ahimsa (the death of Arafat could open the way for a palestinian Gandhi, if that is what people would want and strive for. A nonviolent Palestine couldn't fail to overcome the occupation) but at the moment I've just been thinking about the US, and was wondering what people think the problems are with such an approach.

Again, I simplify, and this is to say nothing of the way in which Bush's "crusade for freedom" is indeed fueled by concealed (though all too obvious) geopolitical aims, not to mention the psychic need for vengeance. But the metanarrative -- "we shall free the Muslim people" -- has been invoked again and again.

I'd also be more hesitant to equate "postmodernism" with "identity politics" of any sort, left or right. But "I know what you mean", and no doubt you know the difference, so in this context I'm probably being too pedantic.

Pretty much OTM with everything apart from the dorky feminism comment. To think that feminism is the stance of a victim, you must pretty much define womanhood as a litany of complaints. Feminism is the stance for people who do not want women to be victims but feel it is decent to help them if that's what they have become due to the machinations of others.

A decade ago, I wrote about the emerging movement of European-American clubs and warned that in these groups we could see "the outlines of things to come" (Families on the Fault Line). The clubs themselves faded away, but the consciousness of self as "other," an idea that had been alien to whites of any class until identity politics came to dominate political life, took root and evolved into what we see today: America's white working and lower-middle class claiming for itself the status of another aggrieved group, only this time the largest in the land. And unlike earlier working-class movements of discontent, it isn't the bosses or the corporations or even the government that are the target of their anger, it's us, "the liberal elite."

by insisting on political correctness, we not only played a part in impoverishing the national discourse but, in doing so, we also marginalized ourselves politically and lost what should have been our natural constituency. Our belief that we had to hold the line lest it crumble completely, our fear that by granting any legitimacy at all to the pervasive cultural anxiety of the time we would give fuel to the enemy led us to take positions on many issues that damaged our credibility with a considerable portion of the American public.

My analysis is a bit different. I think political correctness and identity politics actually won the day, but with an unforeseen outcome: they were embraced by the enemy, the right, who managed to portray themselves (and, post 9/11, America itself) as the ultimate "victim". After 9/11 it became Americans, rather than, say, homosexuals or the disabled, against whom it was taboo to utter a single negative word.

Now, PC culture is all about "spin". It's too late to retreat from postmodernism, spin, mediation etc and go back to promoting old fashioned Marxist (and Modernist) concepts like "class consciousness". That's over, gone, at least in America. There, the only chance left for any kind of liberalism is to advance further into Postmodern culture, become masters of spin, masters of image, promote Florida's "three Ts", and, finally, give everybody in the world the chance to become a mediator, a postmodern subject, a pseudo-celebrity asshole. I'm talking about Senegalese and Taiwanese Nathan Barleys, Filippino tourists, Thai yuppies, Saudi Arabian food court schleppers, Myanmar mall shoppers, and every one of them a legend on his or her own website. Just one proviso: the playing-field for this global poncery must be level, and the consumption must be sustainable.

that said, i see much more modernist angst/alienation from the "liberal elite" or whatever than from conservative/religious people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html

this is wild!

what momus says upthread interestingly echoed, in part, here: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/wi05/rubin.htm (Lillian B. Rubin's "why don't they listen to us"). the relevant excerpt:

A decade ago, I wrote about the emerging movement of European-American clubs and warned that in these groups we could see "the outlines of things to come" (Families on the Fault Line). The clubs themselves faded away, but the consciousness of self as "other," an idea that had been alien to whites of any class until identity politics came to dominate political life, took root and evolved into what we see today: America's white working and lower-middle class claiming for itself the status of another aggrieved group, only this time the largest in the land. And unlike earlier working-class movements of discontent, it isn't the bosses or the corporations or even the government that are the target of their anger, it's us, "the liberal elite."

surprisingly prescient pre-tea-party otmness there

but, yeah, that article goole posted is fascinating & quietly mind-blowing:

This philistinism [America's public hostility to "modern art"], combined with Joseph McCarthy's hysterical denunciations of all that was avant-garde or unorthodox, was deeply embarrassing. It discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy. It also prevented the US government from consolidating the shift in cultural supremacy from Paris to New York since the 1930s. To resolve this dilemma, the CIA was brought in.

The connection is not quite as odd as it might appear. At this time the new agency, staffed mainly by Yale and Harvard graduates, many of whom collected art and wrote novels in their spare time, was a haven of liberalism when compared with a political world dominated by McCarthy or with J Edgar Hoover's FBI. If any official institution was in a position to celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that made up the New York School, it was the CIA.

runs so radically counter to my received ideas about the CIA.

"We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do, and what you must paint, which was what was going on in the Soviet Union. I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War."

awesome

That article is mindblowing!

reminds me vaguely/indirectly of a not-so-recent print magazine article about the "information graphics" produced for fortune magazine during its first few decades. beautiful stuff, hardly abstract expressionism, but excellent, forward-thinking design that frequently reads as fine art. this passion for excellence in art & design is said to have been a key component of the magazine's identity, at least in the mind of founder henry luce, who saw these qualities as reflections of american excellence in commerce. i assume there wasn't a great deal of license for self-expression in the creation of these materials, but within the rather rigid functional constraints, the artists & designers, many of them leaders in their fields, were apparently granted a great deal of exploratory freedom.

sad that the divide between american business and conservatism on the one hand and american art on the other has grown so vast in the decades since. owes largely to the upheavals of the 60s and subsequent "culture war" bullshit, i suppose, but perhaps we can also blame the nascent CIA's success in championing american artistic freedoms overseas. ironic, if so...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Paid-Piper-Cultural-Cold/dp/1862073279

^ this is the book. Haven't read it myself, just seen it mentioned in reviews and the like.

I've seen bits and bobs regarding shady funding for Darmsdadt but nothing really proven either way, or so that was the conclusion I could make out at the time.

i read the book

the author was the first real-world editor to give me work, a long long long time ago

it's interesting! think i'd appreciate reading it more now, coz the names would be more familiar to me [via wikipedia]

it's a fair bit to do with 'encounter' magazine, which was revealed as taking money through the cia back in the 1960s, by 'ramparts' iirc, then nyrb

there are nice ironies in the story -- plenty of european art is state-subsidized, plenty of european culture is protected by state action, but one wouldn't call it 'a weapon in the cold war', largely out of habit

some of the early cia bros were pretty dedicated high-culture types

Any recommendations for books on modernism, from fin-de-siecle up to say the '20s? Preferably lighter on the philosophy, heavier on the history. Bonus points if it talks about the Paris premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps.