Children of Postmodernism

"[S]o we are all, and will forever be, children of postmodernism."
-Postmodernism is dead

Some years ago, the author of a now defunct blog wrote a short post about what he believed to be a Postmodernist movement among Orthodox bloggers, naming this blog along side other blogs, such as Owen White's old blog. At the time, since the piece was written in praise, I did not know what to make of it, as I fancied myself to be a Traditionalist. Well, beyond fancied; I suppose I was a Traditionalist in one of its weird and varied forms which owes its existence to Modernism/Postmodernism. To, once again, bring up the favorite resident Traditionalist as an example, one can look at Fr. Josiah Trenham's style of Traditionalism, which leads him to believe in all sorts of ridiculous anti-scientific ideas and philosophical/ethical anachronisms, but leaves him the room to dedicate homilies to preaching Neo-Liberalism. His Traditionalism is about as traditional as anal sex friendly Theology of the Body. Traditionalism, in many of its incarnations, especially within western Orthodoxy - owing to much of its theological traditions drawing so heavily from Modern and Postmodern philosophy - is nothing more than one of the varied Postmodern schools of thought.

The article above is not particularly good, as most attempts at defining Postmodernism are exercises in lumping arrays of movements, ideas, and philosophical and artistic schools together as one singular force and, often, boogieman. The only realm of Postmodernism with which I have any sort of working knowledge would be certain corners of Literature, where I suppose the author is right in such points as the mixing of high and low culture, though he seems to completely miss the common theme of alienation in the milieu of late Capitalism - a disease it can sometimes document with frightening clarity, but for which it has no cure.

One area in which I do agree with the article is that such developments within Western thinking influence all of us in inescapable ways. One can look at someone like Zizek, who, I hear, sees himself as working against Postmodernism, but whose work - with "high culture" Hegelian/Marxist/Lacanian cultural critiques making use of "low culture" "dirty" jokes, examples drawn from pop culture and porn, slang and vulgar language, and so forth - is nothing other than a "Postmodern" aesthetic. Which is little different than David Foster Wallace mining the depths of the unabridged OED and weaving together intricate stories with philosophical themes, while throwing in slang, obscenity and unflattering descriptions of disproportioned genitalia.

I once was complimented for throwing in a "fuck or a shit, for the common man" into my writing. At the same time, possibly even from this same person, I occasionally get requests to dumb the blog down some, or provide some sort of appendix. The vulgarities that find their way into my writing are really just part of the overall aesthetic, just as my playing around with various "narratives", streams of thought and so on.

The author of the article is wrong in his asinine theory that "Authenticity" has replaced "Postmodernism". Like Traditionalism, the search for authenticity is a form, maybe reaction to, and definitely part of, Postmodernism. That was perhaps the most Postmodern part of my blog, and blogs like the Ochlophobist - the authenticity seeking. The search for some sort of "authentic" way of life, which, despite arguments otherwise, was only a more thought out version of petit-bourgeois kids sitting on the curb, drinking malt liquor out of paper bags, or a crunchy-con's $20/bottle artisanal beer. (And isn't the obsession with the artisan just a rebirth of Arts and Crafts with narratives and petty moralisms?)

One of my favorite Postmodern novels is The Broom of the System. Despite the author's high acclaim, this novel always seems to get mixed reviews. Often the reason why people dislike it is the same reason I like it, that is, the manner in which it is a critique of the bourgeois narrative fetish - much of which concerns a woman who is, more or less, taken by the idea that she is her narrative, and since she feels she has no narrative, does not exist, with the joke being that, as a character in a novel, she is in fact her narrative and she does not exist. In the typical Postmodern way, madness and hilarity ensues. And, isn't that really what authenticity is all about? Finding an unbranded late capital-free "real" narrative about oneself? But then it is all made in relation to capital and is always co-opted by capital, and never anything other than a marketplace consumer decision, whether of idea, religion or product. Hipster drinks PBR to be authentic, big capital buys and markets PBR. My grandpa drank PBR, not because he was more authentic or untouched by capital. PBR has always been a product of capital. He chose the product because it was cheap, and was deemed cool/socially acceptable by his proletarian peers.

Is Postmodernism over? Probably. The last hurrah was likely the 90's. If Postmodernism is dead, it was not "Authenticity", but the internet that killed it.