Since I first heard the words 'Post Modern' uttered, I've yearned to know their meaning.
And thanks to the help of many wonderful people, I finally don't understand it.
I don't understand the poetry of E.E. Cummings.
I don't understand the writings of Thomas Pynchon.
I don't understand the art of wiping your ass with a canvas.
I just don't fucking get it.
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post modernism is so hilarious I was in a class about post modernism and the teacher couldn't explain it properly. all he basically said was: it runs concurrent with modernism and modernism exists still...and ugh. i failed that class.
ReplyDeleteo conceptual art.
-kt
postmodernism, up until recently has been widely used as a catch-all term for everything late-20th century and kitsch. the term is so fucking conflated it makes me sick, but if we're talking pomo and art/philosophy, it's pretty well defined in the academic world - no so much in pop culture.
ReplyDeletein theory it's pretty much just a mixed-bag of disillusionment with late capitalist ideologies, a reaction against "metanarratives" (see jean francois lyotard) meaning grand cultural ideologies of unity, and generally a touting of relativism and forms of individuality reacting against the strict taxonomy of modernism. we're living in postmodernity, or post-postmodernity post-millennium whatever, and we can't escape its influence. in art, for instance, it has manifested itself in experimental forms like bizarre cyberpoetics, self-referential and culturally referential themes, intense cyclical parody and irony, and a general fragmentation of traditional norms in the art world up until the mid seventies when the theory revolution hit and pynchon put out gravity's rainbow.
i think people would respect the word "post-modern" a hell of a lot more once idiots stop attaching it to everything kitsch. people toss me shit all the time saying "oh, you'll love it, it's so post-modern" but it almost never is and i wonder where the hell these people got their info.
pomo is old news, though, and post-millennium we're seeing the reaction against the cynicism and disillusionment of pomo in the new sincerity movement. blog about that.
anyway this comment is a long bastardization of complex contemporary concepts and i shouldn't be discussing theory in a forum like this because people will undoubtedly call me pretentious. i hate that word even more than i hate the word "post-modern".
now this has become a rant and not a comment. i love e.e. cummings, tim. so should you. i'm writing my thesis on postmodernism in canadian fiction and poetry so if you need help, i'm always here.
you're so pomo it hurts. irony sucks.