/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11199470]

Define post-modernism

[Anonymous No.11199474]

After modernism

[Anonymous No.11199481]

pretend you believe in nothing to confuse your opponents

[Anonymous No.11199484]

A response to the response to capitalism which considered the first response to be inefficient towards its aims.

[Anonymous No.11199494]

>>11199484
what are the aims?

[Anonymous No.11199495]

>>11199484
what the aims of postmodernism?

[Anonymous No.11199496]

>>11199484
Thats relativistic and not a real definition tho

[Anonymous No.11199498]

Beyond modernism

[Anonymous No.11199504]

>>11199494
>>11199495
A world of pure simulacra.

[Anonymous No.11199511]

There is modernism, antimodernism and postmodernism. The latter of the three is just like antimodernism, but faster!

[Anonymous No.11199514]

>>11199504
sounds icky

[Anonymous No.11199515]

>>11199470
When people disagree with Jordan B Peterson

[Anonymous No.11199518]

>>11199481
Mostly. I think it is kind of like a radical acception of that "you cannot know anything" meme. Essentially because we cannot know the universe at it's most basic level, no interpretation can be objectively identified as superior to another, and thus nothing is more accurate than anything else.

[Anonymous No.11199534]

>>11199496
>Thats relativistic
Well yeah, it's postmodernism.

[Anonymous No.11199544]

Honestly, it means that the narratives humans have told about themselves are either outright false or are half-truths, and that there is really no way to arbitrate a universal narrative that encapsulates all of human history and identity.

[Anonymous No.11199558]

>>11199544
sophists 2.0?

[Anonymous No.11199561]

>>11199470
my diary desu

[Anonymous No.11199569]

>>11199544
The flaw of this sort of thinking is that it doesn't differentiate between outright false narratives, and narratives that are both useful and mostly true (even if partially false).

[Anonymous No.11199570]

>>11199518
You should probably at least look at wikipedia pages before you try to talk about things you haven't looked at in depth.

>>11199484
I think this is probably the right definition. It's not like postmodernists agree with eachother about anything in particular. Even if you (mostly correctly) attach the "do not believe in intrinsic meaning" label to them, you're only talking about post-structuralism, which is only one segment of postmodern thought.

Who the heck came up with this word anyways?

[Anonymous No.11199578]

>>11199569
you can't evaluate usefulness if there's no truth though

[Anonymous No.11199581]

>>11199570
>You should probably at least look at wikipedia pages before you try to talk about things you haven't looked at in depth.
I've read post-modernists' works, and I never claimed to really understand it.

[Anonymous No.11199583]

>>11199570
>you're only talking about post-structuralism, which is only one segment of postmodern thought.
name the other segments

[Anonymous No.11199590]

>>11199569
It's not a flaw if your goal is to find out what actually is True with a capital T.

While Peterson's pragmatist critique is interesting, it's a red herring. He's essentially just restating a formulation of Plato's noble lie(as are you).

[Anonymous No.11199597]

>>11199590
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/04/the-ignoble-lie

[Anonymous No.11199629]

I don't know about you guys but I started to see a pattern in pseuds way of posting all over /lit/, the way they try to be as vague as possible while using related jargon out of context and not touch on a particular work of someone or something being discussed as to not reveal they have not actually read anything about the topic.
these >>11199484
>>11199504
>>11199518
>>11199570
Being primary examples of it

[Anonymous No.11199630]

>>11199569
Fair... if this was what postmodern thinkers actually said (it's not)

This is the easy, digestible, don't have to take a class watered down summary. If you actually read them, they use this as a premise to critique capitalism and culture.

The irritating college feminists I seem to only find on youtube are giving you the conversational version that can be understood instantly - "Well that's just one interpretation among many!" If this were the focus of Postmodern thought, any postmodern book would be a very boring read past the first few sentences.

Derrida and Baudrillard (haven't read any of the others) didn't come close to stopping with this banality. They instead used it to examine the philosophies we have set up for ourselves (particularly capitalist and marxist philosophies), and critique them.

For example, watering it down (but less than what you said), Baudrillard (at his worst imo) suggested that capitalism constructs a fear of death to bargain people into their philosophical system - "Put in labor for us, and we'll keep you alive longer!"

He goes on to suggest all sorts of nutty ideas, like that people in their natural state do not save and accrue value the way capitalism drives them to, but expend excessively, and seeing death as a part of lie bring death upon themselves through their excessive expenditure to give their own lives meaning.

So yeah, don't believe the anti-postmodern hype. Not saying you'll like or agree with it, but you should at least read some of it so you know it's not the lazy schlock people say it is.

[Anonymous No.11199639]

>>11199597
The problem with this article is that it doesn't get that it's narratives all the way down the rabbit hole; concepts like "working class" or the moral repugnance of inequality are simply stories that are told over and over to young minds, without a shred of evidence of their existence.

And the same applies in the reverse, stories about aristocracy, and the "highly educated" and the "elite", are just the same fantasies.

I'm personally very highly educated, and I can tell you that even the most seemingly educated people are so gripped by their historiographical or ideological narratives that they actually don't even live in the real world(whatever the real world is).

[Anonymous No.11199652]

>>11199630
>The irritating college feminists I seem to only find on youtube are giving you the conversational version that can be understood instantly - "Well that's just one interpretation among many!"
i've never heard a progressive accept alternative narratives though, unless its from brown people which they consider inoffensive, which means it doesn't really count because it has no stakes as they think they can control them on the long term

[Anonymous No.11199660]

>>11199515
this is the patrician definition

[Anonymous No.11199666]

>>11199470
this statement is paradoxical

[Anonymous No.11199668]

>>11199629
Except with modernism, there is nothing to do but to be vague. Look at the fucking people considered modernists and postmodernists. They have little to do with one another. It's all over the place and "postmodernism" is an idiotic label in itself.

[Anonymous No.11199671]

>>11199630
>For example, watering it down (but less than what you said), Baudrillard (at his worst imo) suggested that capitalism constructs a fear of death to bargain people into their philosophical system - "Put in labor for us, and we'll keep you alive longer!"
>He goes on to suggest all sorts of nutty ideas, like that people in their natural state do not save and accrue value the way capitalism drives them to, but expend excessively, and seeing death as a part of lie bring death upon themselves through their excessive expenditure to give their own lives meaning.
Literally basic Marxist jargon from 150 years ago that has nothing to do with Baudrillard, are you sure you've read him or Derrida?

[Anonymous No.11199691]

>>11199629
>People try to summarize a complicated philosophy
>Leave out detail
>My God they're so vague nobody even understands these concepts at all

[Anonymous No.11199701]

>>11199630
Don't you think that people need stories to orient themselves in the world, even if those stories are incapable of encompassing all of the complexities of life? A nihilistic critical approach to civilizational narratives isn't conducive to actually functioning in the world.

[Anonymous No.11199708]

>>11199701

[Anonymous No.11199713]

>>11199701
Not him, but doesn't that depend on what the goal is?

Is your goal to understand the actual truth of existence, or is it to be blissfully happy in ignorance?

I mean, ask yourself. Can you convince yourself of an untruth simply so that you are capable of getting out of bed in the morning?

[Anonymous No.11199723]

>>11199590
>>11199597
A noble lie meant to sow stability isn't the same as a truth that's only partial because no narrative is capable of encompassing the entire world.

[Anonymous No.11199730]

>>11199629
It's normal to use words when you're seeking their definition :)

>>11199583
I don't think there are any other segments that have names. But postmodernism is supposedly the broader category.

[Anonymous No.11199739]

>>11199470
Literature meant to be printed on postcards.

[Anonymous No.11199753]

>>11199730
>I don't think there are any other segments that have names.
other authors that don't fit post-structuralism but fit post-modernism then?

[Anonymous No.11199756]

>>11199691
are you actually implying these anons >>11199701
>>11199713
>>11199723
>>11199730

are discussing anything related to Derrida's critique of binary opposition or Baudrillard's conception of manufactured cultures of copies without originals? because that would be a good place to start if you're making a thread about postmodernism instead of spouting platitudes such as >>11199713
>Is your goal to understand the actual truth of existence, or is it to be blissfully happy in ignorance?
This feels like something straight out of r/philosophy

[Anonymous No.11199769]

>>11199713
>Can you convince yourself of an untruth simply so that you are capable of getting out of bed in the morning?
You sort of have to. It's almost impossible to function with a purely materialist conception of the universe. If it's all for nothing, if free will is an illusion, and if every pleasure and drive was instantiated by natural selection in order to ensure survival and reproduction, then what the fuck is the point of doing anything?

Also, there's a huge difference between an outright lie and a narrative that functions but isn't objectively true.

[Anonymous No.11199778]

>>11199470
More females in movies.

[Anonymous No.11199779]

>>11199756
>>11199756
nicely wikipedia'd

[Anonymous No.11199780]

>>11199671
Not sure I understand you... Are you complaining that what I said was wrong, or too simplified?

If you're complaint is just my "jargon," I'm not going to try to explain symbolic exchange or sign value or anything like that. I don't really understand them! I couldn't nearly do it justice.

But I do believe what I said was the correct

[Anonymous No.11199791]

>>11199756
That would be a great thread if you wanted to talk specifically about Baudrillard or Derrida...

This thread is wondering aloud about what postmodernism is. My suggestion was that a reaction to the reaction to capitalism is the correct definition.

I'd also say that that makes it a useful (i.e. not meaningless) category above post-structuralism.

[Anonymous No.11199806]

>>11199713
Not him, but:
>I mean, ask yourself. Can you convince yourself of an untruth simply so that you are capable of getting out of bed in the morning?
Yes, objectively speaking my life is entirely irrelevant, whether I live or die, suffer or not, is of basically zero consequence to the world.

In order to get up I need some narrative which tells me what I am living towards and that despite any rational objection, I really do matter.

Obviously that is a really bad place to start from if you search for truth, but I see no real alternative.

[Anonymous No.11199807]

>>11199791
How exactly was postmodernism a reaction to capitalism?
>>11199780
what you said is from Marxism, a modernist philosophy that is rejected by postmodern philosophy, Baudrillard himself does not believe that class struggle is the focus of contemporary politics.

[Anonymous No.11199812]

Alright, I've got it. The most concise definition of postmodernism.

Imagine you were a pseud who publishes academic papers for school cred and/or money. You have no idea what writers today are talking about. But you need to sound witty af otherwise you won't get your cred and do re mi. So you decide to come up with a category that no one can understand, but sounds smart, in order to summarize all these people you don't understand. The word "postmodernism" is what you come up with. Voila!

[Anonymous No.11199819]

>>11199756
>This feels like something straight out of r/philosophy

As opposed to your '''''''elitist'''''' ''''''''muh superior and enlightened continental philosophy''''''''?

If you can't even answer a simple question as that, because you consider yourself so highly intelligent and beyond it, perhaps you should consider necking yourself before your head is permanently lodged in your asshole.

[Anonymous No.11199821]

>>11199807
i am not that other guy, but i guess when the other guy says it's a reaction to a reaction to capitalism, he means it's a reaction to marxism failure to deliver or predict anything

[Anonymous No.11199824]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAgT2dNkRFw

[Anonymous No.11199847]

>>11199821
Postmodernism arose as a reaction to modernism not Marxism, and by the time postmodernism was in the rise Marxism was still going strong especially in France (the center of postmodern philosophy), and no one had seen it as a failure yet.

[Anonymous No.11199850]

>>11199807
What I said was not from Marxism. It is from Baudrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death. Maybe capitalism using death as coercion into production is from some Marxist philosopher that I haven't read.

What I took away from Symbolic Exchange and Death was precisely it's rejection of Marxism - that production isn't human's fundamental mode of existence at all, and that Marxism places too central of a role of production in human life.

So I'm still confused as to your objection. What Marxist philosopher coined these before Baudrillard? I'm not denying that my reading might be shallow, but I didn't think it was shallow to the point of incomprehensibility/incorrectness.

[Anonymous No.11199867]

>>11199753
.... no

Ok you caught me. I don't know who else falls into postmodernism! I was just saying what they told me to say! Don't blame me, blame society!

But seriously, I don't really have any clue. I've just been told by people supposedly smarter than me that postmodernism is the loosely defined umbrella term, and post-structuralism is the specific term.

[Anonymous No.11199877]

>>11199847
that's debatable, they may have kept the charade going, but by the late 60s and the 70s when some of those guys started gaining notoriety marxism was basically a joke

[Anonymous No.11199888]

>>11199867
>and post-structuralism is the specific term.
i think even post-structuralism is a meme term invented by the americans, but which was never seriously used back in france to describe anybody

[Anonymous No.11199898]

>>11199807
>How exactly was postmodernism a reaction to capitalism?
The first post itt mentioning capitalism didn't say that postmodernism was a reaction to it. It said that modernism was. More precisely, it was a response to industrialism's and capitalism's effects on society; modernists were concerned with traditions and what they still meant to a society under these conditions, and how they could either liberate us or limit us. But there are postmodernists involved in the critique of ideas that industrialism and capitalism have sprung about too, like Baudrillard and consumerism.

History is not so linear that you can just simply pinpoint the exact causes of certain movements, especially a complex one like modernism. But industrialism, capitalism, social structural changes brought on by pressures from these and the technologies / commodities they gave us and the political reforms they led to, all played a part. Modernism was essentially an attempt to make sense of all these changes and find meaning in them.

[Anonymous No.11199900]

>>11199756
No, I'm implying they are discussing postmodernism more generally and you are being needlessly critical of a brief summary.

[Anonymous No.11199918]

Why does nobody ever ask for a definition of modernism or baroque or romanticism?

[Anonymous No.11199924]

>>11199918
because nobody cares about dead movements

[Anonymous No.11199926]

>>11199850
I wasn't referring to the symbolic and sign value part of your reply, I was talking about your mention of how capitalism coerces people into wage labor indirectly and your notion of commodity fetishism, which are both discussed in Capital Vol.1.
>I'm not going to try to explain symbolic exchange or sign value or anything like that. I don't really understand them! I couldn't nearly do it justice.
Symbolic value implies objects that get their value from a subject (for example a gift you got from your girlfriend has value to only you and for that particular reason)
sign value are objects that draw their value from the system, such as jewelry being associated with high social status and such.

>>11199877
>but by the late 60s and the 70s when some of those guys started gaining notoriety marxism was basically a joke
Foucault published madness and civilization in 1961, Derrida published Of Grammatology in 1967, this was before the 1968 french national strikes and riots that had 20% of the French population taking part in them, in 1969 the french communist party received 21% of the votes and was the 3rd largest party of the country, in the 70s Italy's second largest party was the communist party, I don't see how Marxism being a joke in that time is a valid point.

[Anonymous No.11199928]

>>11199926
the 68 was boomer degeneracy, not that much to do with marxism except for flavor

[Anonymous No.11199938]

>>11199928
Marxists were still quite present in parliamentary election, that is excluding Marxists that are non-parliamentary by ideology such as leftcoms.
Marxism was hardly a joke in the 60s and 70s, to claim that postmodernism was trying to fill Marxism's place because the latter became a joke has no factual evidence to it.

[Anonymous No.11199940]

>>11199924
But 80% of the texts that /lit/ reads were written before pomo, surely they care about those eras.

[Anonymous No.11199955]

>>11199940
you can care about the works, but not the movements

[Anonymous No.11199963]

>>11199470
Best definition is from Jameson the great
> a periodizing concept whose function is to correlate the emergence of new formal features in culture with the emergence of a new type of social life and economic order

[Anonymous No.11199969]

>>11199963
nobody knows what correlation means though

[Anonymous No.11199972]

>>11199926
"Marxism was a joke by the 60's" is a Jordan Peterson talking point. It's completely baseless as far as I can tell.

And coercion into wage labor is the general topic (I never read Capital, but he talks about as much in Alienation), but specifically capitalism constructing death in opposition to life and using it as a coercion tool into production and accumulation, and overcoming this by finding new relationship between life and death /are/ Baudrillard's ideas. And what I said about him seeing overexpenditure as a way to move past capitalist accumulation was also his idea, positioned against Marxism which emphasized production over expenditure.

Am I wrong anywhere here? You're making me self conscious.... You're not the first person I've said this to!

[Anonymous No.11199980]

>>11199515
Because Peterson is a modernist?

I agree with him on most things except his take on racial relations. For an intelligent person with a career in psychology, he sure does seem retarded in the field of how people see race.

[Anonymous No.11199981]

Allowing the past to tyrannize by going out of your way to not do things the way they did.

[Anonymous No.11199984]

>>11199972
No you're right, it's just that since you didn't precise that what you claimed Baudrillard said was actually him using Marxist terminology got me confused because Baudrillard rejected the latter, you should read Capital to get a better overview of a lot of postmodern criticisms of culture, Vol.1 is not dense.

[Anonymous No.11199991]

>>11199470

[Anonymous No.11199993]

>>11199955
They were eras, to be more precise, and it makes little sense to try to define the current era if you can't define anything different from or opposed to it.

[Anonymous No.11199994]

>>11199984
I've been putting it off for a long time. Maybe this summer.

[Anonymous No.11199995]

Check Em

[Anonymous No.11199997]

>>11199993
i don't think romanticism was an era

[Anonymous No.11199998]

>>11199995
way to fast for this board

[Anonymous No.11199999]

Dubs

[Anonymous No.11200004]

Trips

[Anonymous No.11200005]

>>11199997
Then I recommend you read a book on literary history.

[Anonymous No.11200008]

>>11199999
mooooooooooooods, delet

[Anonymous No.11200009]

>>11199998
/lit/ is really slow these days

[Anonymous No.11200011]

>>11199999

[Anonymous No.11200017]

>>11200011

[Anonymous No.11200072]

>>11199999
is this the postmodern condition?

[Anonymous No.11200077]

>>11200072
only if you check em

[Anonymous No.11200104]

>>11200077

[Anonymous No.11200249]

>>11199999
Checked

[Anonymous No.11200610]

>>11199701
It’s important so far as understanding why two people can have completely different viewpoints (aka why leftists largely adopt postmodernism’s mantras). If there’s no “right answer” to the question of life, then it’s totally okay to shop around and find one that works best for you.

[Anonymous No.11200932]

>>11199470
the movement towards an objective truth by rejecting the notion that an objective truth can be determined which modernism was built on

[Anonymous No.11200971]

>>11200077
>>11200011
>>11199999
witnessed

[Anonymous No.11200976]

>>11199481
I read this as “believe in nothing to confuse your parents” I feel like this is actually more accurate.

[Anonymous No.11200979]

>>11199470
Skepticism of metanarratives.

[Anonymous No.11201288]

>>11199629
I do this just to see if the reactions I elicit interest me sufficiently to delve into the topic further. It's weasley, sure, but it's not like any of you guys actually have anything better to do.

[Anonymous No.11201363]

>>11199496
no shit it's relativistic, the word has "post" as a prefix.

[Anonymous No.11201384]

The supposition that any one meaning has an infinite amount of interpretations and that they are all of equal value.

The amount of plebiness in /lit/ is disheartening.

[Anonymous No.11202177]

>>11199938
>>11199926
>to claim that postmodernism was trying to fill Marxism's place because the latter became a joke has no factual evidence to it.
Good post, I hate how Peterson drones use this argument so frequently when its false

[Anonymous No.11202643]

>>11199470
Ouroboros of lit

[Anonymous No.11202666]

>>11199470
"Incredulence towards metanarratives"

[Anonymous No.11202676]

>>11199756
> Derrida's critique of binary opposition or Baudrillard's conception of manufactured cultures of copies without originals?
>Expects anyone with half a brain to take this pseud word salad as anything but a sham.

[Anonymous No.11202752]

>>11199474
>>11199544
>>11199590
>>11199668
>>11199701
>>11199847
>>11201384
>>11202643
>>11202666 (checked)
Unironically correct, or sincerely great posts
>>11199484
>>11199518
>>11199569
>>11199570
>>11199630
>>11199639
>>11199713
>>11199769
>>11199791
>>11199850
>>11199898
>>11199972
>>11199984
>>11200610
fair statements or posts worth responding to
>>11199980
I have never seen Jordan Peterson even mention race in a negative light. Please enlighten me and others here on when he did.
>>11199671
>>11199691
>>11199867
>>11199877
>>11202676
consider putting more effort into your posts and elaborating to not waste your own time
>>11199481
>>11199504
>>11199515
>>11199578
>>11199629
>>11199652
>>11199756
>>11199807
>>11199819
>>11199821
>>11199918
>>11199926
>>11199928
>>11199938
>>11199940
>>11199955
>>11199969
>>11199981
>>11199995
>>11200004
>>11199991
>>11200979
>>11201288
retards
>>11199511
>>11199660
>>11199666
>>11199778
>>11199900
>>11199924
based
>>11200011
>>11200077
>>11199999
(checked)