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/lit/ - Literature

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1435460 No.1435460 [Reply] [Original]

Serious question.

What exactly does postmodernism...mean?

>> No.1435470

A movement within the arts and criticism which took place after and in response to the artistic movement called modernism.

>> No.1435471

>>1435470
What's the essence of it?

>> No.1435475
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1435475

>>1435471
>"essence"

>> No.1435482

>>1435471
reacting to modernism

(denying the possibility of any kind of grand narrative or sense-making or... structural framework which makes sense of all things. also denying the validity of basically every move that modernism made to separate itself from art before modernism)

>> No.1435496

>>1435482
So basically, it's a kind of return to traditional views of art? Less focus on experimentation, and that sort of thing?

>>1435475
>quotation marks in greentext

>> No.1435499

>>1435496

not at ALL.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

>> No.1435504

>>1435496
>So basically, it's a kind of return to traditional views of art? Less focus on experimentation, and that sort of thing?

that's, like, the exact opposite of what it says

it looks at the way that modernity challenged pre-modern views of art and says that all of the things that modernism did are just as flawed as the things pre-modern art did

it accepts modernity's challenge towards pre-modernity art, it just also challenges the things that modern art tries to do with things like deconstruction &c where there is no real way to do the kinds of things modern art wants to do and establish 'art for art's sake'.

>> No.1435517

>>1435499
>>1435504
I think I get the gist of it now. Thank you.

>> No.1435532

postmodernism is art trolling itself

>> No.1435537

anyone who tries to come up with a comprehensive definition of post-modernism is a Jean-François Lyotard.

>> No.1435542

Postmodernism isn't just a refutation of modernist ideals. It's an entire paradigm, encompassing a wide variety of fields. In an artistic sense, yes, it does refute modernist perspectives, but philosophyically it entails so much more. It's closely tied with semiotics in conjunction with quasi-Nietzschean nihilism... It's pretty difficult to explain in such a short form. The wikipedia article does a passable job of explaining the basics of its semiotic side.

>> No.1435546

>>1435537

I lol'd

>> No.1435551

It's just an anti-philosophy/anti-movement.

As a literary movement, David Foster Wallace described it as writing that's conscious of itself as text.

>> No.1435583

>>1435542
That was an almost perfectly meaningless statement.

>> No.1435584

>>1435551
>writing that's conscious of itself as text
that's just self-referential lit/metafiction

>> No.1435588

>>1435460
It doesn't. It's an excuse for hipsters with nothing of value to say to use long words and pretend they're intellectual.

Literary and historical postmodernism is a tangle of meaningless, futile, self-absorbed bullshit and the only reason it even exists as a concept is the Emperor's New Clothes effect. The only good thing connected to the word is postmodern architecture, which is pretty cool daddio.

>> No.1435589

rationalists getting confused because they read too much continental hurf hurf

>> No.1435597

>>1435588
>he clearly has no clue what he's talking about

dude, postmodern theory has been ridiculous yet, but there are some fantastic writers. also, anyone who rejects 50+ years of creative endeavor so flippantly is just an idort on principle alone

>> No.1435606

>>1435504
>>1435499
>>1435496
In practice it often does mean a return to certain traditional elements, for example post modern architecture. This also means more experimentation.

>> No.1435624

Modernism was an artistical reaction to industrialization. Imagine England like Charles Dickens puts it and ask yourself, not knowing any other world, if you wouldn't rather maybe perhaps live another way? Maybe the result of the age of enlightenment, the trust in rationality isn't going to get us a better world.

What do we do then?

People tried to find new ways to understand and do things.

For example Picasso who thought that a photorealistic portrait was phony, prefering to draw people from several different angles at the same time; or Marcel Proust who tried to write down his entire life in an attempt at understanding it.

In the 1940s Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, the king and queen of modernism, both met their end: Woolf filled up her pockets with stone and jumped into a river, whilst Joyce was universally panned for a work that took him 16 years to write, the infamously unreadable Finnegans Wake, before dying.

Then came the nuclear bomb, cold war, environmental dangers, and most other modernists shared similar faiths as Joyce and Woolf did; for example Hemingway shot himself, Ezra Pound and Knut Hamsun went fascist.

Their attempt at finding a new way to think that would lead humanity into a better world, in contrast to the even worse world we had come into, lead into what you could call a hysterical breakdown: Postmodernism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKdDbktVKUI

As the grounding pillar of the whole movement is scepticism to any attempt at fully understanding anything it's difficult to define it. And that, in itself, is, in my opinion, one of the better ways of defining it. A postmodern philosopher might for example conclude that it's impossible to state any truths as the conclusions are all part of bigger processes, whilst a postmodern writer might write a book that bends every rule just for the sake of bending it.

>> No.1435631

Bitches don't know about postmodernism being canon. Derrida and Focault still make u mad americans?

>> No.1435639

>>1435624

Though this is disputed, I do not believe we are in postmodernism anymore. I think what we are in now is some kind of sincerism, "New Sincerity".

As a reaction to the irony, sarcasm and extreme scepticism to everything we're living in a world where people are reacting to this by trying to be sincere.

The result of this we see in for example blogs and on Facebook. The postmodern deconstruction of these phenomens would be that it's fake, that they are constructing their identities and so forth; but the act itself is pure sincerity. These people are trying to express themselves.

Meanwhile we have new sincerist writers such as David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. Franzen is trying to write a realistic, socially useful novel. After postmodernism has set everything a part. The end result is kind of sardonical, but he's still sincerely trying. So is David Foster Wallace though he, on the surface, might strike you as just another Thomas Pynchon who is kinda the embodyment of postmodernism: "Nothing makes sense, why not just worship it, and laugh ourselves to death while feeling intelligent."

>> No.1435640

>>1435639

Still don't believe me? Hipsters. You can postmodernistically deconstruct them by saying they, in their attempt at being unique, all look alike; but again as with blogs and social networks, they are sincere in their attempt to be unique, their nearly romantic belief in the individual which would make Derrida turn in his grave. That we live in the time of new sincerity is as easy to see as it was for people, with the hippes everywhere, to know that the 60s was a time where boarders and limits were broken in the fashion of postmodernism.

Lastly, the final blow, James Bond movies. Remember the ones from the 90s and such? James Bond wasn't a human being. He was a movie character, and he knew it. It was about as postmodern as you get it. But look at the new ones with Daniel Craig: Realistic, "sincere" camera use, dirty fights, and a James Bond who doesn't care what he drinks when he's sad because he's a real human being and not a living icon.

Those are at least my thoughts.

>> No.1435646

>>1435640
>>1435639
>>1435624
interesting thought

>> No.1435658

I hate postmodernism because it's a useless philosophy to operate from.Sso what if we can't ever know anything absolutely, we have to live as if we can otherwise we might as well all lie down and die.

>> No.1435660

>>1435640

why do you have to use deconstruct to mean criticize

that is a bad way to use it

>> No.1435661

Well Lyotard said "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives" but really it's one of those things, if you can sum it up in a few neat little sentences, then you don't understand it. It's a bit like zen in that sense.

>> No.1435667
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1435667

you could do worse than get hold of this book

>> No.1435674

whoah oh melloncolon got his trip on and he's writing big paragraphs this must be pretty important

>> No.1435682

>>1435640
I believe you have hipsters all wrong. They long to be part of a movement, but the thing is they have no real drive behind whatever movement they attach themselves to. They also openly embrace "irony".

It's like Tyler Durden says in Fight Club: "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives." Hipsterdom is largely contrived and self-indulgent.

>> No.1435687

>>1435674
Unlike you, you get you trip on and never contribute anything meaningful.

>> No.1435688

>>1435674
xD

d& ler urdth the muscles and everything?

>> No.1435690
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1435690

>>1435682
>irony

>> No.1435702

>>1435674
What is your definition of postmodernism?

>> No.1435705

>>1435687
>meaningful
Everything I say is golden if you have the intellect and fortitude to comprehend what I am saying

>> No.1435718

>>1435702
>definition
>late 14c., "decision, setting of boundaries," from O.Fr. definicion, from L. definitionem (nom. definitio), noun of action from pp. stem of definir

This 'setting of boundaries' is interesting for us yes absitnatnt? There is something of an insecurity we must be suspicious of in this boundary-setting, for all boundary-setting must necessarily be arbitrary, an attempt to control our very conceptual traffic in a way yes?

>> No.1435719
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1435719

>> No.1435725

>>1435705
>Everything I say, you disagree with or disregard as meaningless, is too deep for you.

I've seen you troll better

>>1435718
>he refers to a definition

lol, time to get that greasemonkey script

>> No.1435730

>>1435725
way to not get it bro, I am not appealing to lexical definitions in the least here

>> No.1435734

>>1435705
>Everything I say is golden if you have the intellect and fortitude to comprehend what I am saying

Delusional faggot with both thumbs embedded deep within his asshole.

>> No.1435738

>>1435718
Are you saying that there is no use in definitions? We live in a brave new world!!!!

>> No.1435745

>>1435719
That's just modernism.

>> No.1435753

>>1435738
>there is no use in definitions?
>use
>early 13c., from O.Fr. us, from L. usus "use, custom, skill, habit,"

What is the 'use' ("used" under erasure) in a word like 'use', how has was its, and thus whose, custom formed? from whose habit did it spring?

>> No.1435764

>>1435753
From the habit of the thinker, of course.

>> No.1435769
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1435769

>>1435542
>>1435542

>Nietzsche
>nihilism

>> No.1435774

>>1435764
Yeah no shit abstinumbnuts here I was thinking maybe it sprung from dogs and cats

>whose
maybe you are a lil slow on taking up what this typically refers to?
And I love how you say "the thinker" as though this is some abstract archetype we can discuss, a thorough falsification

>> No.1435776

>>1435764
Or, more specifically, from the habit of the creator.

>> No.1435791

the shitness of the modern era, fuckin' nukes!
modernism is the positive parts of the modern and the future. Postmodernism turns against that.
i think

>> No.1435834

>>1435745
big ben goes "wrong" when hit now because of you

>> No.1435840

>"New Sincerity"
>As a reaction to the irony, sarcasm and extreme scepticism to everything we're living in a world where people are reacting to this by trying to be sincere
Yes, because people before posmodernism were not sincere in the least and the people writing postmodern works were not being sincere in writing postmodern works nor are there people who sincerely believe in the tenets of postmodernism. This is all besides the fact that not every work of literature or philosophy in the last forty years has been profoundly skeptical, sarcastic or incredulous towards master narratives.

>The result of this we see in for example blogs and on Facebook. The postmodern deconstruction of these phenomens would be that it's fake, that they are constructing their identities and so forth
Sounds more like your typical Holden Caulfield with broadband decrying the phony masses on facebook and twitter than a deconstrucivist essay but w/e that is just me, not even discussing how it's hilariously over simplistic to say that the self as narrative is "fake" and that there are academics out there, labelled "postmodern, who would discuss it in such a crass manner

>the act itself is pure sincerity. These people are trying to express themselves.
Wow, just like, uh, everyone who wrote about themselves ever! Or everyone who wrote! Because this is always an act of expressing oneself! But I guess the postmodern deconstructivists don't count as expressing themselves because they're doing it to someone else or something right?

>> No.1435843

>>1435840
>Meanwhile we have new sincerist writers such as David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. Franzen is trying to write a realistic, socially useful novel. After postmodernism has set everything a part.
Yes, because everyone has simply stopped writing socially useful anythings when Derrida and Lyotard showed up and no-one contested a single thing any "postmodern" has ever said, yes.

>You can postmodernistically deconstruct them by saying they, in their attempt at being unique, all look alike; but again as with blogs and social networks, they are sincere in their attempt to be unique
Please see that guy who pointed out how you're totally misusing the word 'deconstruct'

Anyway, rest of your post is just picking out bits and suppressing others, as is necessary. It is like you actually think that the realism mode simply popped out of existence mid 20th century or something.

>> No.1435846
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1435846

4 years in Grad School and nobody could answer that

>> No.1435850

also;
modernism = epistemological questioning
postmodernism = ontological questioning

>> No.1435859

So guys who is your favourite Old Sincerist, I particularly like Dickens

>> No.1436036

christ d&e i wonder if youve ever truly been sincere in your life, maybe the first time you said 'i love you mommy' but even then perhaps you were using it as an ironic allusion to classical oedipul mores and you and your momma laughed with mirth and sipped your darjeeling and thought oh my arent we so pomo

>> No.1436863

>>1435850
Uh, wow.

Could you BE any dumber?