> Plus, nothing is able to baffle anyone anymore -- in the way that each generation before could shock some part of the established culture (up to perhaps punk, ...
This whole paragraph made me think of Black Mirror.
> Instead, everything is fragmented,
Isn't there a new form of art (the likes of BM) that takes all these fragment and puts them back together in novel ways that help us reconnect them with the human condition and what that means in a post-modernist society.
Not so much trying to go back in time but trying to reach back for things that were important and give them new prominence?
As I write this, I'm considering the Jordan Peterson as performance art .. he certainly shocks and discomfits many people and as much as you might like him or disagree with him is position is pretty much unassailable.
Even Trump and Brexit look more sensible through this lense.
Indeed, isn't one of Putin's most senior advisors some kind of professor of post-modernism or something?
As PM becomes more and more mainstream surely it makes sense that society find new and unusual ways to continue cultural progress ...
EDIT some other modern media that pops to mind: Mr Robot with it's non-linear narrative and skewed perspective on modernity. The Handmaids tale which, though a few decades old, actually seems more relevant nowadays. I want to say "Ex Machina" but I kind of feel the narrative style doesn't serve the subject matter at all.
> Isn't there a new form of art (the likes of BM) that takes all these fragment and puts them back together in novel ways that help us reconnect them with the human condition and what that means in a post-modernist society.
Ah. Having started actually reading TFA this is apparently the whole point!
>Isn't there a new form of art (the likes of BM) that takes all these fragment and puts them back together in novel ways that help us reconnect them with the human condition and what that means in a post-modernist society.
Well, that's the very definition of post-modernist art: putting fragments together in novel ways (only the sole novelty is in the arrangement, and not some inherent quality -- in the sense that two conjured random numbers are different, but they're nonetheless still numbers, not something else, like e.g. Stravinsky was still categorically different than Bach. Now we're all collage makers, and the only difference is what we chose to stuck together).
>As I write this, I'm considering the Jordan Peterson as performance art .. he certainly shocks and discomfits many people
Many people are mock-shocked these days (what with PC norms and all), but few or none are actually shocked.
In the end Jordan Peterson is just another public speaker/figure one hates or disagrees with, not "the end of civilization as we know it" which is how e.g. norm-breaking figures were perceived back in the day.
>Even Trump and Brexit look more sensible through this lense.
I think Trump and Brexit look more sensible under this interpretation: rich/power elites had lost contact with the people, and pushed their own interests (anti-middle/worker class laws and conditions) under the pretext of "globalization".
The "unwashed masses" then took revenge in the polls, and could care less if the new President is uncultivated or incompetent (they had an idiot president under Bush anyway, and the sky hasn't fallen), or if Britain is separated from EU (they didn't see much improvement in their everyday lives under EU anyway, and they prefer their autonomy to the German-driven collective harmonious pipedream that is EU).
> one hates or disagrees with, not "the end of civilization as we know it"
Perhaps that's what characterises this new paradigm. The durability of reality. That our much vaunted social norms have far less impact than we think.
Peterson makes absolute sense to me as performance art. (EDIT now so too does 50 shades of grey)
Black Mirror so is postmodernism in a yet-relevant format. Postmodernism may still be relevant but it's the interpretation of post-modernism as dogma (itself antithetical to PM) which is not.
It's the priests and priestesses of postmodernism that gets people's backs up isn't it, not so much the concept(s) itself.
>It's the priests and priestesses of postmodernism that gets people's backs up isn't it, not so much the concept(s) itself.
Yes, that. Especially since the concept itself was never meant to be something one can opt to follow or not follow -- just a description of the reality we're in.
It's not that we're "postmodernists" that is, but that we live in a "postmodern" world -- and so we can't be anything aside from that.
As for Peterson, I see him as something orthogonal from postmodernism.
He is someone that talks from a traditional values standpoint in an era where different norms are becoming the mainstream. He doesn't say anything outrageous, in the sense that what he says would be common acceptable wisdom 30 or 50 years ago (and for tons of people still is).
The whole outrage is not because he's saying something inherently outrageous, but because he dares to publicly stray from the mainstream while still being mainstream.
Somebody could say the same things in a 1950 classroom or the president could say them in 1970s and nobody would bat an eyelash -- even among the leftist and more progressives. Heck, the Monty Python made fun of "gender identities" for example in the late 70s, and those bunch was and is as progressive as they come: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c
But haven't a lot of good things happened in those 30 or 50 years in terms of refining the social model? I feel he comes across as an apologist for regression.
That's why people are shocked by him, and worse still for people who uncritically swallow this stuff he's often right.
That's what makes him "post modern" in a post-modern world, and very much a spectacle.
I see Monty Python as questioning these ideas as a way of advancing the discussion. They're comedy though. They're not claiming "truth" status.
>But haven't a lot of good things happened in those 30 or 50 years in terms of refining the social model? I feel he comes across as an apologist for regression.
Not necessarily. A lot of good things, but perhaps a lot of excess as well.
(e.g. in my opinion end of segregation and women and gay rights obviously great. Non-binary bathrooms, "gender-neutral pronouns", "Safe zones" and other absurdities not so much).
Peterson plays between those two (condemns the bad developments but often some good developments too). But nowhere near the caricature he's made to look but those who he'd rather uncritically embrace everything.
It's like with the French revolution: a lot of good things, but a lot of zeal to cut heads and change things to absurdity. It's just the bias of the current advocates that make any change from the older norms seem great. In retrospect a different generation would laugh at some of our excesses. (Like the 80s and still on to day laugh with hippies, whereas in the sixties and early 70s those ideas -- heck, even those clothes -- where de rigueur for young people).
What's wrong with safe zones? I honestly don't see anything wrong with participation medals either ...
Non-binary bathrooms? I don't see why anyone would legislate for bathrooms at all.
I'll draw the line at gender-neutral pronouns since "they/their" is perfectly adequate and means I don't have to change how I use language overnight to accommodate a fringe group.
Excess, sure. I'm happy to see some exuberance among communities once oppressed.
I don't share the fear of some that these communities are becoming the oppressors, although clearly (as with the whole C-16 thing) some are getting carried away.
If you take Peterson seriously, I kind of feel like he's just throwing away everything that's happened in the last few years and acting like it didn't happen. It's as though his whole didactic is tone-deaf.
An enlightened approach would be to integrate the new ideas with the old.
What is the name of that Putin advisor? I was listening to a podcast that mentioned it and wanted to research, but alas I was in the car and driving and couldn't take note.
This whole paragraph made me think of Black Mirror.
> Instead, everything is fragmented,
Isn't there a new form of art (the likes of BM) that takes all these fragment and puts them back together in novel ways that help us reconnect them with the human condition and what that means in a post-modernist society.
Not so much trying to go back in time but trying to reach back for things that were important and give them new prominence?
As I write this, I'm considering the Jordan Peterson as performance art .. he certainly shocks and discomfits many people and as much as you might like him or disagree with him is position is pretty much unassailable.
Even Trump and Brexit look more sensible through this lense.
Indeed, isn't one of Putin's most senior advisors some kind of professor of post-modernism or something?
As PM becomes more and more mainstream surely it makes sense that society find new and unusual ways to continue cultural progress ...
EDIT some other modern media that pops to mind: Mr Robot with it's non-linear narrative and skewed perspective on modernity. The Handmaids tale which, though a few decades old, actually seems more relevant nowadays. I want to say "Ex Machina" but I kind of feel the narrative style doesn't serve the subject matter at all.