Post-Modernism, Post-Colonialism, and Deconstruction:
Alternate Realities
These types of analytical measures and/or philosophical systems always intrigued and continue to intrigue me. Not only do these systems and philosophies offer me a new way to consider the world and the multiple ways in which it is constructed, it reveals intricate details about the society we occupy now by deconstructing it, tearing it apart, and attempting to get it root causalities, but more than that, to show how several factors, some that may not even be related to what is being deconstructed, affect the formation and construction of what we are analyzing. It simply tells us this world is complex, it tells us things cannot be labeled as easily as we label; it tells us things are not as they seem, it tells us social constructions are onions and layers can be peeled away without ever fully seeing the true nature of that social mechanism.
Mostly I like what these philosophies have to say about the self and meaning, but before I speak to that, perhaps we should define these terms? Again, I do not claim to know this 100 percent; however, I know enough that I’m not simply dangerous and careless with the knowledge. With that said, let’s begin:
Post-Modernism: a movement in literature, art, mathematics, sociology, and other academia progressing from the Modernist movement. It focuses on technology and production, viewing the world in Capitalist/Marxist terms: Colonial and Post-Colonial. It’s about disrupting order and power systems of control, even disrupting meaning itself, understanding that “meaning” has no meaning at all and is derived from referential things to shape and give it meaning. It’s about deconstructing. That’s natural enough right? Very linear. There are several tenants of this movement, but I only want to focus on a couple on for this blog, which focus on the literary-side of the house:
1) The idea that the self is fragmented and is continually fragmented, or has no self-identification. The self is NEVER whole and we are continually understanding things about our own nature as well as the others around us. That is an important idea because it allows alternate realities to emerge within history; essentially, there can be no “one voice” to which history is told and written.
2) The idea of self-reflection of narrator’s in our stories, ideas of subjectivity. Objectivity and omniscient narrator’s become to narrow and do not allow other histories to become infused with the telling of the story, the history. Something many readers take for granted is the idea that their narrator’s reflect on situations he/she/it are put in within the novel and are self-reflective about their own actions.
3) The idea of blurring and intermingling. This is used in blurring genres such as poetry and prose, which we find a great deal of in the 1950’s and 1960’s in literature, but is also used to blur social distinctions and boundaries. Again this is incredibly important because it questions those boundaries as real, which we all question at one point in our lives. Are there really boundaries of separation between social class, race, cultures?
All of this is said above to say the following: we cannot accept the world for what it is and how it functions without breaking it down. Of course there is blind faith in things, such as religion or love, but we can break those down as well into systems of power, why and how relationships between men and women are the way they are, why and how religion functions within society. And, perhaps, when you have gone far enough, come to a point, maybe where I am today, analyzed hundreds of relationships between Capitalism, Colonialism, Marxism, invention of the Middle-Class, sustaining of the Middle-Class, Political discourse, Feminism, Misogyny, war at what costs, peace at what costs, and realize that setting classifications, creating order where there really is none, is really pointless. It’s not that it has stopped me from creating order in certain ways, but I am careful about things, I am investigative, looking for relationships and factors and influences behind what I want to classify as “this” or “that” and why I am creating this certain relationship.
At the end of they day, Nature has order. Nature has its own systems ecologically, atomically, and you can take that to mean there will always be order and uniformity in some manner. It is the person who looks into nature’s order, attempting to access a system within a system, who will lose control, lose power. Go far enough, and nothing has order, nothing has meaning, which is exactly the point: all our social assumptions and interactions and classifications are invalid. If the self is always changing, always fragmented and searching for identity, then you cannot know yourself, ever. How can you define what structures there should be between people, between race, between class, between gender, between countries, between cultures? And, going further, how can there be only one reality, one history, tell the story and define what is real and what is not?
Something to think about today.
Mostly I like what these philosophies have to say about the self and meaning, but before I speak to that, perhaps we should define these terms? Again, I do not claim to know this 100 percent; however, I know enough that I’m not simply dangerous and careless with the knowledge. With that said, let’s begin:
Post-Modernism: a movement in literature, art, mathematics, sociology, and other academia progressing from the Modernist movement. It focuses on technology and production, viewing the world in Capitalist/Marxist terms: Colonial and Post-Colonial. It’s about disrupting order and power systems of control, even disrupting meaning itself, understanding that “meaning” has no meaning at all and is derived from referential things to shape and give it meaning. It’s about deconstructing. That’s natural enough right? Very linear. There are several tenants of this movement, but I only want to focus on a couple on for this blog, which focus on the literary-side of the house:
1) The idea that the self is fragmented and is continually fragmented, or has no self-identification. The self is NEVER whole and we are continually understanding things about our own nature as well as the others around us. That is an important idea because it allows alternate realities to emerge within history; essentially, there can be no “one voice” to which history is told and written.
2) The idea of self-reflection of narrator’s in our stories, ideas of subjectivity. Objectivity and omniscient narrator’s become to narrow and do not allow other histories to become infused with the telling of the story, the history. Something many readers take for granted is the idea that their narrator’s reflect on situations he/she/it are put in within the novel and are self-reflective about their own actions.
3) The idea of blurring and intermingling. This is used in blurring genres such as poetry and prose, which we find a great deal of in the 1950’s and 1960’s in literature, but is also used to blur social distinctions and boundaries. Again this is incredibly important because it questions those boundaries as real, which we all question at one point in our lives. Are there really boundaries of separation between social class, race, cultures?
All of this is said above to say the following: we cannot accept the world for what it is and how it functions without breaking it down. Of course there is blind faith in things, such as religion or love, but we can break those down as well into systems of power, why and how relationships between men and women are the way they are, why and how religion functions within society. And, perhaps, when you have gone far enough, come to a point, maybe where I am today, analyzed hundreds of relationships between Capitalism, Colonialism, Marxism, invention of the Middle-Class, sustaining of the Middle-Class, Political discourse, Feminism, Misogyny, war at what costs, peace at what costs, and realize that setting classifications, creating order where there really is none, is really pointless. It’s not that it has stopped me from creating order in certain ways, but I am careful about things, I am investigative, looking for relationships and factors and influences behind what I want to classify as “this” or “that” and why I am creating this certain relationship.
At the end of they day, Nature has order. Nature has its own systems ecologically, atomically, and you can take that to mean there will always be order and uniformity in some manner. It is the person who looks into nature’s order, attempting to access a system within a system, who will lose control, lose power. Go far enough, and nothing has order, nothing has meaning, which is exactly the point: all our social assumptions and interactions and classifications are invalid. If the self is always changing, always fragmented and searching for identity, then you cannot know yourself, ever. How can you define what structures there should be between people, between race, between class, between gender, between countries, between cultures? And, going further, how can there be only one reality, one history, tell the story and define what is real and what is not?
Something to think about today.
2 comments:
Riddles wrapped inside enigmas surrounded by puzzles. I feel great relief knowing that someone out there is trying very hard to make sense of the "Big Electron" and the components that it contains. The arrogance of man and thirst for more will never end. Proving ever so much the point I make in my latest installment.
Like Children taking apart the TV, we like to see how it all works, but once we open it up it is even more confusing than when it was closed. Now you're staring at a Cathode Ray Tube thinking,
"Hmmm...this looks important but what does it all mean?"
An attempt to reesmble a "TV" without the proper training and knowledge is dangerous and on a personal note should be left alone.
This does not mean that you can't look inside, but just don't start unscrewing and removing components.
good topic, love the show
It's going to be difficult to addresss all three comments in one comment, so you'll have to bear with me as I attmept to gather a rebuttle to them.
Let me redress Root first and the first questions posed:"What are you left with when all you deconstruct becomes more and more micro or macro. How infinite is the infinite nature of the universe? How minute is the most minute of the building blocks?"
It is immediately clear you didn't read a word of the blog. Those who seek to find order within things which are naturally ordered, even though on the surface appear choatic, disorderly, wild and unkempt, are going to lose their control and power. And the only point made here is this: there is no one meaning we can bestow upon the things we see. It's variable, it's ever-changing and always being re-constructed. I was not suggesting to strip the universe down, but we can and will and have. It's already been done over centuries and centuries. These are people making observations and generalizations and classifications, which transformed through a kind of "Orientalism", into objective statements about the human race and social interactions. And what I mean by this is projected ideals of what others, other than ourselves, should be like, continually perpetuate and form the constant.
Deconstruction serves infinite vastness in the simple way that it depletes and at once gives meaning. It shows us that not only are our relationships through the social mechanisms we employ with one another prejudiced by referential things, and they are false as they are built upon false tenents.
Now let's talk about blind faith. One, I never referred to those who have "blind faith" as thoughtless, robotic, un-intelligent. Perhaps there is some latent self-hatred you have built up and are projecting to this argument in order to purge yourself of these feelings?
Furthermore, what other types of faith are there? Is there only semi-faith, or three-fourths faith? Can someone or something be half-faithful? And, let us not drag this argument through the mud of morality because this is a seperate issue entirely. Faith, whether you like it or not, has to be acheived by full immersion, no? Ok, so let's move this argument forward: if it takes full immersion, then one must be committed fully to ideals and rhetoric of what they believe, there is no "half-assing" it and still being able to be considered faithful, there retains the necessity of blindness in faith. You cannot evaluate the merits of faith and be faithful.
But, I am out of time now. I will have to take up this position at a later date.
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