ceci n’est pas une crackpipe…

ceci n’est pas une crackpipe…

Friend, I’ve thought about how to write you an email that pulls apart some of the feelings that rose up for me as I was exposed to the heavy philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and literary/artistic convergence in the world-o’-blogs. Something that I’ve reacted to on an emotional level is the idea that all of this can be lumped into some new(?) and profound discipline (or lack of discipline) called “postmodernism.” It’s only in the last few days that I’ve realized that - for example - if Barth is a postmodern author, then the postmodern critics who would deconstruct him are not postmodern by virtue of their pursuit (although they may have been postmodern according to some qualifying criteria that I haven’t seen laid out). Rather these critics of the postmodern literary scene were exactly that… “postmodern critics.” And I submit that postmodernism certainly had ended by the time Rorty left Princeton, if not before. I wonder if it began (as a pop cultural phenomenon) with the April 8, 1966 Time Magazine cover that asked in bold red letters on a black background “Is God dead?”

Regardless, the postmodern era was a wonderful thing to help to shape and to live through. But lately it occurred to me in a Heisenbergian kind of mood, that many - if not most - of the critics who have been labeled postmodern probably are not.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle was a powerful extension of scientific method. Of course while the quantum mechanics of the 1920s lacked the sophistication of current theoretical excursions into “silly-putty hyper-chromatic poly-dimensional quantum state stringy-floppy elasticity” or whatever - yes, I made that up - modern (when I say modern, I mean “current,” what’s happening now) physics still gives a bow to the notion that our instrumentation, our very presence in the field, can get in the way of our ability to measure with precision, and further, that there are some qualities of this universe that defy holistic apprehension, to wit:

“The simultaneous measurement of two conjugate variables (such as the momentum and position or the energy and time for a moving particle) entails a limitation on the precision (standard deviation) of each measurement. Namely: the more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa. In the most extreme case, absolute precision of one variable would entail absolute imprecision regarding the other.”

And I’m not here to parse the argument that Heisenberg had with Schrödinger, although I will say that the permeable material of which the box was built allowed us to know that the cat was dead-within long before we opened the lid.

I have thrashed about with this concept that “postmodernism is over” and that current postmodern criticism is ephemeral fallout from academia’s attempt to get its collective arms around the vibrant aspects of Western culture that emerged in the mid-sixties and followed a trajectory into the present. And I have asked the question: “If postmodernism is over, then what’s happening now?” My thrashing has caused several blog-quaintances whom I respect and whose work I find interesting to flip the Bozo-bit on me and generally ignore the noise that issues forth from Sandhill Trek. I hope you won’t flip it just yet.

I am comfortable with naming. I am comfortable with language, with words, particularly English. I think the affront to my common sense from the posturing of a few postmodern critics and the sycophancy that surrounds them has been a good thing in terms of helping me find an opening to the present. Whereas recently I generalized about my reactions against the iconic status of Jake and St. Michel, I have NOW found something to engage me in the works of Bruno Latour and Richard Rorty. And I think I’m on my way to understanding some boundaries to the set of answers to the question “what followed postmodernism.” And of course if we can name IT, then it will be time to ask the question, “what followed IT?” (Though academia will slog through decades of analysis and discourse regarding just what IT is anyway.)

These are some of the thoughts I’m toying with this morning, and I’d like to add that I find reinforcement in this passage from Iconoclash (2002, Bruno Latour and Peter Wiebel, editors, page 240). The passage is from “Dévisager - Taking Images on a Minefield, a picture of Sophie Ristelhueber as seen by Bruno Latour:”:

So friend, if you would care to reflect on some of this I am sure your reflections will guide me further out of the habit of lazy thought and reaction-formation and perhaps into something new and engaging! I already owe you big-time for the nudge toward Bruno Latour.