17 A digest of an alt.postmodern newsgroup thread on aestheticism,ascism, futurism, Benjamin, and landscape design
Description
This article is from the Postmodern FAQ, by Van Piercy vpiercy@indiana.edu with numerous contributions by others.
17 A digest of an alt.postmodern newsgroup thread on aestheticism,ascism, futurism, Benjamin, and landscape design
#2776
From: nsbrown@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Wed Feb 15 20:51:52 EST 1995
[Michael Calvin McGee replies:]
: Lest we forget, gentlemen, the association of fascism with this
: thread of argument is not simply flaming. Mussolini espe-
cially,
: and also Hitler, theorized "cultural politics" as the way both
: to excite and to control the "experience of the masses."
Viewing life as an aesthetic (experiential) phenomena is not
at the root of facism. Indeed, experientialism notes that we
each construct our *own* experiences, and that there is no
Absolute Truth by which we can determine whose experiences are
true or false. This would *not* fit well in a facist state,
because they *do* believe there is Absolute Truth ... and
they've found it!
Facism is a distinctly *modern* political scheme. It takes the
notion of a mechanistic universe and applies it to the body
politic. It claims to have Absolute Truth, and demands that
every aspect of society be subservient to and directed toward
that Absolute Truth. Art becomes propaganda (rhetoric), yet
another cog in the wheels of politics. Minorities and unde-
sirables are systematically "Othered" to provide a scapegoat
for the ills that remain.
Notions of certainty are crucial to the formation of facism.
Notions of certainty are notably lacking in the idea that we
construct our own experiences.
: Not only can this be
: dangerous politically, but it is also a questionable stance
from
: an aesthetic viewpoint, because +negation is a necessary pos-
ture+
: for all artists. "Pure creativity" cannot be "art," for it has
: no means to reject its "false starts." Without such terms as
: "grace," "eloquence," "style," etc. +you can't have an
aesthetic,+
: and without an aesthetic, you have no justification for your
: experientialism.
Interesting statement, though it has little to do with exper-
ientialism. That is, you're arguing against positions that
I don't hold ... swinging at straw men of your own creation.
Cris
#2691
From: nsbrown@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
Date: Fri Feb 10 22:12:08 EST 1995
Cris here. :)
[David Black wrote:]
: [...]
Neo-conservative
: politicians today have been especially adept at taking
advantage of po-mo
: aestheticization; witness Reagan's mastery of the TV medium,
Newt
: Gingrich's information society utopianism (with debts to fellow
neo-cons
: Daniel Bell and Alvin Toffler).
Sloganeering and image-over-substance are hardly new phenomena.
They are the traditional tools of political minorities, who are
in the fortunate position of being able to make a lot of noise
without having to *do* anything. Now that the rad-cons are at
the helm, they'll be backing down from their tall talk in short
order. It's already happening, as clause after clause of the
Contract With (On!) America is being quietly shuffled off to the
shredder.
It's easy to quote Shakespeare's "Power corrupts; absolute power
corrupts absolutely" when one is one step removed from the
throne. Once one takes the throne, the truth of the statement
becomes apparent (at least to everyone else).
Just an opinion, worth what you paid for it. :)
Cris
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Date: 26 Feb 1996 18:32:13 -0500
gene angelcyk wrote:
>For those who subscribe to the notion that we are living in the postmodern
>age ... wake up! The word "post" means after and the word "modern" means
>in the present; thus, the term is an oxymoron.
allanl@genie.com (Allan Liska):
|not in this case. in this case, "modern" refers to an idea that there
|is some sort of grand narrative which is overarching and guiding human
|development along some preset path.
|very loosely, the post-modern age signals the end of the grand
|narrative, or the realization that there never was a grand
|narrative..but to try and define postmodernity is difficult, because
|each theorist, and each person has a different perspective.
In my view, the term _postmodern_ came into use because the dominant
school of the plastic arts, and of architecture, in the first half of
the 20th century was called "Modernism." People needed a different
category to put, say, Andy Warhol or Nikki de Saint-Phalle in. They
might have been called _paramodern_ because, actually, there was a lot
of non-Modernist stuff going on beside Modernism, but since it _seemed_
as if it came after, _post_ was pegged for the prefix. The other
_modern_ of which something might be post- is modern in the sense of
"from around the Enlightenment on until around the present. This sense
of postmodern was apparently first used in 1945 (by Lewis Mumford?) and
seems to apply more to lit, lit crit, cult crit, and philosophy, than to
the plastic arts.
I thought we were going to have a FAQ to answer questions like these,
sparing me from this sort of recitation.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ gcf@panix.com }"{
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