26 May 2007

Essay - "Pandoras box"// A List...

I read this essay on www.AllFreeEssays.net and I liked it so much that I thought I'd link to it here

There's quite a few essays like this being banded about the internet these days, and most of them I like. Not by me, it's signed by an anonymous student - although in the comments section (bottom of page) there is some disagreement about this! You can see my comment on the comments section as well.


I'm going to make a brief list that, hopefully will prove informative to critics/artists (more to the former than the latter I believe) when one considers art today.

- Postmodernism is not an art movement, it is a temporary sense of stasis and reflection. This reflection will lead to a rejection of many Western values and established modes of thought.

- Modernism did not experiment with art-forms in every possible way, as is often stated. Within the context of the times that "Modernism" functioned, it experimented in many ways. However, as times change, institutions and modes of thought change, Modernism's experiments will eventually seem somewhat limiting and irrelevant, to the times when it was functioning.

- Art is returning to the people. Indeed, it may be more accurate to state that the arts are returning to the people. The social hierachies in Western countries ( see Derrida's Ecriture) are becoming more and more irrelevant. The majority of people living in Western countries can read and write and carry out basic arithmetic. The great advantage of being able to read and write (and its associated cultural status) is now the advantage of the majority.

- Multiculturalism. How can Western countries absorb people from different cultures and keep
unchanged Western value systems? Currently, in the UK the labour government that is in power, promotes cultural diversity, yet at the very heart of its government it cannot accept this diversity. This is because the systems that keep the UK government in place would collapse if cultural diversity became intrinsic to the UK. This paradox can be described as "hypereal" (Derrida). It can also be seen as a worthwhile attempt by labour to accept multiculturalism, that ended in stifling beaurocracy that represents the inability for the UK to change, at its most powerful institutions. Ultimately, this reveals an extension of the already manifest condition of New Labour as a party of soundbites over substance. The arts, of course, are addressing this, making fluid the cross-polination of differing cultures. Without activities such as the arts and sport, the uniting, celebration and, ultimately the acceptance of diversity would be a near impossible task.

as yet unfinished....

6 comments:

carmen racovitza said...

-Postmodernism is an art movement,it follows "Modernism" chronologically and has been made theory by ihab hassan. It is a temporary sense of stasis and reflection , indeed, and a combination -hybrid-like- of the two, as well...
examples: if modernism meant hierarchy and postmodernism,anarchy- now we get hierarchy IN anarchy, ...or if in modernism we had control/logos, in postmod exhaustion/silence,then now we get the hybrid : logos in silence, etc etc etc ,...
it's productive radicalization everywhere ....

This reflection will not lead to a rejection of Western values and established modes of thought because it's safer to accept ALL suggestions and DECIDE , after a while, which is which...

- Modernism did experiment with all AVAILABLE art-forms . However, as times change, institutions and modes of thought change, but postmodernism's experiments are no longer limiting and irrelevant : huge poliphonies are built up...vast encyclopedic performing networks come to the fore...emancipation of language games lead us astray...parallel networks of coherences and rules coagulate...rich and pluralist fragmentariness thrive independently...rhizomatic subjectivity envelops group objectivity...a new /multiple and mobile field of force relations develops...

- Art is returning to the people. Indeed, it may be more accurate to state that the arts are returning to the people. The social hierachies in Western countries will stay untouched, i think...
Models will survive, but they are no longer relevant...we USE them with royal/superior detachment.
- Multiculturalism. How can Western countries absorb people from different cultures and keep
unchanged Western value systems?
Well, simply by not making so much fuss about them...let all these influences live, keep an eye on them , but do not distort them....there will always be the 'gliteratti', the born cultural leaders to show us the way, to build directions, without our knowing it...

Labour or not, the governments must do their job...they are not important...i feel art lives a parallel life in this splendid diversity...The establishment must be soundly established if you want to preserve your England the way it is now..I like England...
Accept multiculturalism...it won't bite... but the English must preserve their englishness...this is their unique charm.....

i am so backward, crescent ..and so non-English...

love and thanks crescent...
(i re-wrote most of your story...)

Sheila Murphy said...

I appreciate what you are doing here, Crescent. Keep it coming! I also value what you are indicating, Carmen. I'm all ears!

carmen racovitza said...

thanks, sheila... and i am all mouths!.. an old chatter-box...

Crescentsi said...

Hi Carmen

Ihab Hasan is wrong. Deconstructing deconstructionism, for that matter deconstructing society, text (attributed to society) doesn't work - only reflects society.

The "hybrid" of Modernism, and Post Modernism (literally Modernism and after modernism) is illusory, in the sense that it is only another experimentation to try to create a new cultural movement to temporarily cease this consistant flux that we currently experience.

Ihab Hassan seems to be falling into the paradox that thought (that argues against thought ((e.g. text/critical analysis, blah)) plus thought (which may or may not exist, even though its evidence is necessary)) = a solution to manifest problems (art or societal) or = an understanding of post modernism, which would merely add to postmodernisms continuing stasis!

Modernisms' illusion was that it experimented with everything in every way. This is impossible!

Modernism is, ultimately the end of Western supremacy, the end of the West as we know it. Postmodernism is the gradual expansion from:

science,
feminism,
academia,
white males holding majority of power,
thought established at the Rennaisance, by discovering Greek texts (and probably misinterpreting them!),
etc.

Modernisms disfunction was a reflection of the disfunction of the societies that it reflected. Art was not disfunctional, but indistinguishable from its contemporaneous culture.

Hey! Carmen - I rewrite your rewriting!! :-)

Yes the English and their Englishness! Ha Ha!! Carmen we're just nuts really!! I don't mind crazy - but we are tense, frenetic, neurotic crazy. I prefer a continental, relaxed crazy myself!!

Simon
p.s. I argue all this and I'm not getting my paintings done - I'll starve to death lol

Crescentsi said...

Sheila - I really think I'm wasting my time writing this ponderous stuff! There's not much interest in this kind of writing!!

SImon

Crescentsi said...

P.s. What do you think about Modernism/Post modernism, Sheila? Or are you too sensible to think about it?

Simon