Postmodern Culture

Everything you want to know about postmodernism, postmodernity, and postmodern culture. Your guide to achieving postmodern literacy from The Notorious Dr. Rog and the class of ENG 335 at Rollins College.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Bloggrokker (Scott) Habermas

Ah, the Internet!
Were it not for the eight-letter "i"-word, I might find things a tad more difficult in disputing Jurgen Habermas on one of his points--although somehow I don't think too difficult.
True, Habermas makes a lot of concrete points regarding aesthetic modernity and the shifting gulf separating what is "classic" from what is "authentically modern," as well as some genuine head-spinners--confusing to me, at least--concerning the differences separating the antimodernist young conservatives, the premodernist old conservatives, and the postmodernist neoconservatives--and, political as a great deal of Habermas's argument is, I don't think he's referring to the post-9/11 Paul Revere-ist ("the radical Islamists are coming, the radical Islamists are coming!") dream-team of Cheney and Rove.
POW--Potential Offense Warning
(And, as a hard-to-resist po-mo linguist sidebar, just what would de Saussure or one of his iconoclastic cronies make of Islam, the word itself, given the aura of an era drenched in the waning of effect: I slam, as in I slam commercial jetliners into Towering Monuments to Global Cash Flow. Everyone, I'm gonna apologize for that one right here and in advance.)
My disputation with Habermas stems from his outlaying of modernist attributes. Habermas writes "modernity revolts against the normalizing functions of tradition; modernity lives on the experience of rebelling against all that is normative." I believe Habermas is somewhat stepping on postmodernism's toes here. Postmodernism carries a lot of the same rebellion, regardless of the deadening effects of pastiche and the waning of effect.
Here's where the Internet and my daily Web wanderings come in.
http://www.ronaldmchummer.com
Click it and see rebellion against the normative, see the revolt against tradition.
Better still, it's rebellion anyone can engage in.
Engage it. I did. It's da bomb.
And is it postmodern?
It seems like commentary supplanting authority as long as the mouse can click.

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