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 17, 2006

JOH Benjamin

Greetings,
So, Benjamin had enough to say. He really utilized elements of opposition to discuss his points. Good though. The bit about stage and screen acting was interesting, though a tad longwinded. The end of Chapter XV caught my attention. Ben wraps this chapter by discussing the opposition of concentration and distraction. Included in this discussion is the consideration of tactile vs. optical experience. Seeing these contrasting ideas played out brought to from my memory the transition from rationalism to empiricism in the what, 18th or early 19th century? If I remember correctly, this time period would be early, early germination time for PoMo. The transition from the inner knowledge to tabula rasa really fits the ideas we've discussed regarding PoMo theory.

Rather than pondering the Van Gogh's Peasant Shoes, coming from within to interpret, rewrite, and inject with emotion, Warhol paints soup cans, Tom Cruise leaps from helicopters, and Bobby Digital uses myriad source bits per minute of music. Where does Dylan fit in? I watched the Scorsese film No Direction Home in which a clip from ~1964 depicted a young woman asking a young (and pissy) Dylan whether he used blatant or hidden messages in his music. Dylan replied, "What?" The young woman responded "you're supposed to use hidden messages in your music." Laughing, Dylan asked "who told you that?" The girl responds "the Hollywood magazines!" Where does he lie on this issue? Upon listening to a slice of Dylan, one might say that the music is thought provoking, mysterious, yet simple. But, such music is featured on movie soundtracks, iMac commercials, and occasionally on something96 FM. Back to concentration vs. distraction.

The young girl from 64' questioning Dylan certainly seems distracted by the elements discussed by Benjamin. Deep stuff - yeah, sure - Hollywood says "******." At quick glance, I considered Dylan's music to be of the modern taste, but throwing the human receiver into the picture changes my perception. Regardless of the creator's intentions, does the audience determine the realized state of the creation? Always? Benjamin offers an example of what seems to be the opposite:

"The film makes the cult value recede into the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one." (33)

The film makes the ..., is Benjamin placing greater responsibility on the art than on the receiver here? Or, did Dylan's music draw from the media its equal - the Hollywood opinion? I have to agree that the American public, as a whole, appears to absent-mindedly thumb sucking through much of what is going on in the world. Numbed by the opposing relationship between the false comfort of complacency and the necessity to swim incessantly in order to keep heads above water, many Americans sit back and view film, television, internet, and for all intents and purposes, their children's lives on some form of auto-pilot. Nothing substantial will change until priorities swing from "as long as I got satellite reception and can head to the Bahamas once a year ..." to "wait a minute, why do we have so much yet consistently spin in circles?" *Be advised - I do not assume that I am immune to any or all portions of the nonsensical living I've just referred to*.

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