TYG - Jameson -- Meaningless, meaningless

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever. (Ecclesiastes 1:2-4 www.biblegateway.com)

Life is nothing but a rehash of what has gone before, and Jameson thinks this idea is new to postmodernism -- only the focus, the degree of emphasis changes, swings about the central point of the day.

Several thousand years ago, Daniel brought this into clear focus -- there is NOTHING new on Earth:

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9 www.biblegateway.com)

EVERYTHING is a rehash of what we have learned from our parents, our schools, our culture, our religious leaders. We take the miscellany of information and sensations we are subjected to and we "create a caca" (thank you, Sardine -- I think) that suits us and we joyfully spread it all around us and, depending on our strength, circumstances, and resources, share it with the larger world.
Does this view negate the amazing changes technology and science have inflicted upon humanity? I don't believe so: human nature does NOT change.
The same murderous feelings Cain had towards Able are present in each and every one of us at one time or another in our lives, if we will but be honest with ourselves.
The same lusts documented through time are present in all people, and if we think we have a "new" take on sexual expression, then we simply are ignorant of history; from today's movies and television, through relatively modern dramas, such as the work of Shakespeare, on back to poor, eyeless Oedipus of the Greek tragedies, human nature is depicted accurately.
Further, Jameson's statements about "Self=Annihilation" and "concepts such as anxiety and alienation [...] (491)are no longer appropriate in the world of the postmodern" are just so much fertilizer; ask any middle school student -- maybe even most college students (Holt School excluded, of course).
In architecture, the shape of the buildings reflects both the worldview of the predominent players of each culture (where there many women architects in ancient Greece, with all those phallic pillars?) and the technology available for construction. We have newer toys to play with, why should we limit ourselves to absolute copies of the old? Why not pick and choose the parts we like and combine them into a "new" mosaic?

Hellll-ooooo. All of history is a hodgepodge, a pastiche, if you will. Humanity is not a truly original creature, creating BRAND NEW STUFF. We sent people to the moon and machines to Mars because we finally had the technology to do what mankind has desired to do for generations -- when we see the shiny things we cannot reach, we want to FIND a way to touch them.

Enough.