MC - 11/07

I find postmodernity to be astronomically depressing. Concepts and facts aren't real, meaning isn't stable or reliable, and the reality I percieve is actually a false representation of how things really are (indirectly influenced by the looming hegemony that I can't really see, feel or touch but now I think I know it's there). Boo hoo. I mean, scientists are trained to think and study skeptically. It's their job. Postmodern theorists seem to come from an angle that's so skeptic (and elitist), reality is deconstructed or simply dismissed. Why watch the news anymore when they're clearly stealing your soul?

Isn't postmodernism really just a branch of nihilism or is it simply turning theorists into a bunch of whiney pessimists? A search for "postmodern pessimism" turned up several results on google. A couple of websites: Pessimism of the Will and scores of other related books on amazon.com.

I think my favorite argument for postmodern, albeit an unintentional one, is an encyclopedia entry about nihilism. Dr. Alan Pratt from Embry-Riddle University in Daytona Beach, FL (go figure) wrote this entry on nihilism which, for me, is interchangeable with some of the concepts we've already addressed in postmodernity. In his entry, he quotes Donald Crosby who says "Once set in motion, the process of questioning could come to but one end, the erosion of conviction and certitude and collapse into despair". I'll say.

Returning to the comment on postmodern theorists being elitist, I remember Shaun making the comment that these writers were clearly writing for each other. To be frank, some of these essays feel like self-congratulatory arguments or merely snarky responses to preceding essays. I don't think they're intended for a larger audience, like, oh say, the regular Joe Schmoe who is completely enraptured by the television, Disney, antiques made-to-order, advertisements and Hollywood blockbuster films.

Postmodern theorist attempt to question the modern world we live in, yet by doing so they imply that nearly everything we come into contact with (Yeah, even Gilmore Girls) is corrupting our moral values or pulling the wool over our eyes. Or, as they would say, what the hegemony or our perceptions define as moral. Isn't, in some cases, just a matter of over analyzation?

Is it really appropriate to cheapen the emergence of digital photography as lacking depth? Could Van Gogh have taken a photo of peasant shoes had he the camera to do it? Does acrylic paint somehow speak more than laserjet ink? Isn't Disney just the 21st century way of making the masses feel good? After all, with all the sprawling development in America it's hard to find a tree to sit under, a babbling brook to enjoy, a quiet, clean town to stroll in. One could make the argument that Disney is merely trying to heal the hole that we created in the first place.

Of course, I'm not saying that the arguments we've read lack validity. On the contrary, I agree with most of the remarks we've studied so far (I could make another blog post about how most educated people already knew some of the arguments but simply couldn't articulate it in a similar manner but I'd hate to sound...whiney). I just don't accept the idea that postmodernism also has to include this sense of pessimism that our society is progressively going down the toilet.

Wow, this is 554 words...can this count for, like, 2 posts?