thirdform

pass the sick bucket
What about modernism?

Yes, but modernism comes up against its limit. I can only accept the validity of the term postmodern in this sense, as a foreshortened or truncated modernism. But as a definitive rupture or an overcoming, absolutely not. In fact, many theorists of postmodernism cf. Lyotard, Foucault, etc, only end up providing the ultimate justification for democracy (the death of the metanarritive.) The modernistic project will continue until the overcoming of the mode of production which gave rise to it.

stuff like meta modernism, post-post modernism, remodernism, etc, are all hot air.
 

version

Well-known member
Yes, but modernism comes up against its limit. I can only accept the validity of the term postmodern in this sense, as a foreshortened or truncated modernism. But as a definitive rupture or an overcoming, absolutely not. In fact, many theorists of postmodernism cf. Lyotard, Foucault, etc, only end up providing the ultimate justification for democracy (the death of the metanarritive.) The modernistic project will continue until the overcoming of the mode of production which gave rise to it.

stuff like meta modernism, post-post modernism, remodernism, etc, are all hot air.

Lyotard gets a bit of a mauling in the Anderson book. Sounds as though he kept revising his terms whenever the theory fell apart rather than admitting he was wrong, e.g. changing the definition of 'meta-narrative' when it suited him. Apparently the whole thing was really an attack on communism too, that was the meta-narrative he was most concerned with taking down.
 

version

Well-known member
That goes for periodisation in general.
Timeline_of_World_History.png
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Lyotard gets a bit of a mauling in the Anderson book. Sounds as though he kept revising his terms whenever the theory fell apart rather than admitting he was wrong, e.g. changing the definition of 'meta-narrative' when it suited him. Apparently the whole thing was really an attack on communism too, that was the meta-narrative he was most concerned with taking down.

This is what patty fails to understand as he is far too indolent, shagging his brains out hither and dither in Berlin and not getting disciplined. My problem is not that the new music or the new literature is soulless and lacks feeling (if anything we are drowning in a sea of affected personalities, but precisely that the new music is a regression from the older music. Charli xcx is authentic because she is a debutante, beyonce has reclaimed both house music and girlboss feminism, Frank Ocean's and Ed Sheerans torments, yata yata yata. this is the logical endpoint of an overfetishisation of feeling. On the contrary I postulate that to really feel, one must kill the individual author, the genius. This was the foreclosed modernism of free jazz. Sean and Rob understand this, and they are correct to say that if human emotions go into the machines, then how can you say that a music lacks feeling or soul, even if said emotion is more oblique?

even if I played the 4x4 repeatedly for 8 minutes, you would probably encounter the emotion of boredom, or pre-fabricate an excitement to deflect from it. Because we are speaking of an organismic monism.

And yes, the death of the metanarritive is incoherent because to postulate this you have to postulate that a metanarritive of the death of all metanarritives persists. It's a circular logic.
 

version

Well-known member
The Hegelian meta-narrative's the stumbling block of lots of Marxist stuff I've read. I can get along with starting with material conditions, but the sweeping predictions and envisioning of some sort of future trajectory loses me. It starts to sound like Biblical prophecy. All that End of History kind of talk, the manifestation of the world-spirit, etc. It's interesting, but I struggle to really believe it. I suppose some might argue it's rhetoric and designed to fire people up rather than be some sort of prediction.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
The Hegelian meta-narrative's the stumbling block of lots of Marxist stuff I've read. I can get along with starting with material conditions, but the sweeping predictions and envisioning of some sort of future trajectory loses me. It starts to sound like Biblical prophecy. All that End of History kind of talk, the manifestation of the world-spirit, etc. It's interesting, but I struggle to really believe it. I suppose some might argue it's rhetoric and designed to fire people up rather than be some sort of prediction.

there is no existence without metanarritives.

Marx actually inverts hegel, but if you read books like eating big macs, you will not be able to land on this.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
you need to get rid of the priority of the ruinous i in your enquiries. do not start from the i, integrate it later on!
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Its interesting because all three of the competing world orders of the twentieth century (liberalism, marxism, fascism) are teleological. Almost feels like non-teleological modes tend to find equilibrium only at more parochial scales, rather than "world orders" as such.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I know he inverts Hegel, I talked about it in the Hegel thread a couple of months ago. What I'm saying is the idea some Marxists get from Hegel that history moves towards some sort of specific goal or endpoint is an issue for me.

well, communism is the beginning of human history, not its end. when humans exert conscious control over what they produce and consume. after that, who knows? from the sewing needle to the stars is a good slogan, though.
 

version

Well-known member
Its interesting because all three of the competing world orders of the twentieth century (liberalism, marxism, fascism) are teleological. Almost feels like non-teleological modes tend to find equilibrium only at more parochial scales, rather than "world orders" as such.

Yeah, this is what @sus seemed to be arguing for with his emphasis on the local over the global.
 
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