On Fri, 26 Jul 1996, LISTER. MATTHEW J wrote:
> Darlene Sybert asked:
> >
> > Question: what does "pomo" mean? (No need for sarcassm or
> > ridicule)>
> >
Fortuantly, or unfortuantly as the case may be, nobody knows what
postmodernism is. Or at the least, of those who claim to know none of
them know it in exactly the same way and the concept has differential
conotations whnever its invoked.
> It's short for postmodern, which, when I use it anyway, is meant to
> have only its most obviouse meaning, namely, that which comes after
> the modern.
And yet even at its most basic we get forced into a conundrum: to say
that postmodernism follows modernity implies that history proceeds as a
linear progression of phases, but this notion of history is itself
delimited by the modern. In Lyotard's case one of the distinguishing
features of postmodernity is its reliance on a circular temporality
rather than a linear temporality. From this he developes the wonderful
riddle that post-modernity preceedes modernity. In his essay "What is
Postmodernism" lyotard says: "A work can become modern only if it is
first postmodern. Thus understood, postmodernism is not modernism at its
end, but in a nascent state, and this state is recurrent." Though
Foucualt doesn't speak in terms of post-modernity, and leaving aside the
sticky issue of just how Foucault's work relates to the post-modern, he
does make a similar move in relation to history in "Nietzsche, Geneology
and History", when he problematized the notion of the origin. Well, hmm,
on second thought I guess the similitude is only ever so slight in that
Lyotard manages to preserve a sense of linearity within circularity by
making postmodernity a nascent point, while Foucault fragments history
into a multitude of disparate and convergent beginnings. Maybe it could
be said that Foucault gets to the point that postmodernists (at least the
postmodernists of Lyotards variety) could only speak about whithout ever
arriving at. But then again such a statement might itself be nothing
more than the ever so hopefull hangover of modernities fantasy of
progress. (I know, I said I was going to leave aside the issue of
Foucault's relation to post-modernity, but sometimes I just can't help
myself.)
Flannon