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Arden
לנשום
Registered: 09/01/08
Posts: 7,666
Loc: Α & Ω
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Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word
#12655556 - 05/30/10 12:39 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Buzz word: stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition.
"While the term "Postmodern" and its derivatives are freely used, with some uses apparently contradicting others, those outside the academic milieu have described it as merely a buzzword that means nothing. Dick Hebdige, in his text ‘Hiding in the Light’, writes:
When it becomes possible for a people to describe as ‘postmodern’ the décor of a room, the design of a building, the diegesis of a film, the construction of a record, or a ‘scratch’ video, a television commercial, or an arts documentary, or the ‘intertextual’ relations between them, the layout of a page in a fashion magazine or critical journal, an anti-teleological tendency within epistemology, the attack on the ‘metaphysics of presence’, a general attenuation of feeling, the collective chagrin and morbid projections of a post-War generation of baby boomers confronting disillusioned middle-age, the ‘predicament’ of reflexivity, a group of rhetorical tropes, a proliferation of surfaces, a new phase in commodity fetishism, a fascination for images, codes and styles, a process of cultural, political or existential fragmentation and/or crisis, the ‘de-centring’ of the subject, an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’, the replacement of unitary power axes by a plurality of power/discourse formations, the ‘implosion of meaning’, the collapse of cultural hierarchies, the dread engendered by the threat of nuclear self-destruction, the decline of the university, the functioning and effects of the new miniaturised technologies, broad societal and economic shifts into a ‘media’, ‘consumer’ or ‘multinational’ phase, a sense (depending on who you read) of ‘placelessness’ or the abandonment of placelessness (‘critical regionalism’) or (even) a generalised substitution of spatial for temporal coordinates - when it becomes possible to describe all these things as ‘Postmodern’ (or more simply using a current abbreviation as ‘post’ or ‘very post’) then it’s clear we are in the presence of a buzzword.[15]" (Wiki)
I'm having to write a paper today and this word keeps popping up in the place of original thought. People are running out of shit to say.
Thoughts?
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appleorange
Rainbow Technician
Registered: 12/30/07
Posts: 4,868
Loc: Reykjavík
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: Arden]
#12655600 - 05/30/10 12:48 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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I can't make the least bit of sense out of post-modernism personally, it defines styles of art, varying philosophies that seem to be at odds with eachother. It feels like just another buzz word that people at art-galleries toss around to feel nihilistic.
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate
Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 8,775
Last seen: 16 days, 7 hours
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: Arden]
#12655615 - 05/30/10 12:50 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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To me, post-modernism's base is the realization that human life is not equal to the myths and symbols which are used to describe it, coupled with disillusionment at the failure of mankind to advance morally as it has technologically; and the subsequent attempt at a complete rupture of ontology through art. In other words, it's most of the 20th century and the start of the 21st. So I agree that it is too damn broad to be very meaningful.
-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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quinn
some kinda love
Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: Lion]
#12655697 - 05/30/10 01:05 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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It depends who is using it (architect, artist, historian, philosopher, sociologist, literary critic, John Smith...) It can be a buzz word. It can be any one of those things.
It does annoy me though...
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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Arden
לנשום
Registered: 09/01/08
Posts: 7,666
Loc: Α & Ω
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: Lion]
#12655730 - 05/30/10 01:12 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Interesting responses. I agree.
What really strikes a worrisome note within me though is how abundantly this word is used in academia and research journals. The very institutions who supposedly represent refined inquiry, and who supposedly harbor "intelligence", are ironically the main ones who are perpetuating this bullshit. And to think this is but one minute example of an Ace of Spades which they use to help build their little house of cards. Imagine all of the other cute yet empty semantic clauses and tricks that are being carelessly bounced around like a baseball at a pee wee tournament. Sad days in happy town.
Social sciences.
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: appleorange]
#12655942 - 05/30/10 01:45 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
appleorange said: I can't make the least bit of sense out of post-modernism personally, it defines styles of art, varying philosophies that seem to be at odds with eachother. It feels like just another buzz word that people at art-galleries toss around to feel nihilistic.
This.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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DrRetardo
Stranger
Registered: 06/01/10
Posts: 2
Last seen: 13 years, 9 months
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: deCypher]
#12665199 - 06/01/10 06:42 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Two thoughts come to mind.
Post-Modernism is a set of ontologies that place cultural context/systems of signifiers as being ontologically primary. That is, who we are, reality, etc... is derived from the cultural context and we are merely mediums.
Post-Modernism is an anti-thesis to Modernism. Simple as that.
Post-Modernism isn't a consistent worldview by nature, even by definition. I think we are entering a post-postmodern era though.
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Noteworthy
Sophyphile
Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: DrRetardo]
#12665292 - 06/01/10 07:24 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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This thread made me look into what the word 'post modern' actually means (ive only had loose understandings until now). And it seems perfectly reasonable that post modernism has been referred to too much. Because post modernism refers to basically everything, anywhere a convention could apply, and understands it without sticking to a convention.
So the word post modern has sprung up everywhere because as soon as postmodernism sank in, people started to do unconventional things. These unconventional things then became conventionally postmodern, or, conventionally unconventional. And so post-modern now can apply either to actual post-modernism or also to any of the many conventions that followed post-modern realisations. Since unconventionality was inspired, many of the new conventions were varied and perhaps unrelated, adding to the feeling that 'post modern' now unites too many things to actually group them together under a coherent theme
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quinn
some kinda love
Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: Noteworthy]
#12665755 - 06/01/10 10:21 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Art- is also an empty buzz word
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Mr. Mushrooms
Spore Print Collector
Registered: 05/25/08
Posts: 13,018
Loc: Registered: 6/04/02
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: Arden]
#12667313 - 06/01/10 03:39 PM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Arden said: Buzz word: stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition.
"While the term "Postmodern" and its derivatives are freely used, with some uses apparently contradicting others, those outside the academic milieu have described it as merely a buzzword that means nothing. Dick Hebdige, in his text ‘Hiding in the Light’, writes:
When it becomes possible for a people to describe as ‘postmodern’ the décor of a room, the design of a building, the diegesis of a film, the construction of a record, or a ‘scratch’ video, a television commercial, or an arts documentary, or the ‘intertextual’ relations between them, the layout of a page in a fashion magazine or critical journal, an anti-teleological tendency within epistemology, the attack on the ‘metaphysics of presence’, a general attenuation of feeling, the collective chagrin and morbid projections of a post-War generation of baby boomers confronting disillusioned middle-age, the ‘predicament’ of reflexivity, a group of rhetorical tropes, a proliferation of surfaces, a new phase in commodity fetishism, a fascination for images, codes and styles, a process of cultural, political or existential fragmentation and/or crisis, the ‘de-centring’ of the subject, an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’, the replacement of unitary power axes by a plurality of power/discourse formations, the ‘implosion of meaning’, the collapse of cultural hierarchies, the dread engendered by the threat of nuclear self-destruction, the decline of the university, the functioning and effects of the new miniaturised technologies, broad societal and economic shifts into a ‘media’, ‘consumer’ or ‘multinational’ phase, a sense (depending on who you read) of ‘placelessness’ or the abandonment of placelessness (‘critical regionalism’) or (even) a generalised substitution of spatial for temporal coordinates - when it becomes possible to describe all these things as ‘Postmodern’ (or more simply using a current abbreviation as ‘post’ or ‘very post’) then it’s clear we are in the presence of a buzzword.[15]" (Wiki)
I'm having to write a paper today and this word keeps popping up in the place of original thought. People are running out of shit to say.
Thoughts?
Sometimes I have them.
The fact that some, or even most, people misuse a word has no bearing for its meaning inside its original context. One could make the same argument for the word 'love'.
Quote:
That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.
The term "postmodernism" first entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, with the publication of The Postmodern Condition by Jean-François Lyotard.
Postmodernism
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xFrockx
Registered: 09/17/06
Posts: 10,457
Loc: Northeast
Last seen: 12 days, 13 hours
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Re: Post-modern: An Empty Buzz Word [Re: Mr. Mushrooms]
#12671478 - 06/02/10 09:43 AM (13 years, 9 months ago) |
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"While the term "Postmodern" and its derivatives are freely used, with some uses apparently contradicting others, those outside the academic milieu have described it as merely a buzzword that means nothing. "
Isn't that the whole idea?
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