What is Postmodernism?

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Glad to see a discussion thread devoted to 'Postmodernism' here on WP.

How does 'Postmodernism' shape the understanding of the Autism Spectrum - both for NTs and for those concerned with the Autism Spectrum?

Personally, I've taken an interest to Postmodern art, literature, and film.

A Link on Postmodernism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

ADDENDUM: Enclosed is a link that discusses Autism and Postmodernism.

Asperger Good Yet Discriminated Against:
https://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/as ... nst-139409

Skepticism is a slippery slope. You *can* say that something isn't real, that nothing can be proven for certain, but it's dangerous in some aspects. Being a flat-earther won't hurt anyone, but denying negative events in history or climate change can affect your behavior. Now, I wouldn't say that denying climate change as an ordinary person means you're going to drill for oil yourself, because chances are you don't want your hands on petroleum anyway unless you have to pump gas; and even then, who enjoys pumping gas? An ordinary person can deny climate change but barely make a dent in the climate because that person just lives life, but a *politician* denying climate change is scary!

I get into stranger debates sometimes, like cousins who'd debate that time's an illusion and that I've just got my face too much in scientific realism and all the stuff I got taught in school. I think I finally, last time we chatted, conveyed that even if time is 'virtual' it's still a measure of something consequential and if we were confusing something like our movement through a spatial dimension as a temporal one that would just be a translation issue, or if it does come to pass that space-time isn't fundamental and that you could say the same thing about space not being 'real' there's no change in theory that would effect what happens if someone falls off a 300 foot cliff - ie. they go splat, gravity over distance, hence profoundly consequential.

So yeah, often enough people might be making shortcuts around things they don't want to deal with but often enough as well they may be abusing their framing of words and their significance.

German artist (and professor of prohetism at some art school. ...) Bazon Brock once declared that "reality is that which you cannot change", and I think that's a brilliant stetement - because what one can and cannot change is always changing.
When Baudeillard declared that reality had ended, what he meant was that people realized exactly what Brock said: that things are only "real" as long as you have to accept them and can't do anything about them - but realizing tat also means that you can actually go and try to change things, to see if they actually are real.
That's what scientists do - but also what, say, gender-studies explore. Is gender "real" - well, it was, but now you can change it, so when you look back at history, you realize, it was always possible to change it, and in some societies, that was an accepted thing, while in western/Christian societies, it wasn't.

One can also look at transhumanists: Abrey de Grey sees death as an engineering problem, not a necessary reality.
Doctors have tried to alleviate the effects of aging, de Grey says: we can change that - all we need to do is figure out how to reduce certain processes that accumulate damage, and then there will be pills against ageing etc. - so he assumes that ageing and death can be solved - and within a few years, scientists actually started to find things, and the transhumanist community is talking as if the problems had already been solved - as if death was already "not real anymore".

is time real, then? well, certainly not in the way we thought before the theory of relativity. And certainly not in the way we thought before the invention of clocks.

I think maybe one thing that can't have too much violence done to it in terms of interpretive malleability is this - consequential and salient landmarks that have to be maneuvered adequately in order to avoid either harm or loss of anti-fragility (a sort of 25% suffering going back the other way but not full negation) have to be treated as consequential if you have any desire of adjusting yourself and your positioning to them. A good example - if you're watching a 747 land from inside an airport terminal everything probably seems okay with that situation, completely different if you're about 50 meters out in front of that landing airplane (assuming this is right after touchdown not just taxiing) in which you have a couple important immediate choices such as either a) run for your life in a direction perpendicular to the oncoming plane or b) be a big enough mess to make the headlines. Your relationship to that plane is, if nothing else, non-trivial.

I think that's what they lose in being too quick to call anything 'unreal'.

Enclosed is a LINK on postmodern literature. Here is one example of postmodern literature: Imagine footnotes.........in a fiction book.

One author listed in the LINK (John Barthes) applied footnotes; that occupied the bottom half of one-page in his story, 'The Floating Opera.'

In the performing arts, there's a practice called "breaking the fourth wall" - that is where theater performers interact with the audience as a part of their stage production.

Can it be said that footnotes in fiction are "a means of sorts" to allow author's to interact with their readers?

LINK: Postmodernism in Literature:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_literature

RELATED: Link 'Postmodern Literature Is the Best Expression of What It’s Like to Be Autistic- The scattered plots and timelines of books like “Infinite Jest” make sense with the way I experience the world.'

Link: https://electricliterature.com/postmode ... -autistic/

I think Moe described it best:

Postmodernism can be comical. Footnotes in fiction, breaking the fourth wall in film, or theater can amuse readers and audiences alike!

I enjoy various trends in Postmodern art, especially deconstructionism. I find realism combined with deconstructionism and/or expressionism riveting. Boy, that’s a lot of “isms.”

Typically, I like what I like without thinking that much about it. When I look at a work of art, I want to have some sort of emotional response or experience.

Mixed media art can be cool, too.

I often like art that breaks the rules and mixes different styles together.

In literature, and film, postmodernism sometimes conveys irony (Does irony tend to resonate more with the Autism Spectrum than with NTs?)

In art, literature, and film, works applying deconstruction can also pique my interest.

In film and music, I love kitsch elements and pastiche. If you like Dan Brown's books/film adaptations, you'll LOVE "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco. I mean, the film has Sean freakin' Connery for cryin' out loud!

Probably not the GREATEST example, but check out "Prospero's Books." I loved it. Basically, it's a retelling of "The Tempest" (Shakespeare) but more from the metanarrative. Amusing vignettes. Directed by Greenaway and starring Gielgud of all people.

Musically, I'm fan of John Corigliano. In particular his first two symphonies are a pastiche of compositional strategies, a strategy that he does in a remarkably tasteful fashion. Considering that "Of Rage And Remembrance" owes so much to modernism, it is strikingly emotional, the difference from usual modernist expression being that Corigliano composes free of mechanistic and macabre expressionism, exploring a range encompassing the macabre all the way to sorrow and grief. Symphony 2 is just a delight to listen to. It's one of those rare compositions that wins the Pulitzer prize that's actually worthy of anything besides a participation trophy.

I think to really understand Postmodern music, you really need to dive into pre-12-tone Schoenberg and Alban Berg's later works. Also Ravel, Debussy, Messiaen, and Stravinsky. I'd say those are modernist composers with a touch of late romanticism, but the point is they IMO are the real precursors to the Postmodern musical aesthetic.

There are moments in postmodern music that are absolutely breathtaking.

Where postmodernist music goes wrong is the same as with modernist music. They both portray humankind as this broken figure, as ugly, undeserving, unjust, and absurd. Contrast with romantic realism in which mankind is heroic, strong, victorious, righteous, just, noble, and worthy. Beginning with 12-tone serialism, modernism seeks to impose equality on all musical elements: rhythm, pitch, articulation, dynamics. Serialism pretends to strip music of meaning and return it to its most absolute, abstract form without the tyranny of a tonal center. It's the sonification of an ideal that seems virtuous on the surface and, indeed, has rich expressive value not quite so easily accomplished in tonal music. It has the potential for innovation. But as with any collective system, it breaks down because not all tones in opposition to each other demonstrate actual equal value. Rather, they compete for listening space, and this is compounded by the liberation of rhythmic elements that result in a chaotic, forced democracy of tones. The end result is grotesque and macabre. As I mentioned, the potential is there for greatness. But composers, in particular with other atonalists, impose meaning onto atonal systems that make it clear exactly the intension of these compositional systems. L'Histoire du soldat (Stravinsky). Pierrot Lunaire (Schoenberg). Wozzeck (Berg). It's a constant message of hopelessness for humanity, that there really are only two classes of people: those who seize power by force, and those they subjugate. The abusers, and the abused. The overt message is not that there is a solution, but rather a statement of fact. What's implied in the music itself IS the solution: liberation by force, and the ugliness of the ensuing revolution required to sustain that liberation. Each tone MUST act. It has no agency to act on its own. It has no dominant feature, no goal to return to. Thus as a measure of objective beauty with perhaps the exception of Webern's work, it is a total failure.

Postmodernism takes this to its logical extreme by making all musical expression inclusive. Nothing is off limits EXCEPT serialism because it's an overt assault on personal agency. The tyranny of postmodernism is assimilation of individual identity to serve the best interests of the collective. If you want to be traditional, be traditional. If you want to be atonal (except 12-tone serialism), it's ok as long as you revert back to tradition at some point. Quotation and parody are essential techniques since originality, after all, asserts the superiority of the composer above other composers. It's acceptable to include religious themes IF AND ONLY IF it means taking pot shots at Christianity, having ideologically dominated so much of modern history (Messiaen in particular derived his work straight from his faith). In other words, bring everyone to the table, despite how opposed they are to each other, restrict the narrative to a comfortable line, and force everyone to get along whether they like each other or not, and keep everyone smiling and pretending that everything is ok.

Let me emphasize that this does NOT represent the entirety of modernism or postmodernism. I've mentioned a few instances of music and film that I actually do enjoy. But to fully appreciate the postmodern movement in music, one must keep in mind that "the media is the message."

Any postmodern works worthy of mention in the following WP 'Topical Discussion' forums: 'Television, Film, And Video' - 'Art, Writing, And Music?'

Anybody feedback on the story (LINK) 'Postmodern Literature Is the Best Expression of What It’s Like to Be Autistic- The scattered plots and timelines of books like “Infinite Jest” make sense with the way I experience the world?'

LINK: https://electricliterature.com/postmode ... -autistic/

Postmodernism is so-called because it's a response to the movement modernism.

I tend to think of Postmodernism as a dead movement, much like modernism before it. I feel like more people are drifting back to a more progressive form of romantic realism for aesthetics. Basically, rehashing the 19th century, except with computers.

I think if you follow popular music around the world, a lot of the precedents set in the US along with the British Invasion caught on elsewhere up to a point at which objectively good music, given advancements in recording arts and electronic instruments, became frozen in time. Metal from Scandinavia and Japan, for instance. And now you have K-Pop and J-Pop that's nothing but 80's pop made with VST's. I think there's a reason why popular styles got stuck there, and that's because American trends didn't really do anything to bring artistic standards forward. Beginning with grunge music in the 90's, you lost all that really good virtuosic guitar playing that was a staple of rock music going all the way back to the 50's. Rap music had for some time been truly ground-breaking. But rap music fails in that it's tied too much to a single, isolated culture. It has surfaced in a big way in country music--but once again, country music is tied to a uniquely American culture. The US played a large role in establishing an international style for commercial music. But between artists and fans, we lost touch with music that was genuinely good.

What's interesting to me is that in the last 15-20 years there's been a tremendous return to good music in the west, like we're just now catching up with the far east. The only criticism I have for foreigners is if you don't speak English like a native speaker, please don't try to write English lyrics. The Korean language is a beautiful language. Keep things simple.

Anyway...

I think the trend philosophically that I think has swept PoMo aside is the entitlement mentality of millennials. Thing is, I WANT my children to be selfish. I want them to believe in themselves and to pursue things of value. But we have been careful not to let our children believe they receive things from us because we owe it to them as their parents. We owe them nothing except to keep them alive. IF we give them things they want, it's because WE value them and want them to be happy. I see the entitlement mentality is rich with potential in that it's not a far stretch to pull kids in a more self-reliant mode of thinking. Millennials are special in that if their parents or teachers can't teach them what they want to know, they'll just YouTube the hell out of things until they are satisfied. If we can just teach them independence, they will be world-changers.

It's a rejection of PoMo because PoMo doesn't respect human achievement. Bill Gates is the very image of disappointment personified. Here you have a guy who came up with amazing ideas only to feel guilty for all he has done. That's the only way I can explain his work with the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation together with his statements that the rich aren't taxed enough. Good grief, high taxes on the rich only exist because postmoderns are envious of wealth and achievement. Vast wealth is for those who through the work of their minds create value. To accumulate wealth and feel ashamed of it to the level of self-hatred and feed the envy of your enemies is to destroy yourself and everything you worked for. I think once young people realize they don't all need anti-depressants and are raised and taught by parents and teachers to believe in themselves and maintain high self-esteem, whoever follows the millennials has the potential to outshine the post-war generation before the boomers. I think the millennials are a good sign that PoMo is well on the way out.

@AngelRho

I wouldn’t consider one era or movement in art superior to another. It’s all in what you personally like and intrinsically believe in (which is largely dictated by personal experience).

I don’t hate the Grunge Movement. I think people had something specific to say in a way that could be comparable to folk music of the 60’s although what was said was certainly a lot less optimistic.

Humans have a tendency to revere the art, music, and literature of the past even though, in those time periods, many complained about those artistic achievements and spoke longingly of the “superior” music of the past. (People found both jazz and rock music too sexy at different points or just a bunch of jumbled noises. I recall people saying the same thing about Stravinsky’s work as far as it being “noise” and not “music.”)

The one era in art that I don’t particularly care for is the Late Baroque Period in France. It’s a bit too witty, ornate, and frivolous to inspire an emotional response in me, but I can understand why others would like it.

I do enjoy realism in art (not all Postmodernists are against it), but I don’t think it’s crucial, not since the advent of photography anyway.

Interestingly, Hitler was against Modernist art and put on an exhibit defaming such artists which caused them to leave Germany. Hitler upheld Romantic Realism that depicted an ideal which he felt contributed to his political values.

There’s nothing wrong with preferring that specific style although I wouldn’t necessarily call it “progressive,” but I think that there’s a lot of beauty and meaning to be found outside of that one genre.

What’s “good art?” What’s “good music?” What’s even “art” or “music?”

A piece of art or music could be technically brilliant, but if I don’t feel anything, it’s not going to be “good” in my opinion although you might find it so.

I enjoy paintings by Pollock. Many would argue that there’s little technique involved, but looking at his work in person is an emotional experience for me.

I guess I tend to bristle at using the terms “good” and “bad” in relation to art and music. Sometimes such terms encourage elitism which can be quite problematic as far as culturally diverse art and music are concerned.

What’s wrong with rap and country music? Cultural diversity is a good thing especially in how it contributes to the overall culture or when it just shines on its own. We don’t want to lose diverse creativity by honing in on a generic sound. I believe in celebrating artists who bring an authentic voice to the table and who tell me something new about the human experience.

“I am large, I contain multitudes” sort of stuff.

Is “genuinely good” music just music that you personally enjoy?

Such a definition would make the complex problems associated with art and music theory and criticism a lot easier...