----- Original Message -----
From: Macdonald 
To: Marxism (LP) List ; Leninist International
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2000 2:52 AM
Subject: L-I: Post Modern spoof...



Sorry about the >>'s, I'm lazy...

Macdonald


>Hi Prof. Brocklebank:  Here's the forward from Darcy -- Enjoy!
>
>Mitch
>
>(David Foster Wallace even makes a guest appearance as "Man With
>>Bandana")...
>>
>>Geraldo, Eat Your Avant-Pop Heart Out
>>by Mark Leyner
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  Boy, we have a show for you today!  Recently, the University
>>of Virginia philosopher Richard Rorty made the stunning declaration that
>>nobody has "the foggiest idea" what postmodernism means.  "It would be
nice
>>to get rid of it," he said.  "It isn't exactly an idea; it's a word that
>>pretends to stand for an idea."
>>
>>This shocking admission that there is no such thing as postmodernism has
>>produced a firestorm of protest around the country.  Thousands of authors,
>>critics and graduate students who'd considered themselves postmodernists
>>are
>>outraged at the betrayal.
>>
>>Today we have with us a writer - a recovering postmodernist - who believes
>>that his literary career and personal life have been irreparably damaged
by
>>the theory, and who feels defrauded by the academics who promulgated it.
>>He
>>wishes to remain anonymous, so we'll call him "Alex."
>>
>>Alex, as an adolescent, before you started experimenting with
>>postmodernism,
>>you considered yourself - what?
>>
>>[Close shot of ALEX.  An electronic blob obscures his face.  Words appear
>>at
>>bottom of screen:  "Says he was traumatized by postmodernism and blames
>>academics."]
>>
>>ALEX (his voice electronically altered):  A high modernist.  Y'know,
Pound,
>>Eliot, Georges Braque, Wallace Stevens, Arnold Sch-nberg, Mies van der
>>Rohe.
>>I had all of Sch-nberg's 78's.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  And then you started reading people like Jean-FranÁois
>>Lyotard
>>and Jean Baudrillard - how did that change your feelings about your
>>modernist heroes?
>>
>>ALEX:  I suddenly felt they were, like, stifling and canonical.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  Stifling and canonical?  That is so sad, such a waste.  How
>>old were you when you first read Fredric Jameson?
>>
>>ALEX:  Nine, I think.
>>
>>[The AUDIENCE gasps.]
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  We have some pictures of young Alex...
>>
>>[We see snapshots of 14-year-old ALEX reading Gilles Deleuze and Felix
>>Guattari's "Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.  The AUDIENCE oohs
>>and ahs.]
>>
>>ALEX:  We used to go to a friend's house after school - y'know, his
parents
>>were never home - and we'd read, like, Paul Virilio and Julia Kristeva.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  So you're only 14, and you're already skeptical toward the
>>"grand narratives" of modernity, you're questioning any belief system that
>>claims universality or transcendence.  Why?
>>
>>ALEX:  I guess - to be cool.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  So, peer pressure?
>>
>>ALEX:  I guess.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  And do you remember how you felt the very first time you
>>entertained the notion that you and your universe are constituted by
>>language - that reality is a cultural construct, a "text" whose meaning is
>>determined by infinite associations with other "texts"?
>>
>>ALEX:  Uh, it felt, like, good.  I wanted to do it again.
>>
>>[The AUDIENCE groans.]
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  You were arrested at about this time?
>>
>>ALEX:  For spray-painting "The Hermeneutics of Indeterminacy" on an
>>overpass.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  You're the child of a mixed marriage - is that right?
>>
>>ALEX:  My father was a de Stijl Wittgensteinian and my mom was a
>>neo-pre-Raphaelite.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  Do you think that growing up in a mixed marriage made you
>>more
>>vulnerable to the siren song of postmodernism?
>>
>>ALEX:  Absolutely.  It's hard when you're a little kid not to be able to
>>just come right out and say (sniffles), y'know, I'm an Imagist or I'm a
>>phenomenologist or I'm a post-painterly abstractionist.  It's really
hard -
>>especially around the holidays. (He cries.)
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  I hear you.  Was your wife a postmodernist?
>>
>>ALEX:  Yes.  She was raised avant-pop, which is a fundamentalist offshoot
>>of
>>postmodernism.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  How did she react to Rorty's admission that postmodernism
was
>>essentially a hoax?
>>
>>ALEX:  She was devastated.  I mean, she's got all the John Zorn albums and
>>the entire Semiotext(e) series.  She was crushed.
>>
>>[We see ALEX'S WIFE in the audience, weeping softly, her hands covering
her
>>face.]
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  And you were raising your daughter as a postmodernist?
>>
>>ALEX:  Of course.  That's what makes this particularly tragic.  I mean,
how
>>do you explain to a 5-year-old that self-consciously recycling cultural
>>detritus is suddenly no longer a valid art form when, for her entire life,
>>she's been taught that it is?
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  Tell us how you think postmodernism affected your career as
a
>>novelist.
>>
>>ALEX:  I disavowed writing that contained real ideas or any real passion.
>>My work became disjunctive, facetious and nihilistic.  It was all blank
>>parody, irony enveloped in more irony.  It merely recapitulated the
>>pernicious banality of television and advertising.  I found myself
>>indiscriminately incorporating any and all kinds of pop kitsch and
schlock.
>>(He begins to weep again.)
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  And this spilled over into your personal life?
>>
>>ALEX:  It was impossible for me to experience life with any emotional
>>intensity.  I couldn't control the irony anymore.  I perceived my own
>>feelings as if they were in quotes.  I italicized everything and everyone.
>>It became impossible for me to appraise the quality of anything.  To me
>>everything was equivalent - the Brandenburg Concertos and the Lysol jingle
>>had the same value... (He breaks down, sobbing.)
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  Now you're involved in a lawsuit, aren't you?
>>
>>ALEX:  Yes.  I'm suing the Modern Language Association.
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  How confident are you about winning?
>>
>>ALEX:  We need to prove that, while they were actively propounding it,
>>academics knew all along that postmodernism was a specious theory.  If we
>>can unearth some intradepartmental memos - y'know, a paper trail - any
>>corroboration that they knew postmodernism was worthless cant at the same
>>time they were teaching it, then I think we have an excellent shot at
>>establishing liability.
>>
>>[JENNY JONES wades into the audience and proffers microphone to a woman.]
>>
>>WOMAN (with lateral head-bobbing):  It's ironic that Barry Scheck is
>>representing the M.L.A. in this litigation because Scheck is the
postmodern
>>attorney par excellence.  This is the guy who's made a career of
>>volatilizing truth in the simulacrum of exculpation!
>>
>>VOICE FROM AUDIENCE:  You go, girl!
>>
>>WOMAN:  Sheck is guy who came up with the quintessentially postmodern
>>re-bleed defense for O.J., which claims that O.J. merely vigorously shook
>>Ron and Nicole, thereby re-aggravating pre-existing knife wounds.  I'd
just
>>like to say to any client of Barry Sheck - lose that zero and get a hero!
>>
>>[The AUDIENCE cheers wildly.]
>>
>>WOMAN:  Uh, I forgot my question.
>>
>>[Dissolve to message on screen:  "If you believe that mathematician Andrew
>>Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem has caused you or a member of your
>>family to dress too provocatively, call (800) 555-9455."
>>
>>[Dissolve back to studio.  In the audience, JENNY JONES extends the
>>microphone to a man in his mid-30's with a scruffy beard and a bandana
>>around his head.]
>>
>>MAN WITH BANDANA:  I'd like to say that this "Alex" is the single worst
>>example of pointless irony in American literature, and this whole
heartfelt
>>renunciation of postmodernism is a ploy - it's just more irony.
>>
>>[The AUDIENCE whistles and hoots.]
>>
>>ALEX:  You think this is a ploy?!  (He tears futilely at the electronic
>>blob.)  This is my face!
>>
>>[The AUDIENCE recoils in horror.]
>>
>>ALEX:  This is what can happen to people who naively embrace
postmodernism,
>>to people who believe that the individual - the autonomous, individualist
>>subject - is dead.  They become a palimpsest of media pastiche - a mask of
>>metastatic irony.
>>
>>JENNY JONES (biting lip and shaking her head):  That is so sad.  Alex -
>>final words?
>>
>>ALEX:  I'd just like to say that self-consciousness and irony seem like
fun
>>at first, but they can destroy your life.  I know.  You gotta be earnest,
>>be
>>real.  Real feelings are important.  Objective reality does exist.
>>
>>[AUDIENCE members whoop, stomp and pump fists in the air.]
>>
>>JENNY JONES:  I'd like to thank Alex for having the courage to come on
>>today
>>and share his experience with us.  Join us for tomorrow's show, "The End
of
>>Manichean, Bipolar Geopolitics Turned My Boyfriend Into an Insatiable Sex
>>Freak (and I Love It!)."
>>
>>
>>------