I'm not a philosopher or artist, so I'm probably not the best person to describe it. But modernism involves striving to create something new and interesting with a sincere appreciation for grand ideals.
And postmodernism is something that is kind of presented as modernism, but with a kind of sarcastic, ironic detachment. Andy Warhol is kind of the first person I think of when I think of postmodernism.
If Johnny Carson is an example of Modernism, then Eric Andre is the post modern equivalent.
There's much more to it than that, but that's one of the key pillars.
Everything I know on the topic, I learned from Wisecrack, so I am far from an expert, but I know enough to recognize that he's using the term incorrectly.
Pretty well explained. And they do hate postmodernism, most obviously because it allows for other voices and points of view (mult-racial, feminist, lgbtq, etc.) and posits that there is no such thing as objectivity, uniting theories, or systems of describing everything, in the way that modernists attempted to do.
It's much more complicated than all that, as it more exists in opposition or contrast to modernism than by any overarching or unifying theoretical framework.
The confusing part to me, is that Modernism, on the other hand, should be conservative's bread and butter, it was the theoretical culmination of the centuries-long trajectory of the white, western patriarchal hegemony. Hemingway is a prime example of modernism in literature for example. Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams are good examples in poetry. T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland, is the pinnacle, but it bleeds into proto-postmodernism in some ways.
I think it's more complicated the meme affords. Part of the problem is that there's not just one "modernism." Modernism is about breaking with old forms and assumptions about representation--on one hand, conservatives SHOULD love abstract expressionism, for example, because it's free expression and individualistic and American, but ALSO hate it because it resists narrative meaning and is somewhat complicated. Conservatives love simple stories--stuff like "America is great because we are free" or anything having to do with "founding fathers." Modernism wanted a literature (in one strain) that reflected the complexities of modern life--at the extremes Virginia Woolf, James Joyce--that was in opposition to 19th century realism which (allegedly) tended to simplify what (to the modernists) couldn't be simplified. To modernists, realism was real at all. Film and photography also pushed modernists to see what other stuff words and paint could do besides depict stuff. Think about all the music and drama sponsored by Koch money on PBS--it's all super conservative--classical music, Masterpiece theater. Nothing difficult, nothing abstract. It's not bad, it's just old. But then, Ezra Pound was a fascist.
I think Hemingway's an interesting example because we assume that Hemingway was simple because of his trademark straight-talk, but those books are much more complicated. I don't like Hemingway at all, but think about other literature from that time that was told in a straightforward way--hard boiled crime novels, for example--stuff that celebrated individuality, but also stuff that celebrated darkness. Those books (and Hemingway, and Gatsby, too) were also about the complexities and subtleties about how one performs oneself--back to the complexities of representation. Stuff that (I would think) goes against conservatives who want things to be simple--I'm good because I work hard, I'm good because I love America, guns are good because the founding fathers wanted us to have guns, etc.
Oh, and way more simply--so much of modernism was about depicting the horrors of war--to some, a central argument for where modernism comes from. Another example of modernism exposing, or investigating, something beyond the narrative--the actual horrors of war and its consequences on an individual rather than the simpler, more digestible propaganda.
See a lot of conservatives I know love this kind of stuff. But they're the older, well educated, engineering type conservatives. Not at all representative when I think about it.
Edit: realizing I don't actually know any conservatives under 50. Huh. I'm getting out of touch.
Ayn Rand is pretty firmly in the modernist camp, so how they gonna throw it all out with that consideration alone? I guess one shouldn't expect consistency anyway. lol.
In theatre, dada and the absurdist movement came as a reaction to the mechanization and arbitrary nature of warfare in ww1.
Courage, strength, intelligence and righteousness have no meaning when you can be killed by a cloud of poison gas or a machine gun that sprays bullets basically at random.
Very true. Many good points here. I think I was giving too much credit in thinking that some unicorn, aged intellectual conservatives with vast libraries would have the capacity to appreciate much of the modernist ouevre. But that would hardly include a memeing conservative, or in any way be representative of the vast majority. I was making the assumption that they were bragging about their very best here, but the flex about many books is more likely (at best) Hunt for Red October, Outliers, and Mein Kampf.
Yeah, though I think the conservative you're imagining--the "great books" intellectual--probably exists and may indeed love some of this stuff, possibly completely misinterpreting much of it.
369
u/jayhawk618 22d ago edited 21d ago
I'm not a philosopher or artist, so I'm probably not the best person to describe it. But modernism involves striving to create something new and interesting with a sincere appreciation for grand ideals.
And postmodernism is something that is kind of presented as modernism, but with a kind of sarcastic, ironic detachment. Andy Warhol is kind of the first person I think of when I think of postmodernism.
If Johnny Carson is an example of Modernism, then Eric Andre is the post modern equivalent.
There's much more to it than that, but that's one of the key pillars.
Everything I know on the topic, I learned from Wisecrack, so I am far from an expert, but I know enough to recognize that he's using the term incorrectly.
Edit: Here's one of their videos that breaks it down pretty well.