Today on Jenny Jones: Post-postmodernism

Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:12:52 -0700

A little end-of-the-week levity I just had passed to me. Enjoy.

Malcs

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Today on Jenny Jones: Post-postmodernism

> 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 began 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 Schoenberg, Mies van der Rohe. I had all of
> > >  Schoenberg's 78's.
> > >
> > >  JENNY JONES: And then you started reading people like
> > >  Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard -- how did that
> > >  change your feelings about your modernist heroes?
> > >
> > >  ALEX: I suddenly felt that 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.
> > >  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 shlock. (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 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: Scheck is the 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-- 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 andhoots.
> > >
> > >  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!)."
> >
>