In the wake of Howard’s history lesson (Zoe has a good summary at Crazybrave), the spectre of postmodernism is again stalking the land and infecting young minds. Despite the fact, as Stephen Muecke observes, it’s just about dead as an intellectual movement. Luke Slattery in the Fin wrote a long article about the evils of literary theory, which Rafe has helpfully reproduced at Catallaxy. Ironically, Slattery gets some of his facts wrong. Terry Eagleton, for instance, far from spurring on po/mo literary theory, is in fact a Marxist who has always opposed it in the name of such canonical Western concepts as truth and beauty. Of course, Eagleton believes Marxism to be the true heir to Aristotelianism. So he argues for one single narrative of truth, but it’s not the one favoured by the canonical modernists. Ponder.
The attacks on po/mo are in fact - postmodernist. They proceed without regard for empirical fact, on the whole, and seek their evidence from the margins and interstices of texts like any good deconstructionist. Tim Dunlop explodes the myth that attacking postmodernism destroys an academic career. But will the culture warriors take note? No! Like any good postmodernist, truth for them is effaced by ideology. Relativism reigns supreme.
Perhaps the single most representative anti-postmodernist postmodernist is Kevin Donnelly. In keeping with the post-structuralist view that repetition in language is constitutive, Donnelly endlessly recycles the same op/ed. Like a good Derridean, Donnelly returns again and again to the same texts, reading them more closely each time. And like a good social constructivist in education studies, Donnelly prefers to put forward his “reading” of obscure policy texts rather than the Great Books of the Canon.
As irony piles on irony, one would almost think that John Howard has ushered us into the postmodernist world - full steam ahead.
To give Donnelly his due, that comparative report on Aussie curriculum documents he produced to show that most of them were not up to the excellent standards of their overseas counterparts was a masterpiece of anti-pomo-pomo false precision.
We are in a very nutty moment, to be sure. In sum so far, the right has gone nutty over po-mo, without abiding by the traditional research practice they ostensibly favour to first find out what they are talking about; meanwhile unknowingly tumbling into the forms of argument associated with the old, always fringe and now virtually universally discredited and discarded streams of po-mo they ostensibly oppose. This could be the discovery of a form of perpetual rhetorical motion from which they will never escape. Feet up and popcorn time, unless you want to collect the clippings and write a comedy, or a farce.
Does it strike anybody else that arguing Intelligent Design should be taught as legitimate science (which I believe Donnelly is a fan of) is fairly po-mo too?
Kevin Donnelly will be stoked to know that “Little Black Sambo” is back in print in Japan - then again we know how unPC the Japanese history textbooks are.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1506481,00.html
Speaking as someone who pretty much agrees with Donnelly I admit there is a very strong sense of deja vu when I go to the Op Ed page of the Oz and see another column by him it seems to say the same thing over and over - which is one thing if you are me on a blog but another if you are being published in the national daily I think.
I also concede that the suggestion that when we righties attack po-mo we are using po-mo arguments does resonate with me.
The Right gets itself into trouble when it does not actually say what it really means. Parameters for debate are set by The Enemy and the Right insists on engaging them on the enemy’s terms.
Why all the waffle? I can only speak from my own experience and that is on this topic “I don’t like hairy pinko teachers filling our kids head with bolshie ideas that undermine the western capitalist hegemony. Tiresome masturbatory utopian ramblings picked up from education faculties must be removed from the curriculum.” seems to pretty much get express how I feel and what I want to happen. You disagree, which is fine, but at least we don’t waste time and I don’t get whacked over the head because I don’t grasp post-modernism correctly.
Hi Naomi
3) is valid. The other to varying degrees less so.
I take your point in 3) - in its non facetious context. You are basically saying that kids today are coming out with their own opinions and they are frequently opposed to what people like me alledge is being inculcated.
I just have a (strong ie certain) feeling that the way inwhich the questioning and analysing is being taught is essentially on leftist terms.
Perhaps I think we should be giving skills rather than introducing ideology. Some of the quotes that right wingers cherry pick from published articles are pretty scary.
The bizarre thing about Donnelly’s crusade is that the skills that he criticises (with the false dichotomy of the 3 Rs held up as an alternative) are those that business require for school leavers to work in the flexible and globalised workplaces of the internationally competitive globalised economy.
The proximate origin of this curricular approach is the OECD - via its series of reports and recommendations on “life long learning” and skills development.
So it’s got bugger all to do actually with po/mo humanists - the concept of a humanist education has been junked in favour of a productivist one at the instance of business lobbies.
Same applies to Howard’s criticism of the “crowded curriculum”. History ain’t in there in many states because its vocational relevance is questioned.
That’s true, Naomi, but in practice it seems that Howard, Melluish, Donnelly etc are scared that any questioning will disturb the status quo and the ideological culture that they wish to enthrone as “truth”.
Further on Mark’s point about the bizarreness of the right’s loopy albeit amusing (what will they say next?) campaign in the context of today’s world. Po-mo is saturated through today’s film, television, literature, advertising, cartoons, painting, music and all other forms of communication as creative or challenging entertainment and art (including, in a bastardised out-of-date disreputable form, the right’s own political representations - but that’s already been covered). If the right could actually figure out what po-mo is, and if they could then actually expunge it entirely, Australia would become an Antipodean North Korea of Western Culture.
Or alternately cs, If the right could actually figure out what po-mo is, and if it could then actually inculculate it here, Australia would become an Antipodean South Korea of Western Culture - flogging cost-effective and high quality media and entertainment goods to a booming Asia.
Exactomo, dear Nabs.
If the left could convincingly rebut the right with the assertion that postmodernism is, in fact, the cultural logic of late capitalism… perhaps they could convince the right to eat their own words and become Marxists themselves. Teaching postmodern thought in school is far less insidious than disseminating postmodernism via contemporary cultural forms and media… which is arguably worse than actually teaching what pomo actually is (it surprises me that the right credits high school teachers with such knowledge of philosophy anyway). Postmodern philosophy may throw up oppositional tropes and elements… but postmodern culture arguably neutralizes and coopts oppositional tendencies. What meaning does Che Guevara have anymore? He’s just an icon, another meme in the viral stew of consumer culture.
It would be interesting to question to what extent the right is framing the fight against pomo in such a way that liberalism may become collateral damage. Indeed, insofar as postmodern thought and philosophy goes… there is little of it to fight. Conservative critiques of toleration and multiculturalism will arguably harm liberalism more than pomo.
Mind you, much popular criticism of pomo has been along the lines of “It sounds like rubbish. I don’t understand it. It makes me uncomfortable. It is critical of what I believe in. Therefore it is shite”. Which doesn’t really do justice to it.
I think people should give a selective reading of the tradition… you don’t have to believe or reject everything it says. Baudrillard for example, is not someone to be believe wholly… lest you turn into a complete maniac. But I would argue he makes some interesting points… that and his works can be read as half-decent science fiction. Of course… many of the so called postmodern thinkers would reject such a label. From memory only Lyotard actually took on the title. According the Wayne Hudson, however, his seminal essay on the subject was nothing but a “joke he played on the Canadians”.
Theory’s Empire - the book Slattery was originally writing about - is almost worth the cover price, which is a pretty good endorsement given what academic books cost in Australia these days - I just got an invite to the launch of a book I worked on which says the book will be available “at the special price of $159 ($40 off usual price”). Another weblog I contribute to had an event around it, here’s the link to all the posts on the topic:
http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/archive_asc/C41
I teach literary theory, and I teach postmodernism, because it’s part of the history of literary culture and people training in the discipline need to know about it - same as modernism, romanticism, enlightenment and renaissance humanism, and all subcategories thereof. Of course, Naomi is on the money and it matters not what is taught since most students are too busy text messaging one another to come to lectures.
I tend to go along with cs’s “popcorn time” theory at least in relation to what op-ed writers for newspapers have to say. It does dismay me that postmodernism is usually rendered down, for shit-stirring purposes, to some sort of extreme parody of Baudrillard’s silliest moments (stylistically, and in terms of the status of truth and the nature of reality.) Postmodernism is more interesting than that. But the recent page one outcry over the revelation that James Frey made up significant portions of his Oprah-selected “memoir” seem to show that even the nonsense version of postmodernism hasn’t gained any kind of significant foothold.
Is this the kind of thing you were thinking of, Chris?
From Without a Doubt: Faith, Certainty and the presidency of George W.Bush.
(Hence the now popular term, “reality-based community”…)
I’ve got my choc top, which I prefer to popcorn.
Yes Laura. Regardless of one’s personal intellectual position and preferences, at the professional level, I also always feel bound to include at least one lecture on postmodernism in my courses, since the ideas are present in the literature and so pervasive in contemporary culture that I could not imagine their deliberate censorship as anything but a dereliction of duty to the students.
Helen, that is such a rich quote in so many po-mo ways, combining Foucauldian notions of history as power, reality as text, and also in some ways reflecting this po-mo conception, that I can say no more about it without saying a helluva lot more.
“at least in history and english, in which I’m qualified to teach.”
“about received English, white triumphalist history and the canon of texts and events.”
Yep about sums it up..at least the lessons won’t be biased….
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