XPost: alt.postmodern
From: kcalder@blueyonder.co.uk
In message <3FE4EAE6.1060707@hotmail.com>, Alienthe
writes
>Kevin Calder wrote:
>> [Another resurrection. Actually I make a point of not replying to
>>alienthe's until at least 8 months after he posts them :)]
>With the upcoming holiday season my replies might be on
>the same time scale too...
I find that reading alt.cp at these low frequencies helps to make it
look busy.
>>> From: Alienthe (Alienthe@hotmail.com)
>>> Subject: Re: Cyberpunk vs. Postmodernism
>>> Date: 2003-04-14 14:42:02 PST
>>> Kevin Calder wrote:
>>> alienthe@hotmail.com writes
>>> [snip]
>> [Snip of sokal throwing marx bros. style pies in pomo faces]
>> > Groucho had a sense of humor, does Derrida? Or the other POMOs?
>> > Just to be clear: I am thinking of intentional humor here.
Where do you find the intention? In the Marx Bros. intending to make
the audience interpret their actions as humorous, or in the audience
intending to enjoy the humour?
Im not sure that it matters, but if you want to be specific about which
kind of humour you are thinking of, then I want to specifically know
what you mean.
>> Sokal clearly had a pretty pomo sense of humor, wouldn't you say?
>I am not sure if it is late POMO or early Post-POMO. Still I
>would agree there is something here. If we go sufficiently
>retro will we reach plain modernism?
I'm not sure if that's how it works, or even if it works at all. It
wouldn't help us much if it did though, Modernism is every bit as
slippery, if not more, than pomoism, IMHO.
>> In fact I hereby claim Sokal's work as postmodernism's greatest triumph!
>> Refute my claim if you dare!
>I won't refute, rather point out that the pomies seem to
>sneer at their greatest achievement.
I'm still not sure I know for sure who the pomies are, but I can imagine
the sorts of people you mean, and I expect that they do sneer at Sokal.
That said I have never read a critique of Sokal, let alone a sneering
article.
I recently ordered a copy of 'Intellectual Impostures', any one read
it? I also ordered a new paper copy of Fashionable Nonsense, but for
some reason my bookshop couldn't get it here in the UK and had to send
to the US for it. Quite surprising really. The UK chapter of the
sneering pomies brigade must have broke into the store room and burned
them!
>> And pomoism is well known for validating humour, parody and pastiche,
>It does?
Maybe not well known then.
However, if you were to ask me (and I should know) to pick out, from a
selection of poems, the ones that i thought were the most pomo, I would
start by looking for the funny poems. I generally find that pomo-poetry
is generally pretty humorous, which I attribute to a reaction against
the grumpy self seriousness (my reaction, or the poets, whatever you
prefer) of 'Modern' poetry.
Try, uh, Tom Raworth, Susan Howe, Paul Muldoon (particularly Immram) or
James Fenton. IMHO they are all very funny.
I realise that by admitting that I think that some poetry is funny that
I run the risk of looking like the English teacher that laughs at the
jokes in Shakespeare productions when on school outings to the theatre,
but... ah well...
>> which tend to be marginalised by other standards and more generally
>>its so damned sceptical about everything that it can't possibly take
>>itself to seriously, unlike every other approach to appraising
>>literature I think of.
>I can agree that humor has these qualities and more but as
>for POMO I am not sure. WmG, to bring this writhing thread
>briefly close to things cyberriffic,
We are on topic now? Crap.
> seems to be regarded
>as highly POMO and claims himself to have a sense of humor
>that he also feels is under-appreciated. The POMO-humor
>connection does not appear to me to be a direct one.
I'm not sure what it would take to convince you, but as far the literary
criticism record is concerned I think you will find that for a lot of
critics one of the defining characteristics of pomo literature is that
it rejects the marginalisation of linguistic 'play' and often engages in
such 'play' usually in the form of humour, pastiche or parody. Pre-pomo
literary critics didn't rate humorous literature very highly at all and
seriousness was generally privileged.
It might take a while but I could probably knock together a reading list
if you are interested, though I imagine that you already have more
reading lists than you have time for!
>> >> And if the Emperor has no clothes then what it suggests to me is that
>> >> the method for determining whether the Emperor is clothed or not is
>> >> inherently unreliable. Some people can see the clothes, some can't.
>> >> *None* of them can produce a truth table to validate their perspective.
>> >Alternatively the emperor is a streaker and those who claim to see
>> >the clothes are just wanting to see some nudity.
Can you validate that alternative in a manner that will satisfy 'those
who claim to see'? Surely if this were possible, in an absolute and
universal manner, then your verification would be so persuasive that
'those who claim to see' would instead begin to see their folly. IMHO
the significant pomo argument is not that we can't establish whether or
not the emperor is clothed in a way that satisfies most people, most of
the time, because it is clear that in practice this is actually quite
easy achieved. The argument is that you can't do it in an absolute,
universally applicable way that satisfies everyone, in all places for
all of time. Its not about denying that you can construct a functional,
practical model that incorporates some limited notion of 'truth', rather
that you cannot rely on invoking some mystical 'absolute truth'.
>> >>> Others had called them
>> >>> charlatans before but Sokal made it amusing.
>> What is exactly is pomoism guilty of pretending?
>That the emperor actually has clothes.
But if I can see that clothes then I am not pretending.
>> And what is wrong with pretending?
>Indecent exposure? A tendency to catch a cold?
Nyuk. Nyuk.
Apparently catching one of the many cold-causing viruses has no more or
no less to do with actually being cold than any other virus :p
`
>> Why should we feel guilty?
>A sense of decency?
Where do I get that from?
> A tendency to reply with new questions?
Eliza: Please go on.
>> Isn't fiction at least a bit about pretending?
>Yes!
So I win? :)
>> >> What is wrong with reading Sokal's text as one worth interpreting?
>> >> What
>> >> is it about it that makes it 'bogus'? Authorial intention? Cmon, that
>> >> argument hasn't been especially tenable for almost a century now. It
>> >> got discredited long before postmodernism! Whether Sokal likes it or
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