Posted on 04/05/2010 8:18:56 PM PDT by neverdem
Given thirty years of postmodern relativism in our universities, we were bound to get a postmodern president at some point.
Postmodernism is a fancy word in terms of culture, nihilist; in terms of politics, an equality of result and the ends justifying the means that a lot of people throw around to describe the present world of presumed wisdom that evolved in the last part of the 20th century.
After modernism or beyond modernism can mean almost anything nihilistic art that goes well beyond modern art (think a crucifix in urine rather than the splashes of modernist Jackson Pollock). Or think of the current English Department doggerel that is declared poetry (no transcendent references, echoes of classicism, no cadence, rhyme, meter, particular poetic language, theme, structure, etc.) versus Eliots or Pounds non-traditional modern poetry of the 1920s and 1930. In politics, there is something of the absurd. The modern age saw life and death civil rights marches and the commemoration of resistance to venomous racial oppression; the postmodern civil rights marches are staged events at the DC tea party rally, as elites troll in search of a slur, or Prof. Gatess offer to donate his cuffs to the Smithsonian as proof of his racial ordeal.
Genres, rules, and protocols in art, music, or in much of anything vanish as the unnecessary obstructions they are deemed to be constructed by those with privilege to perpetuate their own entrenched received authority and power. The courage, sacrifice, and suffering of past American generations that account for our present bounty are simply constructs, significant only to the degree that we use the past to deconstruct the race, class, and gender power machinations that pervade contemporary American exploitive society. History is melodrama, a morality tale, not tragedy...
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Mean Speech for Thee, But not for MeLook at supposed hate speech. An empiricist would ignore Obamas recent warnings about the new wave of right-wing tough talk from Limbaugh and Beck, and determine instead whether the president remembers the novel Checkpoint, or the award-winning film about killing George Bush, or the venom of a Michael Moore or Keith Olbermann.
That is, a traditional inquirer would weigh the furor of the right against left, in ascertaining whether hate speech is at all partisan or simply politics of all stripes. And he would remind the president that it was Barack Obama himself who asked of his supporters to get in their faceand bragged if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun, and who used graphic examples in damning his opponents (cf. the taunt to Hannity (hell tear him up).
But you see, all this is not so. The postmodernist constructs a different reality. A person of color who is striving to level the playing field against oppressive interests speaks the truth to power. Of course, from time to time he draws on emotive language to drive home his points quite unlike the cool, detached, and deliberate attack narratives of those seeking to protect corporate or entrenched interests. [cf. Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa.]
When Obama attacks Beck, or Hannity, or calls for someone to bring a gun to a fight, or has Rahm Emanuel curse a fence-sitting representative, these protocols seem extreme only to those whose economic interests are threatened. Poor children in Detroit or in the barrios of El Paso dont get the opportunity for tit-for-tat score-keeping, as if millionaires think they are entitled to the same fair treatment as their victims. When Limbaugh rails, it is to protect his Gulfstream 550; when Obama distorts, it is the expediency needed to wring from the wealthy salvation for the voiceless.
“When Limbaugh rails, it is to protect his Gulfstream 550; ...”
Did I miss the context or something? Is this really VDH?
No, VDH. When Limbaugh rails, it is to save the US Constitution, liberty, and the country our Founding Fathers created for us.
I believe that VDH is ventriloquizing the postmodern Left in that paragraph— he’s presenting two similar situations to illustrate the ideologically-driven difference in interpretation.
Dear Victor:
Take these ideas and rewrite them without the postmodern gloss.
Same column. Wider audience.
Obozo’s spectacular failure (and fail he must!) will signal the end of the Progressive Era.
We must help him along by defeating RINOS and Democrats in 2010 and 2012!
Sadly 5 posts here but dozens on the NCAA final where I guess Duke won - like I care. Bread & Circuses. Americans will accept serfdom if you let them keep their TV.
I appreciate VDH’s putting current affairs through the filter of today’s campus deep-thinkers. I now understand why I fail to understand anything our post-American president dreams up.
So, is he still a commie, or is just that a historical construct I’ve invented while clinging to what my father and other ancestors fought and bled for? Is my desire to enjoy the fruits of a lifetime of hard work and leave it to my children the incipient sign of a racist hater? I don’t think even a re-education camp will cure me.
Some people never learned how to read between the lines. Postmodern education maybe.
Great article,as always, from VDH.
I often think of the endgame of the Democrats agenda. The relativism Hanson decries leads to real and predictable conclusions.If things continue on the present path, I see a time when the elites of today, so responsible for the destruction of our Constitution, will watch in horror as the Party leaders purge those who don’t support their particular flavor tyranny, as has happened so many times before. Or perhaps they will live to see an America under Sharia law, where the unbridled hedonism they seek is cause for a death sentence. Try scolding the Mullahs about tolerance and bigotry.
The absolute truths that are the consequence of this BS are real in a way that these idealists, with their heads in the clouds can’t begin to comprehend.
“Post-modern” - what exactly comes after modern, and do you need a time machine to get there?
I know what you mean. This is part parody. He's flipping between a normal interpretation of reality and the postmodern bizarromas of the oppressed utopians.
P.S. Bizarroma is weird crap in medicalese.
My father said that since the early 60’s.
“The people won’t realize what’s happening until they come for their TV and six-packs, but by then it will be too late.”
Now I and my father understand that the only mistake in his prediction was that the State will provide free TVs and six-packs to everyone, since it makes it so much easier to control them.
Ah! Great, thanks for the clarification. I didn’t read it closely enough.
I love the writing of VDH. Thanks for taking my panic away.
The real problem is that Obama is the post-American president.
And today Michael Savage says mark this day I am saying Obama is our first Marxist president.
What?
We knew this stuff two years ago.
Guy's a marxist. And a muslim. He's a muslim-marxist.
Two words. Take the rest of the day off.
“The real problem is that Obama is the post-American president.”
Or more precisely Non-American. Regardless where this guy was born, he hasn’t a clue as to what America is all about.
You and your father are right, Also add in the meth and other drugs supplied by the illegal alien latin america drug cartels. TV controls the masses plus sports and other inane Tv programming.
bookmark
The REAL problem is that Obama is President!
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