“The Condition of Postmodernity” was not the easiest read, but there were several elements of postmodernism that harvey addressed in his article. Since Harvey writes about art, architecture, literature, etc. it is hard to make any one statement about the condition of postmodernism. However, after reading this article I can’t help but feel that at least as far as fiction goes, one underlying element to almost everything is the element of distrust. Harvey writes that “characters no longer contemplate how they can unravel or unmask a central mystery, but are forced to ask, ‘Which world is this? What is to be done it it? Which of myselves is to do it?’ instead” (48).<\/p>\n
An element of Marxism, which Harvey evokes often in his article, is the need to ask a continuous string of questions to find what is hidden underneath. One question is asked, and the opposite question must be tackled before you can move on to the next question. This is what shows us the hidden elements that define culture like religion, politics, laws, etc. There is also the concept of alienation, brought up as well by Harvey. This also cuts to the heart of distrust. Rather than continue asking questions until they reach definitive answers, it seems postmodern writers ask questions and very early on become distracted when they ask “why am I asking so many questions?” This sense of distrust for the past, and for dominant social norms permiates much of the fiction we’ve read so far.<\/p>\n
In The Crying of Lot 49, <\/em>there are numerous examples. One example that comes to my mind is\u00a0 when Fallopian is describing the Peter Pinguid society. In the description of the society, it becomes clear that there is little in the way of an underlying message or truth. First Fallopian get lost in the details of the very naval battle that the Peter Pinguid society is based upon, only to say “Who cares…we don’t try to make scripture out of it” (36). This, to me, signifies a deep mistrust of religion. Especially its reliance upon translated scripture as a moral guiding post. The Peter Pinguid’s foundation myth is incomplete. The Peter Pinguid society also shows a distrust for economic systems when Fallopian later says, “good guys and bad guys. You never get to any of the underlying truth. Sure he was against industrial capitalism. So are we. Didn’t it lead, inevitably, to Marxism? Underneath, both are part of the same creeping horror” (37). While modernists tended to take sides in this debate, we see a very postmodern stance in Fallopian’s approach: who cares, they’re both effed anyway. Rather than investigate the deeper implications of each system, Fallopian stays on the surface and takes the stance that both are corrupt. He offers no new, better method, but leaves it at that. I believe this to be a clear sign of distrust: nothing can be fixed, so why bother. It’s more fun to observe how messed up things are after all, it seems Fallopian is saying.<\/p>\n In The Lathe of Heaven<\/em> a more subtle distrust takes place in the character of Orr. His distrust lies in a fear that he will literally change the past. In the Harvey article, he describes the postmodern relationship with the past as one “eschewing the idea of progress, postmodernism abandons all sense of historical continuity and memory, while simaltaneously developing an incredible ability to plunder history and absorb whatever he finds there as some aspect of the present” (54). This is exactly what Orr does. Not only does he created a fractured version of the present, because to him, two versions of the past exist each time he alters it, but he literally abandons any hope for historical continuity. His dreams change the past–continuity is not possible.<\/p>\n While Harvey never mentions distrust, I believe that many of his points lead to this feeling. Youth in the 60s rebelling against forced consumerism as a result of tv, ideas of “the self without God,” and alienation all point to a generation–or generations– of writers whose distrust causes them to focus on the surface and avoid making any statements of grand meaning–after all, if they can’t trust, can they be trusted themselves?<\/p>\n Not to step on my own toes, as I present next week, but when I think back on House of Leaves<\/em>, I see a novel littered with distrust. The setting can’t be trusted, as it has a tendency to mess with the occupants. The first historical record, Navidson’s, is also untrustworthy. At times, so is Johnny Truant’s account. In this way, the novel questions its own trustworthiness and at times hints at the fact that it could all be a fabrication. It does all of this in many different forms, but one is the oft-footnoted style of academic writing–a medium which may feature opinions we aren’t inclined to agree with, but that many of us probably trust as legitimate.<\/p>\n These are just some final thoughts on how this ties into our future reading, but at this point, I don’t know who to belive–and I’m inclined to just stop trying, because what good is truth without trust, anyhow?<\/p>\n -Jared C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The Condition of Postmodernity” was not the easiest read, but there were several elements of postmodernism that harvey addressed in his article. Since Harvey writes about art, architecture, literature, etc. it is hard to make any one statement about the condition of postmodernism. However, after reading this article I can’t help but feel that at … Continue reading On Harvey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,12,16,38,32,28],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-4-le-guin","tag-architecture","tag-consumerism","tag-harvey","tag-horror","tag-house-of-leaves","tag-lathe-of-heaven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}