postmodernism: philosophy,influences, culture and fiction

8/19/2019 Postmodernism: Philosophy,influences, culture and Fiction

1/45

‘’Tho’’ much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’’.

– Alfred Tennyson

Acknowledgements

My thanks and appreciations go out to three persons who helped me with writing this

project;

To Felix Albersen, for pushing just as far as I needed to go.

To Magdalena van der Burg-Darczuk, for the smart remarks and much appreciated

corrections.

To Brigitte Fafieanie, for the much appreciated help involving the subject matter.


2/45

CONTENTS Foreword .................................................................................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................... 2

Chapter one: How did Postmodernism come to be? ................................................................................................. 4

1.1: How did the Enlightenment change the European way of thinking? ................................................... 4

1.2: The Apple incident..................................................................................................................................................... 6

1.3: the influences of the universal worldview of the 20th century .............................................................. 9

1.3.1: Between Morals and Power ............................................................................................................................. 10

1.3.2: ‘’God Is Dead and We killed him’’ ................................................................................................................... 11

1.3.3: Condemned to Freedom .................................................................................................................................... 12

1.3.4: Existence precedes essence ............................................................................................................................. 14

1.3.5:Transition of Time periods ................................................................................................................................ 15

Chapter two: From semiotics to poststructuralism ................................................................................................ 16

2.1: What is the structuralist method? ..................................................................................................................... 16

2.2: Beyond the structuralist method....................................................................................................................... 18

2.3: The critique of structuralism and the deconstruction of meta-narratives ...................................... 21

2.4: Derrida on Free Play, theocentric and anthropocentrism shifts. ......................................................... 22

2.5: Foucault’s and Boudrillard’s post -structural approaches ....................................................................... 23

Chapter three: From Modernist to Postmodernist Fiction ................................................................................... 25

3.1:Modern vs postmodernist Poems ....................................................................................................................... 28

3.2:The Postmodern ‘’Zeitgeist’’ and its fiction .................................................................................................... 29

3.3:Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” ................................................................................................................................. 33

3.4:Paul Auster’s ‘’New York Trilogy” ...................................................................................................................... 35

3.5: Thomas Pynchon’s ‘’Gravity’s Rainbow’’ ........................................................................................................ 37

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................ 39

Afterword.................................................................................................................................................................................. 40

Notes..............................................................................................................................................................................................43


3/45

1

FOREWORD

My interest in postmodernism has been an interesting development, when I was younger,

around nine to thirteen years old. I was a very active an interested reader, I was not

someone who would spend every moment he could reading but I got my doses from time to

time. I do remember that when I was on vacation my purpose would consist out of reading

for hours on end. Unfortunately this didn’t last, when I got older a lot of things changed and

my life consisted of more important aspects to deal with this is why I turned my back to

reading for quite a while.

But then I got back into reading. I started to enjoy it a lot more then I had been while I wasa lot younger, for example when I was on elementary school. I was a lot older as well; this

could be a reason. One thing to point out as well is the fact that I love English in the most

pure form you could think of, after reading a couple of books in Dutch and some translated

books on the side, I became inspired by reading. This is when I thought I ought to be

reading other writers and especially, work from American/British authors. So I started

reading some: Stephen King, Michael Chabon and John Green to give you an idea. At this

point I realized, like I said, that reading really was a perfect match for me. But there was

this problem: I had no idea what to read next (ironically enough, I now know what to read

but no time..) so I would read some short stories to get a feel of what kind of style andambiance I was looking for, This is when I found ‘’What we talk about when we talk about

love’’ (1989) By Raymond carver. When I read the title story from this collection I was

‘hooked’. So I began browse the internet for books that had a sort of realness to it.

Unfortunately the outcome of this ended in becoming a David Foster Wallace groupie. And

quickly I was invested in all sorts of authors that would be called Postmodernist. Think,

Thomas Pynchon etcetera. I quickly found Postmodernism highly interesting because there

seemed to be no other definition then: An art movement that rejects modernism as guide.

So after a lot of possible topics for my Profile paper I thought: why should I not write it

about the influence of postmodernism on American literature. And the fact that I amgenuinely curious, about what sort of thought/movement altered the established ‘Modern’

world image. This seemed to trigger a response, so what’s stopping me?


4/45

2

INTRODUCTION

In my foreword I said that I got interested in postmodernism because it seemed to lack aclear and concise definition, actually this is because there are a great many forms of

postmodernism. And the fact that postmodernism has so many different things it is trying

to address, it is a term that is trying to address more aspects of one particular. Besides this,

there is another problem; postmodernism is such a huge shift from Modernism that it is

impossible to understand the depth it is referring to. You could in fact say that there are

postmodernisms, while still using the old word; ’’Postmodernism’’. In this paper I will not

be able to discuss all of them, this being quite logical because postmodernism has many

relatives and manifestations within other art movements, and quite a lot in literature as

well. With this said I am going to look for which sorts of influence the movement AndIdeology of postmodernism, has had on American literature. The question I am asking

myself when approaching this project is: what is the influence of postmodernism on

American literature? Hopefully I can get to a concise conclusion in the last part of my paper.

In my first chapter I am looking at what preceded postmodernism in the field of

philosophy. It is my intension to use the modernist philosophy movements (rationalism

and empiricism) and the further development of western philosophy, to firstly, give you a

very clear idea of what the modern movement was all about in contrast to that of the

postmodern. Secondly, I am also going to look closely at which philosophical movements

were leading us to the rise of postmodern thought, in the previous time period (1700-

1980) to get a very clear idea of what these movements were. These movements are very

broad but held together they all are a continuation or critique of one another. The reason

being that there are a number of key developments in human thinking that are key facets of

what postmodern thought were going to become.


5/45

3

In my second chapter I will explain the philosophical and linguistic underpinnings of

postmodernism, here I will focus on specific philosophers who are important figures for

postmodernism on itself, and I will direct my attention to explain key elements of how

these philosophical theories get overthrown or criticized, the philosophers who are the

subject of discussion in the chapter two will be much more technical then is the case with

the thinkers discussed in chapter one. Throughout the course of this wholly project we will

hopefully start to see the different points the postmodern thinkers are making, while I

focus on some of the most important postmodern philosophical tenants. In my third

chapter I am going to look at Postmodernism as a literary art form, I am going to explain

important genre conventions, metafiction, intrigue, style to give a clear idea what

postmodern literature is really like. But the biggest question in the second part of my paper

is what the influence actually is, furthermore, how do the tenants of the critical language-

driven, philosophers apply on the works on three of the most praised American authors

And we will contemplate their significant style and tone of their works. And I will analyze

three books from where two are believed to be quintessential examples of postmodernliterature.


6/45

4

CHAPTER ONE

HOW DID POSTMODERNISM COME TO BE?

How did postmodernism come to be? Well, opinions differ immensely, this is becausepostmodernism is not an actual philosophy; it is more a way of analyzing things and

criticizing the grounded thought of modernist 1 beliefs. And it is a critique of structures; it is

often referred to as post-structuralism. But first I want to devote my attention to the

multiple shifts of worldviews in the course of the last two hundred years, because

postmodernism breaks sharply with all of these. And because the importance of how these

ideas could actually spark so much interest, that philosophers would back it.

1.1 HOW DID THE ENLIGHTENMENT CHANGE THE EUROPEAN WAY OF THINKING?The Enlightenment (16th/18th century) is also known as the age of Enlightenment. It is

very hard to say when the Enlightenment really began because the end of the renaissance

meant the beginning of the Enlightenment. Many historians point to the beginning of the

scientific revolution; this revolution took place at the beginning of the 17th century and in

the second part of the 17th century minds like Descartes, Newton, Leibniz and Galileo

changed the scientific thought in this time period. Before the beginning of Enlightenment

the philosophers of the renaissance directed their attention to religion and the human

species. This all changed when the philosophers of the Enlightenment directed their line of

thoughts and questions towards nature and most importantly the discovering of realfundamental truths. René Descartes was the first man who discovered one of these

fundamental truths. He was a French philosopher, he said that with the help of pure reason

only, every question could be answered or solved. He is famous for his quote: ‘’ Cogito ergo

sum’’, which means: ‘’I think therefore I am’’. This quote was first published in French (“je

pense donc je suis” ) in the ‘’Discourse of the Method ’’ (1637) Descartes is very known as well

for his method of doubts, before it was published in Latin in ‘’Principals of Philosophy ’’

(1644) it was intended to be Descartes ultimate answer to the questions Philosophers

sometimes ask themselves; namely how can one know that anything exists including

oneself, instead of being just a fantasy or some sort of dream. Descartes began to realizethat human senses are deeply unreliable, he said that he did not know if he was sitting in

his room in a dressing gown, or merely dreaming of some sort of thing. But there was one

thing he noticed that he was in fact actually thinking his existence could be proved by a

neat tautological trick: he could not be thinking and wondering if he existed if he did not

exist. Therefor his thinking was a basic proof of his being. Or to return to the phrase “I think

therefore I am’’ . This became the first major change in how people thought about problems;


7/45

5

no longer would there be people who backed up their arguments with appeals to god. The

other reason why Descartes is very important is because he was a fierce rationalist

(Reliance on reason and logic as the best guide for belief and action) and the first one. It is

interesting that he did not throw away the notion of religion, because rationalism is not in

any way alike to the beliefs of a religion. In this time period huge changes took place in how

people looked at the term Government. Huge breakthroughs took place in scientific and

technical fields. This is referred to as the scientific revolution.

In this time period people no longer argued that the sky was blue for example, because god

had made it that way. They started to use only the emphasis on reason and systematic

observation (rationalism), and then they started to formulate scientific methods to prove

these observations. Because of these developments there is a huge expansion of scientific

knowledge. In those times, a couple of theories changed the way people looked at the

natural world. The most known discovery in that time period is the heliocentric theory.

This theory got introduced by a Polish man named Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543); hediscovered that the sun was the center of our solar system; before this discovery people

thought that the earth had been center of our solar system. (This is called the geocentric

theory). And that all planets revolved around the earth was still true but the sun became

the replacement for the earth. This debunked the idea that humans would be the center of

existence. One hundred years after the death of Copernicus a British man named Isaac

Newton (1642-1727) was born. Newton would totally change things, people of this time

period thought that the earth was in one specific sphere, this being a certain force that only

counts on the earth that kept people and matter stationary on the ground. And that there

were different kinds of these particular rules that applied to the planets in outer space,

These rules preventing the planets from falling down to earth. When Newton came along,

he said that this was not true, he stated that gravity or the ‘pull’ that two bodies have

towards each other is actually universal. What takes place in outer space is exactly the

same as on the earth. And the only thing that affects the pull of gravity is the distance

between two objects, of the overall mass of either one of these objects; this is just a short

definition that explains that gravity is universal.


8/45

6

1.2 THE APPLE INCIDENT

Newton once said that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravity by seeing an apple

falling from a tree, it has also been stated that this story is nothing more than a myth.

Acquaintance of Newton; William Stukeley wrote in his manuscript account of 1752 that

there should have been an incident like this. He Quotes him in his recorded “memoires of

Sic Isaac Newton’’:

“ We went into the garden, & drank Thea under the shade of some apple trees;

only him, and me. Amidst other discourse, he told me, he was just in the same

situation, as when formerly; the notion of gravitation came into his mind.

"Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground,"

thought he to himself; occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a

contemplative mood. "Why should it not go sideways, or upwards? but

constantly to the earths center? Assuredly, the reason is that the earth draws

it. There must be a drawing power in matter. & the sum of the drawing

power in the matter of the earth must be in the earth’s center, not in any side

of the earth. Therefore dos this apple falls perpendicularly, or toward the

center. If matter thus draws matter; it must be in proportion of its quantity.

Therefore the apple draws the earth, as well as the earth draws the apple .’’ 2

Within the course of the enlightenment philosophers were puzzled by the question of how

human beings acquire knowledge. The camps were split between two major philosophical

trends, in France and Germany we have Rationalism with Descartes being the most

prominent lead figure, as I explained at the beginning of this chapter. In the United

Kingdom we have Empiricism (the position that all human knowledge is derived originally

from the human senses, and that there is no form of knowledge that precedes observation.)

This branch of philosophy originates from Aristotle and Epicurus; it became of major

importance in the 17th and 18th century. I will only discuss some of the key points of John

Locke’s (1632-1704) philosophy. There are numerous off-springs, from Empiricism, for

instance: positivism, Pragmatism, analytical philosophy, and logical empiricism. I will now

amplify on this reaction to rationalism. And give some further developments around thethinkers Empiricists inspired. John Locke was a 17th century British political theorist and

philosopher, He is well known for the fact that he inspired the founding fathers of Americas

so much that they decided to rip off almost all of Locke’s ideas on political theory and use

this for the declaration of independence. But before I start to discuss Locke’s political ideas

and works, we first have to get a grounding of his works on epistemology3.


9/45

7

John Locke proposed the theory of the Tabula Rasa, or blank slate. He was under the

impression that every person was born completely empty, this went against the

philosophical tradition that every human being at least has some sort of preset of rational

understanding, or in any case a set of desires and intentions; this is commonly referred toas human nature. Locke was under the impression there was no such thing as human

nature. I and every one of us is the author of our own character. ‘ERGO’ all men and women

are created equal. This is also the underlying idea in Empiricist thought, Locke

distinguished between simple and complex knowledge.

Simple Knowledge is the knowledge we receive directly from the world. And these ideas

cannot be broken down into simpler objects. Complex knowledge is the knowledge that

consists of all the multiple concepts of knowledge we assemble from simple knowledge. For

example a series of simple knowledge might be: solid, gold, shiny and round. From this we

develop the complex knowledge of a coin, from there we can scale up to more complex

knowledge of trade then to value then to currency then to economy. All of these contents

are constructed entirely from the simple concepts of our senses. This brings us to Locke’s

political ideas. John Locke was certainly no fan of large intrusive government, and

proposed that every individual has a fundamental right to life, liberty and property

(Declaration of independence). In his book ‘’ two treatises of government ’’ (1689) Locke

strongly shows that he is against absolutism, and in favor of the separation of state and

church. Locke’s political theory is largely influenced by social contract theory. It can be

briefly summarized as follows. Firstly, an individual is born into a ‘’state of nature’’, each

person has god given rights; these rights are not subject to any kind of government. He alsostated that human nature is selfish, but is characterized by reason and tolerance. Secondly,

this state of nature is unstable and individuals are at risk of physical harm. This means that

they are requiring stability or cooperation with others. Thirdly, in such conditions

government arises since individuals can see the benefits which can be gained by

relinquishing a number of their rights to a central authority; this takes place in the form of

a contract. Locke also thought that revolution is not only a right, but an obligation in certain

circumstances. Locke is also seen as the ‘’Father of Classical Liberalism’’. Between the

discussion of rationalism and empiricism a German philosopher changed the whole

landscape of philosophy for good, which engendered the analytic/continental split in

modern and contemporary philosophy. Emanuel Kant (1724-1804), a very known and

admired Enlightenment philosopher, he is seen as one of the most influential thinkers of

modern Europe and of philosophy itself. Emanuel Kant is a philosopher, who searched for

how human beings could be good and kind, outside the rules or blandishments of a religion.

In an essay named ‘’ what is enlightenment ’’ (1784) Kant called the enlightenment a time of

growing secularism.


10/45

8

Kant welcomed the declining of Christianity but in a practical sense he was also alarmed by

it. He was very pessimistic about human character; he believed intensely that we are very

prone to corruption. This awareness evolved into his life’s project. He wanted an answer to

the question of how to replace the authority of religion into an authority of reason. Thiswould be human intelligence. When it came to religion Kant summed up his views in his

book, entitled ‘religion bound by reason alone’ (1795). Here he argued that although

historically religion was wrong in the content of what they believed, it had laced up to a

great need for ethical behavior. (The Ten Commandments, for example {thou shall not

steal}) Kant’s works were dense, abstract and highly intellectual. But in them he sketched a

very important project that remains crucial to this day. He wanted to understand how the

better more reasonable parts of our natures could be strengthened to reliably will out over

our inbuilt weaknesses and selfishness. As Kant saw it he was engaged in the task of

creating a secular rational version of what religion had very imperfectly always attemptedto do: Help us to be good.

Kant on enlightenment:

‘’ Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is

man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from

another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason

but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from

another. Sapere aude! 'Have courage to use your own reason!'- that is the

motto of enlightenment.” –Immanuel Kant

After the Enlightenment around the year 1750, the Industrial Revolution changed our

society with great power, a lot of people moved from the countryside to the city. Each with

their own set of reasons, for the search of truths. Within philosophy, German idealism is of

major importance, namely the philosophy of Kant and Hegel; Marx and Engels continued

this, with their own scientific socialism (Marxism & Communism). When Darwin breaks

through with his theory of evolution (on the evolution of species), a huge eruption occursthat led to the disruption of the grounded image of man of that period of time. Sigmund

Freud’s book ‘’the interpretation of Dreams’’ (1900) shows a different side of human beings

than that it was shown in previous times. As last Nietzsche ‘The philosopher with the

hammer’ anticipates the 20th century with his statement that ‘’God is dead’’ and the call to

become Master of yourself and to shape your own being.


11/45

9

Within the 20th century, science and technics became of major importance. So important

that a new branch arose within philosophy: The Philosophy of science. Because the human

world view changed in such a radical manner, the question of what it means to be human

became a specific object of investigation, with the rise of philosophical anthropology inGermany. In France Existentialism arose with Jean-Paul Sartre as its main representor. The

continental philosophy is placed more and more separate from the Anglo-Saxon philosophy

(Analytical philosophy) in which language has the central position. After the Second World

War, there is a crisis revolving the modernist view of progress. Postmodern Philosophy

arises with as a starting point ‘the end of all Grand-narratives’.

1.3: THE INFLUENCES OF THE UNIVERSAL WORLDVIEW OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche Born in 1844 was one of the most influential philosophers

who ever lived; he was a source of great influence for most of the contemporary

philosophers of the 20th and twenty-first century. He possessed great literary skills and

wrote many books. He wrote about many categories in philosophy from ethics to esthetics4.

Nietzsche was a moralist, but a moralist who was poisoned with great metaphysical5

sharpness. His motto ‘’God is dead’’ was his starting point, For Nietzsche these words got

their first real philosophical value and meaning in a remarkable book of Max Stirner6

(1806-1856) named: ‘’der Einzige und sein Eigentum’’ (1845) (‘’The Ego and Its Own’’) it isimportant to note that Stirner was a young follower of Hegel’s philosophy7 (Hegel also

being a huge influence on Nietzsche.) Stirner dismissed the idea that individuals create

their own freedom and self-overcoming, this can be achieved through institutional context.

Stirner was the most extreme of the many that followed Hegel’s idea of philosophy. He

dismissed every institute, every form of religion, and even all forms of relations; except

those which signify the individual, in contrast to a collective of some sort (individualism).

Nietzsche chose the individual as a starting point in philosophy just like Stirner, but he

remained very skeptical of the possibility that there is intrinsic8 value surrounding an

individual, after the veil of the outside image is pulled away. He regarded the way of

describing and classifying the individual as a mere individual as deleterious; because every

individual gets their character as a predetermined thing by nature. The job of the individual

is merely to overcome this claim. Nietzsche accepted the fact that every description of an

individual only is used as a concept, but added that it takes a detour from the individual

that she describes.


12/45

10

Nietzsche was a lifelong writer; his books were often very personal. This is because he had

real talent for writing. Therefore Nietzsche did not only write philosophy, but depictions of

Culture and Art as well. He began with a very original but controversial interpretation of

the antic world and the classic Greek culture; he came to a stop when he wrote a critique of

the morals of Christianity and the positivistic humanism9 of that time. Nietzsche was huge

admirer of Arthur Schopenhauer10; he borrowed Schopenhauer’s idea of the Cosmos.

According to Schopenhauer the cosmos had an irrational will to fight for its existence; this

will was characterized by a blind rage that would push over anything it its way. With this

Schopenhauer came to the conclusion that this only brings pain and misery. Nietzsche

supposed, in contrast to Schopenhauer that the cosmos is also a place of joy and emotion.

1.3.1 BETWEEN MORALS AND POWER

Nietzsche saw the cycle of evolution of the world in an order of great genealogical context;

He called for a revaluation of all values. This means that he wanted to see man give body to

his or her own sense of morals instead of living a life that is being dominated by groundedvalues of society or especially the morals of Christianity. Nietzsche uses a Genealogical

method; this is a good example of a hermeneutic of suspicion, which would seek to

demonstrate that things like morality would be way too complex and uncertain to be seen

from the surface. In this method Nietzsche first locates a particular form of morality, very

unlike our own, among the Homeric11 Greeks he calls this moral ordaining a Master

morality, and this basically revolves around the virtue of excellence. For the Greek this

meant acquiring many capabilities, so that one could exercise the will to power freely

according to ones desires. But the deepest expression of a master morality lies not in the

activity of controlling others but in shaping personal values and new ways of life. In

contrast, the bad in the ancient world would mean having a blocked and limited possibility

to power. So that one could not exercise it freely according to ones desires, basically the

position of slaves in the antiquity. However, the slaves had their own moral ordering of the

world, organized mostly around the resentment of their master’s uninhibited will to power.

Nietzsche calls this a slave morality. And it helped the slaves endure their oppression by

reversing the poles of their master’s morality, so that their master’s became a

personification of evil. And therefore the slaves could see themselves as good people,

because their reward would come in the future. Consequently, a slave morality sees virtue

in the revering of exercising one’s powers, and sees evil in terms of doing so with no sense

of compunction. Nietzsche than became aware that the Christian morality, the dominantmorality of our own age, arose precisely in the kinds of enslavement under the Roman

Empire and is still fundamentally a slave morality.


13/45

11

This explains why the Christian world view revolves around the dynamics of subservience.

Or for example being obedient to the lord or being a member of a flock. Finally, Nietzsche

genealogical analysis leads the reader of his philosophy to suspect the anterior motives

behind our current dominant virtues.

1.3.2 ‘’GOD IS DEAD AND WE KILLED HIM’’ Many people have interpreted that Nietzsche believed in a literal death or end of God.

Instead, the line points to the western world’s reliance on religion as a moral compass and

source of meaning. As he explains in (Section 125, The Madman ‘’the gay science’’ on p181):

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we

comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and

mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our

knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean

ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to

invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves

not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” 12

Nietzsche infamously proclaimed the death of god as can be read in ‘’the gay science’’ Some

people regard this proclamation as an expression of Nietzsche’s supposed atheistic beliefs.

However, saying that God is dead would hardly constitute to standard atheistic which

would hold that God never existed in the first place. Consequently, most people regard

Nietzsche’s idea of the death of God more as a historical or sociological observation rather

than a theological pronouncement. If you look back over the course of history, you can’thelp but notice how central god was in every facet of life for many centuries. Especially for

the medieval period in our history, Today, however, God is but one of many facets of our

life and not the most important one. There are of course still churches and believers. But

God is no longer the singular defining presence in our world. This is a curious position for

our oldest, most loved, and most elusive entity of the history of humanity. We are nearly at

the starting point in history where postmodernism rules the landscape of values and

criticism, but before I begin with explaining and describing the theories and dogmas of the

postmodernists, we are going to look at the most glamorous philosophical movement that

kept the modern world in its grasp after the second world war and the first half of the 20th

century, Before postmodernism changed everything that the past centuries of thinkers

were led to belief.


14/45

12

1.3.3 CONDEMNED TO FREEDOM

Existentialist thinkers over the last few centuries have created some of the greatest works

of philosophy and literature that western civilization has ever seen. However, putting ones

finger on what Existentialists believe is very tricky and difficult, but I am convinced that I

will work around this problem.

To understand Existentialism it will be helpful to understand what it is not. Existentialism

is not a philosophical system, nor could you see it as a set of doctrines, it is properly best

characterized as a philosophical movement. As a movement Existentialism arose in the 19th

century in Europe. Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and Friedrich Nietzsche are often

characterized as the founding fathers of the movement. The 19th Century Russian Author

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) is also considered as one of its official giants. While the

modern roots of existentialism are found in the 19th century, it was not until the early to

mid-20th

century and especially after World War Two, that existentialism really rose toprominence. This was the time that saw such influential existentialists as Franz Kafka,

Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and probably most famous,

French Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. Now we have a brief history of the origin of

Existentialism, we can look at what it is that ties all those in the existentialist movement

together? One answer to this question is that those in the existentialist movement in the

past or present all share a deep concern with one another, with what they consider as a

fundamental problem, that being the problem of life as a human being. As Robert Solomon

expressed it in his book ‘’f rom Hegel to E xistentialism’’ (1990):

‘’(Existentialism) is an attitude that recognizes the unresolvable confusion of

the human world, yet resists the all-too-human temptation to resolve the

confusion by grasping toward whatever appears or can be made to appear

firm or familiar… The existential attitude begins with a disoriented

individual facing a confused world that he cannot accept.’’ 13

In other words, existentialists share a common concern at what some have called the

‘Human Condition’ they take seriously such questions as. ‘’Why am I here?’’, ‘’what does it

mean to be human?’’ And ‘’how should I live my life?’’ Existentialists have differed widelyon their evaluation of the human condition. This is one reason the movement is tough to

define. However, what is common among existentialists is that in addressing the human

condition they tend to reject all-encompassing systems be they philosophical or religious

or scientific. That tempts to answer questions regarding the meaning and purpose of

human life in an absolute manner.


15/45

13

In other words, systems which have to profess answers to such questions which are not

only seen as timeless or definitive, but also seen as applying to all human beings, If

someone was willing to accept those answers in any case. The most prominent system of

this type in the history of western civilization has been Christianity.

Religious and philosophical systems which offer such definitive answers to life’s questionshave been very attractive throughout history; these systems have been attractive because

they remove a massive burden one would have to face when trying to create meaning and

purpose for themselves in a unique and personal manner. While facing the human

condition and life’s inescapable problems as an individual without a premade religious or

philosophical system is undoubtedly extremely difficult. It is what most existentialists have

advocated. The reason why existentialists are largely in favor of individuals finding

answers to life’s problems on their own, is that they believe that adhering to systems which

expose absolute and all-embracing answers to the existential problems of life are

contributing to someone’s development as an authentic human being. Existentialists havepointed out that these systems do not adequately take into account what it is like to be

human. This is because such systems lose sight of the human perspective on life for an

individual on this world and experiencing all the fear, anxieties, hopes and

disappointments that are a part of the human condition. For example, many of the mass

organized religions see the divined perspective as being communicated to us through the

words of prophets. They also give answers on these questions of life from the perspective

of an all knowing and all powerful god. However, existentialists stretch that what we need

most is not a divine perspective, but a human perspective on life. For as Nietzsche put it :

‘’we are human, all too human.’’

A specific problem with the divine perspective is that it does not take the human condition

as a fundamental truth; the biggest part of our humanity is our mortality which merely a

forgotten shadow in the divine perspective; many religions both past and present have

denied the temporal nature of life and would rather subscribe to some form of immortality.

Some existentialists have suggested that it is essential to face up to our own morality. The

shock that this realization gives us might help us to get the strength to stop living in

conformity with the masses and instead taking control of our own lives. And live by

standards and values of our own choice, with the freedom to create meaning and purpose

in our own lives. This realization is closely related to another famous existentialist idea

which I will explain before I will conclude my first chapter.


16/45

14

1.3.4 EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE

‘’Existence precedes essence’’ was an idea that was put forth by Jean-Paul Sartre in a lecture

titled ‘’Is Existentialism a Humanism’’ This idea was not shared with all Existentialists of

Sartre’s time; Martin Heidegger for example was not a fan of such an assertion. So , what

exactly does this statement mean? To understand what Sartre was getting at it would be

helpful to understand the term ‘Essence’. The concept of an essence is put forth most

famously by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (284-322BC). Aristotle believed that

every substance, or in other words every independent thing, being a person, a rock or a

tree for example, has an essence; the essence of a substance can better be characterized by

its nature. It can be seen as the necessary properties or characteristics are essential for the

thing to be what it is. Aristotle had a Teleological (I.e. goal-oriented) view of nature. He

believed that all substances tend towards the actualization of their essence. So, for

example, a caterpillar has the potential tendency to turn in to a butterfly. In terms ofhumans, Aristotle saw the nature (essence) of humans was acting in full accordance with

reason. Aristotle believed that the human, unlike inanimate matter and other animals were

free to choose whether or not act in accordance with their nature (essence). With that

being said he did not believe that humans were free to create a unique essence for

themselves in the course of their lives.

Likewise those who believe in an omnipotent god, who designed and created the universe

the essence of humans is not something, determent in the course of ones live. But rather is

determined by god prior to the existence of the individual. Thus, for those who believe in

this kind of way, the essence of humans can be preceded by their existence. Sartre, on the

other hand, saw the situation of the humans in the opposite light, thus the statement that

Existence precedes our Essence; In Sartre’s mind humans are fundamentally different from

things like cars, watches or phones. For things of this type it is obviously appropriate that

their essence precedes their existence, because they are designed with a predetermined

function in mind. But for Sartre, who was an Atheist, humans are not designed with a

predetermined goal in mind. But we come into this world lacking a predetermined essence.

However, our ability to make free choices gives us the opportunity to sculpt a unique

essence for ourselves during the course of our lifetime.

With the theory of the Existentialists we are entering the era of Postmodernism; in the nextchapter we delve into the postmodern skeptics and their critique of social structure,

Language and as stated the end of all grand-narrative. On the next page there is a graph

illustrating the transition in multiple areas, from Pre-modernism to Modernism to

Postmodernism.


17/45

15

1.3.5 TRANSITION OF TIME PERIODS

Pre-modernism Modernism Postmodernism

Metaphysics Realism: Super-

Naturalism

Realism:

Naturalism

Anti-realism

Epistemology Mysticism

and/or

Faith

Objectivism:

Experience(Empiricism)

and Reason

(Rationalism)

Social subjectivism

Human

Nature

Original Sin;

Subject to god’s

will

Tabula Rasa and

autonomy

Social construction and

conflict

Ethics Collectivism:

altruism

Individualism Collectivism:

egalitarianism

Politics &

Economics

Feudalism Liberal

capitalism

Socialism

When and

Where

Medieval

(500-1500)

The Enlightenment; 20th

century sciences,

business and technical

fields

Late twentieth century

humanities and related

professions


18/45

16

CHAPTER TWO:

FROM SEMIOTICS TO POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Upon starting this second chapter, it is important to note that all of the past topics Idiscussed in chapter one were an introduction to the upcoming topics. The 20th century

starts with influential thoughts in all aspects of the western world. With a new view that

the previous centuries gave humanity, most notable the Enlightenment, there comes a time

when the foundations of future developments are not only discovered but also questioned

and criticized. Of course, I am not able to explain every aspect of this process. Because this

is not only a very complicated process, it is also related to; science, critical theory and

different aspects of these practices.

The thinkers, who I will focus on, in some way or another, got influenced by philosophers

from the modern time period. Furthermore, I will explain what postmodernism is, and the

process of development it embodies in the course of the 1960-1990s. Almost every facet or

manifestation of postmodern philosophy has had great influence on a wide set of subjects,

including literature, politics, art, architecture, cultural criticism, history and sociology. For

this reason it can sometimes be incredibly difficult to draw a thick (or small) line between

certain areas, because most fields of thought continue the previous one but with a different

intension, or borrow small elements from each other. For this reason I will not be able to

convey or explain every facet that postmodernist philosophy consists of. I will focus on

how, at the beginning of the 20th century the Swiss linguist and semiotician14 Ferdinand the

Saussure founded the structuralist method of semiotics (also known as the Saussureantradition, which is called Semiology). Then I will focus on how this developed into

structuralism and later into Poststructuralism. After this, I will explain some key concepts

of poststructuralists, most notably: Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard,

Jean-Francois Lyotard.

2.1 WHAT IS THE STRUCTURALIST METHOD?

Ferdinand the Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss linguist who is believed to be the father

of Structural linguistics. Furthermore, he is often described as the Father of modernlinguistics. This honor is shared between the Saussure and Noam Chomsky (1928- ) but it

does depend who you ask. This was a radical new theory of language, thought of as a

structured system. His most influential work: ‘’course in general linguistics’’ was published

posthumously in 1916. But what is structural linguistics? It is an idea that language is a

system of contrasts and equivalents. In structural linguistics, language consists of strings of

linguistic objects, be they words, signs or themes.


19/45

17

And these objects are defined only through the fact that they contrast with other objects

through the language system. This was a radical new idea of thinking about languages, and

presented a very big change from previous approaches. In order to understand structural

linguistics, I first have to explain the key ideas within structural linguistics. Firstly, there is

the Sign Saussure concept of the sign which consists of the signified and the signifier . The

signifier is the sound of the letter that we use to denote what we are talking about. Signified

is the actual concept of the thing. That is the idea of the thing when we hear or read the

signifier. The actual real thing is called the reverend. Not between the thought of a cat and

an actual real cat. The sign is a two sided psychological-entity. That cannot exist without

the other; it just could not be a sign if that was the case. Imagine a coin with just one side,

impossible, right? Secondly, Saussure highlights that there is an arbitrary and a

conventional relationship between the signifier and the signified. This is arbitrary because

there is no real explanation or reason why we call a cat a ‘cat’. And that is why different

languages have different words for the same thing.

The convention of language refers to the idea that the speech community needs to adhere

to the same connections as the signifier and the signified. For example, in the English

language, every speaker shares the concept they think of, when the word ‘cat’ is used. You

could not know that if you said ‘dog’, when referring to a cat, people would know that I am

actually referring to a cat, instead of a dog. Thirdly, Saussure distinguishes between the use

of language, Parole (language that the individual speaks) and between langue (what is

shared by the community.) Langue, being the system of language such as: syntax,

phonology.15 Parole, on the other hand, is the use of that language. And this is an individual

matter; Parole refers to the concrete instances of the use of individual language. Fourthly,

Saussure distinguishes between: Synchrony and Diachrony. Synchrony refers to the

complete language system at just one point in time. You could see it as a snapshot of

language in a particular time. Diachrony, on the other hand, is how that language develops

over time, this is also known as historical linguistics. Diachrony, at the same time refers to

pronunciation changes, or words that appear or disappear out of nowhere. Before Saussure

started to share his ideas of language, Language was aligned with belief. Saussure explained

that language is structural. Thereby freeing it from associations be they social, cultural,

political or historical.


20/45

18

Therefore it means that language only has structural relations. This means linguistic

objects are only understood together with other linguistic objects. When combining the

linguistic methodology of Saussure with different critical developments of modern thought,

such as Psychoanalysis, Marxism. Structuralists demonstrated what the study of signs in

the life within society could achieve. This was done in a wide variety of ways, showing how

cultural meaning relates to the hidden discourses of power and knowledge (Michel

Foucault), the psychic unconscious (Jacques Lacan) myth, kinship and symbol (Claude Levi-

Strauss), literature and mass culture (Roland Barthes). Saussure made the trail visible; it

was up to his disciples to stake out the wide, unexplored territories which Saussure opened

up.

2.2 BEYOND THE STRUCTURALIST METHOD

The method of the linguistic Structuralism that Saussure proposed were later used to

develop poststructuralism, this is a name for a movement in modern philosophy that began

in the 1960s. And is an evolution or extension of structuralism. Poststructuralism is best

characterized as a set of 20th century ideas about language and representation; these have

been very influential in humanities. The movement is best summed up by the thinkers that

are known poststructuralists. These thinkers being: Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-

François Lyotard, Michel Foucault and Roland Bathes (most of these thinkers deny being

poststructuralists themselves). At its core, poststructuralism is a search for the limits of

knowledge. This is a common thread running through poststructuralism. Furthermore, it

explains why structuralism needed to be added, since the structural project tries to secure

knowledge through the charting of differences, within structures. It is also important tonote that the philosophy of Nietzsche was a grand influence on poststructuralism. There

are three key areas that stand out in his philosophy: (1) his genealogical method (between

morals and power, Page ten), as a critique of all transcendence16; (2) his emphasis on the

importance of style (Prose, with at its core, a well thought out philosophy) for thought; (3)

his search for a new way of thinking about the metaphysical basis for philosophy.

Furthermore, as a means of disambiguation, I want to stretch that there are lot of

similarities and differences between poststructuralism and critical theory17. If not aware of

these things, it can cause for some unnecessary problems – as well as for me. The thing is

that critical theory and poststructuralism are sharing a certain form of analysis. The ideathat reality is not what it seems, a certain naturalized version of a constellation of being

that came out of a certain historical context. So, the goal of both is, to some extent, to

denaturalize a social order that comes across to us as natural (the way things are). The

difference between them lies in their origin, and in their solution. Poststructuralism is less

optimistic towards finding solutions than Critical Theory is.


21/45

19

And poststructuralism has a different origin than critical theory; furthermore, because of

this different origin it makes poststructuralism way more compatible with the problems

they are investigating. Now we are setting a very interesting disambiguation;

Poststructuralism often gets confused with postmodernism or used interchangeably.

Opinions differ on why this is the case. Poststructuralism is a social theory (philosophy),

whereas Postmodernism is more a literary form of criticism, more for a general approach

towards the world. This distinction is rather arbitrary; they refer to largely overlapping

sets of practices. But the ‘linguistic structuralism’ of Saussure is the grand architect of both

schools of thought.

Poststructuralism tries to break away from structuralism; this is because of the

determinism that is attached to structuralism. For structuralism it is very hard to

understand or accept change, because we are just stuck in the language that we use.

Structuralists like Lacan, Althusser and others are all sharing a common idea. Despite all

their differences, this idea is that language is not something that refers to something of anobject out in the world. But rather a system that refers to one another. So, we do not use

language for our own purposes, but rather that language shapes what we are. It is a

structure we live in, so that our social world is structured through our language. This can

even be the case if we have the idea that we use language in a different manner than others.

As has been mentioned before, poststructuralism try’s to break away from structuralism,

this is why poststructuralism tries to bring in new types of change and dynamism, but still

retaining the importance of language. So, the central point of poststructuralism ‘’is that

language is the house that we live in’’ (Heidegger). This means that we have no access to

the world outside of language; we cannot see, grasp or act, outside of language. So,poststructuralists shape this idea that everything is textual in some way or another.

Therefore, reality consists out of multiple narratives and discourses that create a

meaningful world to us. So, they are basically saying that language shapes the texture that

is presented to us, as the world and to a larger extent the reality that is perceived or given

to us. But there is a problem that poststructuralists face; this problem is the fact that the

narratives and discourses always come with an element of power. But because we are so

accustomed to this power, we cannot experience this power. This is because the hidden

power inside language (narratives) has become absolutely normal to us, and to larger

extent, into our everyday usage of speaking the world into existence, that is.

Now, we will look at a big facet of poststructuralism and postmodernism. This is a term/

theory, known as a ‘’incredulity towards meta-narratives’’ . It came out of a small work of the

French poststructuralist Jean-François Lyotard; this was named: La condition postmoderne:

rapport sur le savoir (the postmodern condition: a report on knowledge.) (1979). A simple

explanation for this claim is that it is a skeptical response to all absolute truths.


22/45

20

These meta-narratives are in fact big overarching stories. To give an example, human

beings are capable, with help of their rationality, to come up with a solution for every

problem there is. Another would be that with the access to modern medicines we are

capable of curing all ills. In this short but influential work Lyotard argued that the

epistemology from the postmodern culture, was leading to the end of big, dense narratives;

these being overarching philosophical theories of science and history. He was under the

impression that these theories were a part of the modern period in our history. But what

are Meta-narratives?

Meta-narratives are narratives that hold together narratives so to say. They are storylines

that give meaning to our collective being. And they can be seen as the cornerstones or

foundations for our culture. They are the oldest of our common shared story of culture that

gives meaning to our being. These can be traditional (religion) or modern (science) stories.

The stories that we hinge our everyday experiences upon.

So, these meta-narratives are not stories about things, but rather interpretive frameworks

that allow us to give meaning to our everyday experiences. So, these meta-narratives are

naturalized so that we do not perceive these narratives as narratives, but as real. And for

the poststructuralist there is a problem to be found here. We understand the reality of the

world, not through the stories that we tell them, but rather objectively (Real, so to say).

This creates a virtual reality of truths, which is otherwise just built from and in language.

So, poststructuralism is about fighting meta-narratives, but how is this done? Well, in

contrast to critical theorists who argue that the western values of the enlightenment has

gone wrong, and can be replaced. Poststructuralists are very skeptical of replacing one

meta-narrative with another. For them we will always be stuck, with this idea that we haveaccess to truths, through a narrative that we cannot see. So, this is a very clear explanation

how poststructuralists and critical theorists diverge from one another. Neither

poststructuralists nor critical theorists are under the impression that there is something

fundamentally wrong, with meta-narratives. It is not as if a poststructuralist is saying that

we can do without them somehow. Nevertheless, for them there still is a problem to be

found in meta-narratives, this problem is rather abstract; but they are basically saying that

we mistakenly see meta-narratives as a reality. And that we therefore lose sight for the

power relations that they produce, they create winners and losers.


23/45

21

2.3 THE CRITIQUE OF STRUCTURALISM AND THE DECONSTRUCTION OF META-NARRATIVES

So, the solution for the poststructuralists is what they call; the ‘deconstruction’ of meta-

narratives. This phrase is coined by Jacque Derrida, a French postmodern/poststructuralist

thinker. He sits at the forefront of the post structural movement. Deconstruction is a

method of inquiry that puts forth the assertion that all writings are full of contradictions

and confusions and even the writer is not able to overcome these contradictions, even if he

would deliberately try to dispose of them to convey meaning. So, deconstruction is saying

some things of the very property of language. It precludes the possibility of any meaning in

the most absolute form. It is important to note that ‘Deconstruction’ is a critique of

structuralism; Derrida accepts the ground of Saussure’s linguistics only to dismantle it

completely. In 1968 Derrida gave a lecture, in the form of a seminal essay, (‘’Structure, sign

and play in de discourse of human sciences’’ ). This essay took the whole western world by

storm, in the room that the lecture was given were some of the great thinkers of that timepresent, including; Foucault, who I will discuss in the next subchapter and John Barth, who

later became a well-known postmodern author who was at this time, a professor at the

John’s Hopkins University.

This lecture criticizes the very idea of structure; in any assumed structure, Derrida

questions the finality or definitely of the signified, he believes that in language we keep

moving from one signifier to another, and the ultimate ‘meaning, or the supposed signified

remains elusive, For example, we can take the word ‘mean’ if someone would ask; what is

the meaning of this word, we say; ‘mean’, ‘means’, ‘meaning’. So, this is sort of the

wormhole that deconstruction lets us open up, because this way we keep moving from onesignifier to another without getting to any definite meaning. In this way language is

constantly in a state of dissemination. It is like language does not allow revealing itself

completely. Opposed to Derrida, Saussure maintained that by virtue of their differences

signs refer to meaning in the external world. But Derrida maintains that there is nothing

outside language, and that language is self-reverential. So, to quote him: ‘’There is nothing

outside the text ’’ , because language is self-reverential. Derrida attacks these big stories as

well, but he does it in very theoretical and text-driven manner. This phrase, simply put, or

in a larger framework means the denaturalizing of meta-narratives, that we have and that

we find. So we have to try and see as much as possible, behind or through the veil of

language which we use on a day-to-day basis. Of course, this is very difficult to put it mildly.

Because humans have almost no ability to look beyond the language, we are figuratively

speaking, the language, and looking beyond our ability of reason and logic, which is all

attached to language, is nearly impossible. And the fact that we have to explain at some

point the findings we come up with will have to be communicated through language.


24/45

22

2.4 DERRIDA ON FREE PLAY, THEOCENTRIC AND ANTHROPOCENTRISM SHIFTS.

In the essay Derrida presented at John’s Hopkins College in 1968, he talked about a shift in

the position of man. In this essay it is revered to as an ‘’event’’ that changed the western

culture after the conclusion of the dark ages and to some extend the beginning of the

modern period in history. In this period of time we lived in a theocentric world. In this time

period, man sees himself as a product of divine creativity. As something that is derived

from god, who participate and benefit from the divine presence of god. But then the rise of

Enlightenment, (Chapter one) is also the rise of Anthropocentrism. And by the time

Anthropocentrism is in full cry, you get people like; Blake, Nietzsche & Marx. Who argued

that god did not invented man but that man invented god. Man has become the

transcendental signified. Everything is derived since this historical moment, from human

consciousness. And other forms of concepts from whatever kind, which can be understood

in that light. Derrida having said ’’man’’ is implying that there is something that will come

after ‘’man’’:

‘’T hat all the names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center

have always designated the constant of a presence—eidos, arché, telos,

energeia, ousia (essence, existence, substance, subject) aletheia,

transcendentality, consciousness, or conscience, God, man, and so forth’’.

(Jacques Derrida, Structure, sign and play in de discourse of human sciences, 1968)

Derrida is implying with the use of ‘’and so forth’’ that man is replaced by language.Furthermore the argument that Derrida is making about the emergence of this ‘’event’’ is

that a transcendental signified has actually substituted itself for man. In other words the

world is no longer anthropocentric, it became Linguistic. So this rupture of an event that

took hold of man is language. With the absence of man/god as a vital centralized position,

Derrida argues that there is nothing left than ‘’Free play’’.


25/45

23

2.5 FOUCAULT’S AND BOUDRILLARD’S POST-STRUCTURAL APPROACHES

Another key thinker in post-structural thought is the French historical philosopher Michel

Foucault. He had been doing a lot of interesting and fascinating work. Always historically

driven, and always in combination with the growth of Power. He had been investigating

how society has been dealing with people who fall out of the norms proposed by society.

Mentally ill, prisoners, homosexuals, etcetera. And he makes historical analyses of the

terms we see these people in. For example, in his ‘’Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique - Folie et

déraison’’ ( 1961) Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Those

mentally ill people in the dark ages were part of public life, they were part of the public

sphere. But around the 18th century they were considered to be so abnormal that they

would to be removed from society. And only in the 20th century did they become patients

instead of some sort of outcast. Foucault argues that in the course of history we have

started to put the mentality ill in different terms, and treating them accordingly.

Foucault does this for all kinds of categories of outsiders, and he shows that throughout the

development of western modern society as we know it now, we have been moving from a

certain starting point in dealing with the normal towards an increasing state of

surveillance, and disciplining of the subject (the abnormal).

So, all of his writing sort of concurs with the idea that modern institutions (prisons,

schools, supermarkets etc.) are all about measuring and judging on how you can relate to

the norm. And how can we make you relate better to the norm. For example let us look at

the way we get grades in school, because it is all about setting a norm on how you should

be. And then measuring you up to that norm, and then finding that you are not complyingwith this norm. Saying that it is a bad thing, which needs to be evaluated and addressed and

then adjusted. And the point is that the education institution can let go of telling you that

you are not upholding the norm, because you have internalized that norm, you have

become that norm. And by yourself, you know, that the people who are telling you this, are

true, and that you have to do better. So, in this way, surveillance even moves to the

surveillance of yourself. And this is the characteristic of all modern institutions. If you look

to the military, law it is all about the measuring you up, to a norm that needs to apply to

everyone. And this happens on a massive scale.

And what Foucault is trying to explain here is what he calls; A ‘’Genealogy of subjectivity’’.This means that we maybe think that we are free incontrollable agents of our own

subjectivity, but in fact we have been shaped by this constant surveillance, to the point that

we even began to surveil ourselves to uphold the norm of society. We have taken over the

positon of the state itself, and we just do not realize it.


26/45

24

The last important thinker to address in short is Jean Baudrillard, who argues that in our

postmodern times reality has ceased to exist, and I want to explain this by means of a quote

from him:

‘’We live in a world where there is more and more information , and less and less meaning’’

For Baudrillard, all information that we have accesses to is mediated, it comes to us

through television or books or the media, through stories etc. and therefore reality has

become a sort of text, that can be scripted, can be twisted, and framed. So, for Baudrillard,

media has come to define the reality. It defines what can be seen, and the terms that we see

it in. Baudrillard argues that wars do no longer take place; in fact they have been replaced

by media events; Pictures, opinions, experts on CNN and other news outlets. And we are

lately bombarded by messages, by hypes, by the news by instantaneous information, which

is completely torn away from the war altogether and the realness of it. It has become a

virtual warfare. And this is not just a representation of the war that is going on. No, it is not

possible anymore to separate; virtual warfare has come to define the actors, the processes,

and the ethics of the warfare. Making warfare technical and unhuman, for example, we do

not see blood any more. It makes warfare or at least our warfare always just, and

acceptable.

With this I will conclude my second chapter, which is at the same time the end of the

philosophical part of this project. My next chapter will focus on how these different forms

of postmodern thought have influenced the American literature. And in what way this

relates to the origin of the postmodern novel. Furthermore, I will discuss the different sets

of style, found in postmodern fictional texts.

But before I conclude my second chapter, I would like to make an attempt to define

postmodernism, according to my conducted research:

Postmodernism, is an overarching set of philosophical ideas and form of skepticism, that

attacks the modern values of established truths; furthermore, It is the conclusion that human

beings are not able to come to terms with the very core of language and reality, even if human

beings are not aware of this fact. This form of uncertainty has extreme impact on art,

literature, music, architecture, and, above all else, the way humans think.


27/45

25

CHAPTER THREE:

FROM MODERNIST TO POSTMODERNIST FICTION ‘I don’t think the ideas were ‘’in the air’’… Rather, all of us found ourselves at the same stoplights in

different cities at the same time. When the lights changed we all crossed the streets.

(Steve Katz, in LeClair and McCaffery [eds], Anything can Happen, 1983)

The uncertainty which I spoke about in the definition I gave of postmodernism, on the last

page of the previous chapter, is not only pertaining to the effects of structural and post

structural skepticism of languages inability, to express the link between language and

reality. Furthermore, after the Second World War the world was in a state of severe trauma

and paranoia. Trauma and paranoia were powerfully present in the generations that came

after the 1940s. The multiple changes after the 1940s i.e. the rebuilding of cities, the search

for a new start and sense of what could be trusted and what not, were undeniable to take

hold of the way we saw the reality for what it was and what it would become in thedevelopment of the coming decades. The horrors of the 20th century play a vital role in the

transition from the modern to postmodern era. When I look back at all the forms of

postmodern thought that I laid out, in this project, it still intrigues me how much there has

been written, talked, discussed and argued about postmodernism, and the incredible

variety of opinions on the matter. For example: we saw that Jean-François Lyotard’s

postmodernism, the end of all meta-narratives, approaches postmodernism in a very

different way than Jean Baudrillard’s approach, which was more focused on the fictional

information that the media offers us in the postmodern era. An interesting observation that

I want to present is the discussions that arose when people began to pay attention to thisidea of ‘transition’ a certain number of people are very skeptical about the idea that this

transition took place. Let us look at an example:

‘’ Postmodernism is the resentful projection of too many self-important smart people feeling

slighted by the Zeitgeist ’’ . (Robert C. Solomon ‘Nietzsche as Postmodernist: Essays Pro and

Contra’ 1990)

This is just one of the many critiques of postmodernism. The philosopher Noam Chomsky

accuses postmodernism of an overall vagueness, this is because postmodernism is not even

a philosophy; moreover, it does not have any concrete ‘theory’. It is simply put ‘’like The

French said, an expression for this sort of prose18: la langue de bois, (the wooden tongue),

in which nothing useful or enlightening can be said, but in which various excuses for the

arbitrary and the dishonest can be offered. (This book) is a pointer to the abysmal state of

mind that prevails in so many of our universities."19


28/45

26

It is quite interesting that a movement with the central theme of doubt and the idea that

originality has run its course got a response that is so skeptical, while the postmodernists

are already occupied with this skeptical approach.

Before I turn to the next and final chapter in this project, I need to make a couple of

statements. Firstly, the first chapter in this paper needs to be seen as an example ofmodernist philosophy (rationalism and empiricism); the rest of the topics I discussed were

merely important to show how the ‘modern’ foundation evolved. My intention was to show

the modern sets of thought (Chapter one) in opposition to the later conceived

Postmodernism (chapter two). The intention of using the fields of philosophy and

linguistics is because the foundation of postmodernism in literature is in fact philosophy,

linguistics and the evolution of literature. But, like I have stated multiple times,

postmodernism is no philosophy. It was ‘born’ like a phoenix from the ashes of modernism,

but with a lot of shortcomings. Another way of thinking about the transition from

modernism to the postmodernist view is in terms of a shift from Art (with a capital ‘A’ toculture). Modernism was essentially an affair of the avant-garde who regarded their work

as a deliberate provocation to philistine20, bourgeois sensibilities. Modern art was

antagonistic, elitist, and scandalous, the creation of bohemian genii beyond one’s mortal

kin. In the Postmodern Age, however, this elevated ‘aura’ has dissipated; corporate offices

now buy contemporary art-works by the yard, reproductions of famous prints form part of

interior decorating, and ‘serious’ novelists must fight for space on airport bookstands like

everybody else. And yet in the sense our entire environment has been aestheticized; what

once belonged to the elevated sphere of art (heightened reality, a rush of stimulation) has

in the age of mass information become the mediascape we all now occupy21.

Secondly, the development of structuralism to poststructuralism, with the structural

linguistics of the Saussure as its foundation, was at the same time the modern starting point

of literary theory22, with strong influences in the literary criticism of the English language.

Interestingly enough, postmodernism as well as structuralism (semiotics) and

poststructuralism are in fact schools pertaining to literary theory. Structuralism examines

the universal underlying structures in a text, the linguistic units in a text and how the

author conveys meaning through any structures, poststructuralism, a catch-all term for

various theoretical approaches (such as deconstruction) that criticize or go beyond

Structuralism's aspirations to create a rational science of culture by extrapolating the

model of linguistics to other discursive and aesthetic formations. And, finally, the biggest

wolf of them all - postmodernism - criticism of the conditions present in the twentieth

century, often with concern for those viewed as social deviants or the other23. Thirdly; ‘The

dominant’, which may be defined as the following.


29/45

27

‘’the focusing component of a work of art: it rules, determines, and transforms the

remaining components. It is the dominant which guarantees the integrity of the

structure’’24.

I follow Brian McHale’s general thesis, from his book; Postmodernist fiction (1983).

‘’The dominant of modernism is Epistemological. (Endnote 2) That

is, modernist fiction deploys strategies which engage, and

foreground questions such as (…) this: ‘’How can I interpret this

world of which I am a part? And what am I in it?’’ (Dick Higgins)

Other questions can be added, such as: what is there to be known? ;

Who knows it? ; How do they know it, and with what degree of

certainty? ; How does the object of knowledge change as it passes

from knower to knower? What are the limits of knowledge?’’

The dominant of postmodernism is Ontological25, that is postmodernist fiction deploys

strategies which engage and foreground questions like; which world is this? What is to be

done in it? Which of my selves is to do it?

This third and last chapter will be divided into two different parts; the first one will focus

on our post-modern era and life style that started after the second world war, and came to

a drastically real presence in the 21st century. I will show how American Author Don

DeLillo captures this perfectly in one of most widely read postmodernist works of fiction

around (White noise, 1985). Furthermore, we will look at one or two bits from Paul

Auster’s ‘’The New York Trilogy’’ (1987). And we will look at the difference between

modern and postmodernist poems. Further, we will look how one of the quintessential

American masters of postmodernist fiction (Thomas Pynchon) follows a much more

diverged path than DeLillo or Auster in his epic but dense novel named ‘’Gravity’s

Rainbow’’ (1973). To some degree, I will try to show how the skeptic poststructuralist

theories of language can be traced back in this (new) form of literature.


30/45

28

3.1 MODERN VS POSTMODERNIST POEMS

‘’ A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood

isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd

forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, evertirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded,

detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing,

throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need

be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling

catch somewhere, O my soul ’’ 26.

If you look at this small, and delicate poem by the father of American modernism you will

find out two things: firstly, it has a clear subject that it is conveying to the reader. secondly;

that subject is a spider, and the ‘soul’ of someone who must not be named. The searchingaspect of a person’s soul gets a beautiful little comparison to the spider slinging its webs to

travel from one place to the next. Next, let us look at a postmodernist poem:

‘’ In imagination a building, moving with the seasons, Moving on its axis, and

in the courtyard a tree, revolving with the motion of the planets and

answering each heartbeat in token of the time when time, with sun and

moon, stands still.

And by the courtyard crystal fountains, peonies and Mexicans and music

echoing the spheres of silence upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon

the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.

Rain will fall and not fall: the dream Of Byzantium interpreted and re-

interpreted:

Eternity will swallow time and art Become what is. Art is the building, moved

in, breathed in, All creatures move in this, and praise the motive, re-

inhabiting’’ . 27

The lines are pleasing, exact and meditative, but there is much to puzzle over.


31/45

29

‘Revolving with the motion of the planets’, how do trees revolve with planets: a Ptolemaic

conceit? ‘And answering... stands still’? Whose heartbeat, and how does it sound if time

stands still? Crystal fountains, peonies and Mexicans. Where do Mexicans come into this

meditation on Byzantium? Eternity will swallow... what is. What's here, beyond that the

truism that the present contains the past? Art is the building . . . re-inhabiting. Interesting,

but left undeveloped.

The second stanza is no clearer, but seems also a dream sequence, with striking but

enigmatic lines:

‘Countryside almost as white as green’: Real scene or tapestry/imagination? ‘Spirit of river,

of tree, tell me, tell me’: Tell me what? ‘’Immortal spirits of river and tree’’, Pantheism?,

in Greek orthodox religion perhaps? ‘’Hurt as we, can rise no higher’’. How do immortal

spirits hurt? ‘’Golden throne lowered through t he ceiling’’. Where are we now? It was

written over nineteen hundred years ago...Gospels? (Clearly not in Byzantium). So, what is

this poem saying to us? I am not sure, but perhaps something like this: Art, religion and all

that we see around us are creations of our imagination, and are real to the extent we

interpret and inhabit those interpretations. Byzantium understood this better than we do,

and identified a spirit, which resided in things of the world, but came also from God. That is

how we must see their art and religious ceremonies, which seem ethereal but also timeless,

still relevant to us. Does the poem compel that reading?

Not entirely: the lines trail off into silence, into things that cannot be said without

misrepresentation. ‘’In token of the time/When time, with sun and moon, stands still’’.

‘’Become what is and praise the motive, re-inhabiting’’. Since these would not be out of

place in a devotional piece, in what sense is the poem Postmodernist? Possibly in its

enigmatic nature, which continually exemplifies what Postmodernists believe — that there

is no reality beyond words and no final meaning (post-structuralism?), for all that we settle

into comforting interpretations of existence.

3.2 THE POSTMODERN ‘’ZEITGEIST’’ AND ITS FICTION

‘’We were the children of the postmodern age’’, ‘were’? Well, it would be much more fitting

if we talked about postmodernism in the present tense. So for the sake of this fact, just keepin mind that the most of the buzz revolving the postmodern Zeitgeist had a notable

presence in the middle to the end of the 20th century. Postmodernism in the 21st century

became more and more a natural phenomenon. But, I give you the possibility of deciding

for yourself…


32/45

30

Modernism was the school of thought that permeated the Enlightenment (Chapter 1). As

can be read in this chapter, intellectuals were convinced that human progress came as a

result of using pure reason and scientific knowledge. But the early 20th century brought

things like gulags, and concentration camps that were built in the name of human progress.Since World War Two people no longer thought that modernism held all the answers.

To make a small remark, this is more aptly formulated in the opening quote at the

beginning of the chapter by Steve Katz.

To explain the postmodern culture, I firstly have to give a counterexample. Which is the

feudal society, in the 12th century in Europe; the people who lived in this period of time had

postmodernism: philosophy,influences, culture and fiction

Documents