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Fw: Funny kritik stuff

Peace and :-),

Jasmine Abdel-khalik
Cornell University
                 HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE POSTMODERN
                             by Stephen Katz
                    Associate Professor of Sociology
                            Trent University
                       Petersborough, Ontario, CA

Postmodernism has been the buzzword in academia for the last decade.
Books, journal articles, conference themes and university courses have
resounded to the debates about postmodernism that focus on the
uniqueness of our times, where computerization, the global economy and
the media have irrevocably transformed all forms of social engagement.
As a professor of sociology who teaches about culture, I include myself
in this environment. Indeed, I have a great interest in postmodernism
both as an intellectual movement and as a practical problem. In my
experience there seems to be a gulf between those who see the postmodern
turn as a neo-conservative reupholstering of the same old corporate
trappings, and those who see it as a long overdue break with modernist
doctrines in education, aesthetics, and politics. Of course there are
all kinds of positions in between, depending on how one sorts out the
optimum route into the next millenium.

However, I think the real gulf is not so much positional as linguistic.
Posture can be as important as politics when it comes to the
intelligentsia. In other words, it may be less important whether or not
you like postmodernism than whether or not you can speak and write
postmodernism. Perhaps you would like to join in conversation with your
local mandarins of cultural theory and all-purpose deep thinking, but
you don't know what to say. Or, when you do contribute something you
consider relevant, even insightful, you get ignored or looked at with
pity. Here is a quick guide, then, to speaking and writing postmodern.

First, you need to remember that plainly expressed language is out of
the question. It is too realist, modernist, and obvious. Postmodern
language requires that one use play, parody, and indeterminacy as
critical techniques to point this out. Often this is quite a difficult
requirement, so obscurity is a well-acknowledged substitute. For
example, let's imagine you want to say something like, "We should listen
to the views of people outside of Western society in order to learn
about the cultural biases that affect us." This is honest but dull. Take
the word "views." Postmodernspeak would change that to "voices," or
better, "vocalities," or even better, "multivocalities." Add an
adjective like "intertextual," and you're covered. "People outside" is
also too plain. How about "postcolonial others?"

To speak postmodern properly, one must master a bevy of biases besides
the familiar racism, sexism, ageism, etc. For example, phallogocentrism
(male-centredness combined with rationalistic forms of binary logic).
Finally, "affects us" sounds like plaid pajamas. Use more obscure verbs
and phrases, like "mediate our identities." So, the final statement
should say, "We should listen to the intertextual multivocalities of
postcolonial others outside of Western culture in order to learn about
the phallogocentric biases that mediate our identities." Now you're
talking postmodern!

Sometimes you might be in a hurry and won't have the time to muster even
the minimum number of postmodern synonyms and neologisms needed to avoid
public disgrace. Remember, saying the wrong thing is acceptable if you
say it in the right way. This brings me to a second important strategy
in speaking postmodern, which is to use as many suffixes, prefixes,
hyphens, slashes, underlinings and anything else your computer (an
absolute must to write postmodern) can dish out.

You can make a quick reference chart to avoid time delays. Make three
columns. In column A put your prefixes: post-, hyper-, pre-, de-, dis-,
re-, ex-, and counter-. In column B go your suffixes and related
endings: -ism, -itis, -iality, -ation, -itivity, and -tricity. In column
C add a series of well-respected names that make for impressive
adjectives or schools of thought. For example, Barthes (Barthesian),
Foucault (Foucauldian, Foucauldianism), Derrida (Derridean,
Derrideanism).

Now, for the test. You want to say or write something like,
"Contemporary buildings are alienating." This is a good thought, but, of
course, a non-starter. You wouldn't even get offered a second round of
crackers and cheese at a conference reception with such a line. In fact,
after saying this, you might get asked to stay and clean up the crackers
and cheese after the reception. Go to your three columns. First, the
prefix. Pre- is useful, as is post-. Several prefixes at once is
terrific. Rather than "contemporary buildings," be creative: "the
pre/post/spacialities of counter-architectural hyper-contemporaneity" is
promising. You would have to drop the weak and dated term "alienating"
with some well-suffixed words from column B. How about "antisociality,"
or be more postmodern and introduce ambiguity with the linked phrase,
"antisociality/seductivity."

Now, go to column C and grab a few names whose work everyone will agree
is important and hardly anyone has had the time or the inclination to
read. Continental European theorists are best when in doubt. I recommend
the sociologist Jean Baudrillard since he has written a great deal of
difficult material about postmodern space. Don't forget to make some
mention of gender. Finally, add a few smoothing out words to tie the
whole garbled mess together and don't forget to pack in the hyphens,
slashes, and parentheses. What do you get?

"Pre/post/spacialities of counter-architectural hyper-contemporaneity
(re)commits us to an ambivalent recurrentiality of
antisociality/seductivity, once enunciated in a
de/gendered-Baudrillardian discourse of granulated subjectivity." You
should be able to hear a postindustrial pin drop on the retrocultural
floor.

At some point, someone may actually ask you what you're talking about.
This risk faces all those who would speak postmodern and must be
carefully avoided. You must always give the questioner the impression
that they have missed the point, and so send another verbose salvo of
postmodernspeak in their direction as a "simplification" or
"clarification" of your original statement. If that doesn't work, you
might be left with the terribly modernist thought of "I don't know."
Don't worry, just say, "The instability of your question leaves me with
several contradictorily layered responses whose interconnectivity cannot
express the logocentric coherency you seek. I can only say that reality
is more uneven and its (mis)representations more untrustworthy than we
have time here to explore." Any more questions? No? Then pass the cheese
and crackers.
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