oh postmodernism.
Sometimes I wonder if we’ve just dug ourselves into a deep, dark hole with all this postmodernism mumbo jumbo. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m a bona fide liberal arts nerd. I LOVE this stuff. It’s like brain candy. I could write papers upon papers on the post-structural approach to culture, literature, art, gender. Actually, come to think of it, I have. And I loved (almost) every minute of it.
But sometimes, I wonder whether all this deconstructing, all this questioning of truth and reality, all this business over meaning as dynamic and destabilized, whether the pervasiveness of these ideas have led us to build a world in which it’s simply unacceptable to be earnest and sincere. Instead of putting ourselves out there, we learn to be guarded. It’s all about the ironic, the clever, the subversive. Sincerity—postmodernism seems to tell us—is horribly outdated.
It would make sense that in certain social circles (i.e. academia, the art world, etc.), it’s more socially acceptable to be edgy than to be ebullient, to be cynical than to be joyfully optimistic. it’s somehow uncool to be cheesy and sappy and truly say what you feel, without a sharp (protective) edge to it. Warm and fuzziness is unabashedly unintellectual, and therefore unhip. (Unhip to hipsters, that is.)
I can understand that. I don’t agree with it. (I happen to think that it’s cool to be optimistic & enthusiastic, that it takes a lot more courage to believe in something & have faith in something than to be cynical & jaded.) But I do understand why something like the postmodern rejection of authenticity and sincerity would shape the norms of certain social groups.
What does make me wonder a little bit more is whether & how ideas that largely circulate in the tiny world of academia seep their way into the broader society and come to affect the ways in which we live our everyday lives. I guess that all depends on how you define “broader society.” The last time I checked, most people still buy Hallmark cards. Sappiness reigns supreme, you might say.
So yeah, I’m not sure what I think about all of this. Part of me thinks that we’re at the cusp of something new, a new social order in which it’s not just OK to have hope, to be optimistic, to be irreverently joyful, but it’s downright desirable. Maybe everyone will stop taking themselves so seriously and finally admit that cheesy, silly things are actually fun! Maybe for the first time in a long time, optimism won’t be seen as intellectual vapid, naive, conventional, outdated, and false, but instead as the new avant-garde. Enjoying your life & realizing what a gift it is. Wow, what a novelty!
Optimism. Hope. Giggly, giddy fun. Bring. It. On.
3 years ago • view comments