A Disquisition on Tradition and Post Postmodernism

It occurred to me while riding my bike this morning that ever since the 20th century, artists have had an additional level of self-consciousness. What I mean is that at the crux of postmodernism was the notion of breaking from tradition because it had all been done before. And while artists have always viewed themselves as successors to a tradition, the naming of the era in which they live is a relatively modern development. John Keats wasn’t aspiring to define Romanticism with “To Autumn.” Especially in the fine arts, movements like Bauhaus and Fluxus offered manifestoes that differentiated their artistic practices from the norm. That never happened before Modernism.  

In Ancient Rome, there was no artistic movement called originalism. They simply referred to the art of the Greeks as their precursors, and the Greeks referred to the Etruscans. Today, my very attempt at using post postmodernism as one of the keywords for my blog is an example of the way artists deal directly with tradition. Today we are increasingly aware of the tradition. Paradoxically, however, tradition has become increasingly hazy as the canon has been restructured over the past 30 years. Also, contemporary writers who have received approbation may view themselves as inheritors to the writings of Mailer, Roth and Updike. That’s okay, but only time will decide the best of the best.

For our current era of what is not yet named, but which I think of as Millenialism (using post postmodernism because that’s what people search for, and that’s why it’s in all the titles of my posts) it is about striking a balance of new and old. We must remember the best works of yesterday and read the best authors of today, of whom I cannot yet fairly inventory.  Let’s not get all James Joyce avant garde art on the readers, but don’t make it Dan Brown easy. It’s all about striking a balance.

Baudelaire and Millenialism

Baudelaire is a boss. His 1857 work, Fleurs de Mal (Flowers of Evil) is arguably the most important French poetic work from the 19th century. It inspired a movement of symbolists, and helped to create modern poetry. Symbolism was all about generating emotion through metaphor and comparison, all with the help of a Platonic ideal.

I've been thinking a lot about art today and I think that a similar idea is apparent in many artistic and literary works. Recently, I came across the term, "object-hood," which is another way of saying "symbolic content," the representation of feelings and ideas through materiality. For more on this see my post postmodernism manifesto below. Tradition is inescapable, so it was only natural that I turned to Baudelaire's "The Soul of Wine" as a prime example of wine's object-hood. Here it is:

L'Ame du Vin

Un soir, l'âme du vin chantait dans les bouteilles:
«Homme, vers toi je pousse, ô cher déshérité,
Sous ma prison de verre et mes cires vermeilles,
Un chant plein de lumière et de fraternité!

Je sais combien il faut, sur la colline en flamme,
De peine, de sueur et de soleil cuisant
Pour engendrer ma vie et pour me donner l'âme;
Mais je ne serai point ingrat ni malfaisant,

Car j'éprouve une joie immense quand je tombe
Dans le gosier d'un homme usé par ses travaux,
Et sa chaude poitrine est une douce tombe
Où je me plais bien mieux que dans mes froids caveaux.

Entends-tu retentir les refrains des dimanches
Et l'espoir qui gazouille en mon sein palpitant?
Les coudes sur la table et retroussant tes manches,
Tu me glorifieras et tu seras content;

J'allumerai les yeux de ta femme ravie;
À ton fils je rendrai sa force et ses couleurs
Et serai pour ce frêle athlète de la vie
L'huile qui raffermit les muscles des lutteurs.

En toi je tomberai, végétale ambroisie,
Grain précieux jeté par l'éternel Semeur,
Pour que de notre amour naisse la poésie
Qui jaillira vers Dieu comme une rare fleur!»

— Charles Baudelaire

The Soul of Wine

One night, the soul of wine was singing in the flask:
"O man, dear disinherited! to you I sing
This song full of light and of brotherhood
From my prison of glass with its scarlet wax seals.

I know the cost in pain, in sweat,
And in burning sunlight on the blazing hillside,
Of creating my life, of giving me a soul:
I shall not be ungrateful or malevolent,

For I feel a boundless joy when I flow
Down the throat of a man worn out by his labor;
His warm breast is a pleasant tomb
Where I'm much happier than in my cold cellar.

Do you hear the choruses resounding on Sunday
And the hopes that warble in my fluttering breast?
With sleeves rolled up, elbows on the table,
You will glorify me and be content;

I shall light up the eyes of your enraptured wife,
And give back to your son his strength and his color;
I shall be for that frail athlete of life
The oil that hardens a wrestler's muscles.

Vegetal ambrosia, precious grain scattered
By the eternal Sower, I shall descend in you
So that from our love there will be born poetry,
Which will spring up toward God like a rare flower!"

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

The Death of Postmodernism

The Sisyphean goal of the author is to capture objectivity by depicting the relationships between people in a definite moment. The river of humanity flows on, the same despite the bank on which you stand.

From our current position in 2010, we view the United States joining much of the world in enacting socialism. The effects of such cultural change have been unseen since the political revolutions of the 1960's and the subsequent birth of postmodernism. The early stages of a new artistic movement, often termed pseudo-modernism, trans-modernism, and even millenialism, are imminent.  The acme of millenialism will likely be reached within 5 to 10 years. The first ten years of the twenty first century have been an attempt to sort out where we, as a culture, a nation, and a globe, stand; much like the Modernists did one hundred years ago.

It is plausible that in 500 years, future humans will view the beginning of the 20th century as the beginning of modernity.  By entering into the twentieth century, a subconscious break with the methods of the past was embodied linguistically. The traditions associated with the nineteenth and all of the other "teen centuries" were displaced by the modern era of the twenties. Shifting ideologies and a new global dynamic resulted in World War while the advent of technologies such as the car, the airplane and electricity improvements begged questions of angst.  What have the past two thousand years been leading to, and where is humanity headed?  It is the perpetual goal of the arts to answer such questions. In the early 20th century, these attempts culminated in the fractal modernism of Joyce's Ulysses and the Cubism of Picasso and Braque. 


Today, in the twenty first century, life and meaning are so disconnected by human constructs – especially those of the past few decades: television, the internet and youtube – that rather than immanent meaning, reality is abstracted from its source through representation. An example of this is reality television, which aspires to imitate. A majority of people live in this structure of representation, through which raw emotion attempts to be translated and identification between individual and art is underpinned. The choice is between entertainment and art.

The power of the internet presents immediate access to information, which  causes a reliance on technology for reassurance. Whether you want to learn how to silk screen a t shirt or how to break up with your girlfriend, you can find how to do it on the internet. Intuition and learning from mistakes is passe. What are the repercussions of this? Those motivated enough have the ability to self-teach and discover for themselves. Many seek, browse and click through the internet warehouse, retaining what they choose to, which becomes increasingly sparser as new forms of entertainment arise.  The cream rises to the top.

Where is truth? Truth lies hidden in entertainment, and entertainment is pervasive. One has to search for it, or know where to look. Interactiveness is characteristic of this movement.

I'm not the only one who believes in post postmodernism. Here's an article I found that relates a bit to the movement.