Post postmodernism or metamodernism

[osho]

What is this and why not postmodernism suffice to represent we so called twenty first century people? The world is really full of anomalies, and inconsistencies and the kind of orderliness we find in literature is unfound in our lives. Feminist activisms, hounding capitalism, growing numbers of unmarrieds, deteriorating cultures, sexism, and of course economic and social insecurities became the sum and substance of post postmodernism.

I want to know your opinions and ideas on this topic.

[PeterL]

In a few years this time will be known as "The Good Old Days:. What people call their times is inconsequential.

[maxphisher]

Keep in mind the impasse that postmodernism has created. Essentially, it argues that, if everything we understand about our existence is fragmented and then fragmented further, as modernism suggested, then the process spirals out of control very quickly. In fact, many that oppose postmodern ideology do so because it becomes a venture into hopelessness; we simply cannot accept it as an end and still seek to move past it. So, post-postmodernism, though still in its infancy, is a reaction, at least partially, against such a stance. It suggests that, while we must definitely acknowledge and understand the uncertainty of language and representation (ie. poststructuralism), we must also maintain a sort of hope that we can overcome that uncertainty. Several theorists and critics, such as Frederic Jameson, use the idea of Utopia to counter the postmodern argument. Even though we cannot and will not achieve Utopia, the mere idea of a Utopian state, the fact that we can imagine the world as such, is what overcomes the impasse created by postmodernism. In short, though we've essentially been rendered hopeless by the aforementioned fragmentation, that does not mean that we have just given up hope. The point now is to think critically about the world around us and about ourselves in order to work toward a clearer understanding of existence.

I hope that helps...

[PeterL]

Keep in mind the impasse that postmodernism has created. Essentially, it argues that, if everything we understand about our existence is fragmented and then fragmented further, as modernism suggested, then the process spirals out of control very quickly. In fact, many that oppose postmodern ideology do so because it becomes a venture into hopelessness; we simply cannot accept it as an end and still seek to move past it. So, post-postmodernism, though still in its infancy, is a reaction, at least partially, against such a stance. It suggests that, while we must definitely acknowledge and understand the uncertainty of language and representation (ie. poststructuralism), we must also maintain a sort of hope that we can overcome that uncertainty. Several theorists and critics, such as Frederic Jameson, use the idea of Utopia to counter the postmodern argument. Even though we cannot and will not achieve Utopia, the mere idea of a Utopian state, the fact that we can imagine the world as such, is what overcomes the impasse created by postmodernism. In short, though we've essentially been rendered hopeless by the aforementioned fragmentation, that does not mean that we have just given up hope. The point now is to think critically about the world around us and about ourselves in order to work toward a clearer understanding of existence.

I hope that helps...

I think that Praeter-Postmoderninsm would be a better idea. "Praeter" meaning "beyond", rather than "after". Let's get beyond it.

[miyako73]

We are never postmodern. Only the arguments of cultural critics and social theorists are.

What we have is an advance evolution of modernism. Our culture, which is technology-driven, is still modernist.

The laptops and the cellphones you have and use are not postmodern. They are the results of structuralism, formalism, functionalism, and systems theory that are all babies of modernism.

Haven't you asked why postmodernism is only huge in humanities? well, that's the only field where they can produce hell on earth.

[islandclimber]

The point isn't that laptops and cellphones and other such technology are postmodern... it's that these things and the "technology-driven" society that creates them, have exteriorized knowledge, made it a commodity, and have killed off the very idea of collective identity and ultimate purpose that gave modernism its "metanarratives" (metanarratives based upon quasi-mythological ultimate beliefs, and that generally just led to cultural hegemony, violence, and exclusion). Instead we're now controlled by our automatic responses to various "language games". Communicative and semantic acts are dominated by media and technology through an interchangeability of signs and this leads to a lack of identifiable context where subjects are detached and indifferent towards the outcome of events. The idea is that this endless bombardment of appearances and references lacking any direct consequence to the perceiver will eventually render the gap between appearance and object indiscernible, leading to only a virtual existence, where we live on that Borgesian map of the world instead of the world itself. A world of copies without originals perhaps.

As Foucault once wrote, "language is oppression"... and it certainly can be. Whether we live in a world that is the result of the tree of modernism with all its various branches, this evolution of modernism towards digital information and automatic calculations has led to the postmodern condition of the last 50 years. So culturally and socially, it is important to be aware of this and to consider the next step which it seems likely is a sort of "metamodernism" where the meta more so means "in between" and also "beyond" in that Platonic sense of "metaxy"... An oscillation between the tenets of Modernism and Postmodernism, that is not just a reconciliation of the former two, but a step beyond.

[miyako73]

Island, tell me a social artifact or a cultural material you have in your possession now, besides text-related objects such as books, that is postmodern.

Postmodernism is a descriptive intellectual practice not prescriptive. It does not fix social and cultural problems. How can it be part of our daily lives?

Yes Foucault said this, but does his idea really exist in reality? Is it tangible?

Postmodernism is understandably descriptive because its origin can be traced back to the study of language. What does language do? It only describes.


I only see the products of postmodernism in arts and literature because those luxuries are not really social needs. Let these postmodernists deconstruct rice, let's see if they won't be bombarded with complaints.


As my physics professor once said, "as long as those postmodernists are in humanities and not working in nuclear labs, the future of humanity is safe."


Postmodern condition is a myth. It only exists in departments under humanities. The foundation of objectification and oppression of women today is the same during the time of Jesus--patriarchy. The root cause of poverty today, which is inability to create wealth, is the same during the time of Marx.

[islandclimber]

I think I'm agreeing with you to a point. Yes these things are the end-product of modernist principles, but those same principles create this postmodern societal condition, where things have lost meaning, value, significance, context... at least in the West, where for the last 50 years no one cared about where their food came from, or how it was made, or who was exploited for it. Or how those modernist technological devices were created, and who they were produced by, and how much those people were abused in said production.

I think that postmodernism is, of course, an intellectual practice, but it brings to mind the problems of modernism, such as mass production of copies and replicas, and the commoditization of information... It's worth being aware of and understanding, and now we see that people (again this may just be a western thing where things got so detached and out-of-hand) are making the attempt to care about things like local production of food and community and sustainability, that had vanished in a sense for the past 50 years. We see that the real world, and not the world of simulation, is again garnering attention from its inhabitants. People are again worried about context and significance, and something other than irony and cynicism.

Your physics professor (perhaps intentionally), made a rather ironic statement. Or perhaps "post-ironic"...

[miyako73]

"Yes these things are the end-product of modernist principles, but those same principles create this postmodern societal condition, where things have lost meaning, value, significance"

Considering now that we have internet, facebook, and other technologies where production of meanings, establishment of relationships, and appropriation of human interactions happen every fraction of a minute, do you think that that period of modernism when human alienation and loss of meanings were the rules of the day was only a phase? Also consider that the evolution of a society or a culture happens in phases.


"I think that postmodernism is, of course, an intellectual practice, but it brings to mind the problems of modernism, such as mass production of copies and replicas, and the commoditization of information..."

Again, considering that we have abundance and surpluses now due to advance technologies, was the collective mass processing during the modernist period also a phase in modernism and a response to demand and consumption that were not actually caused by modernism? Consider also the wars that happened during the modernist period and the deprivation they caused. When mass needs have to be met, meanings are inconsequential.


In short, do you think postmodernism during its early period was a premature attempt to halt modernism? Do you also think postmodernism has successfully decentered and deconstructed the metanarratives of modernism and the modernist processes?

[MorpheusSandman]

Hopefully I can join in this conversation:


Considering now that we have internet, facebook, and other technologies where production of meanings, establishment of relationships, and appropriation of human interactions happen every fraction of a minute, do you think that that period of modernism when human alienation and loss of meanings were the rules of the day was only a phase?I'm not quite sure what you think this has to do with M(odernism). That alienation and "loss of meaning" only happens when someone has, or is capable of having, a macro view of culture and society. Obviously, a great many do not and stay insulated within their sub-cultures where there ARE shared meanings, relationships, ideals, etc. For those that attempt to take in all societies and all cultures is does become next to impossible to establish any consistent, coherent set of meanings and ideal, and it was this search for one that united most all of the major M poets (Eliot, Pound, and Stevens in particular).


do you think postmodernism during its early period was a premature attempt to halt modernism? Do you also think postmodernism has successfully decentered and deconstructed the metanarratives of modernism and the modernist processes?I don't think PM tried to "halt" M as much as critique its various assumptions, such as its attempt at keeping the hierarchical culture distinctions ("high" VS "low" art, eg) or its belief in coherent structures. I do think PM was successful in what it set out to do. It's hard to read something like Barthes' S/Z and not see how easy it is for M to slip into more PM ideas.

[miyako73]

"I'm not quite sure what you think this has to do with M(odernism). That alienation and "loss of meaning" only happens when someone has, or is capable of having, a macro view of culture and society. Obviously, a great many do not and stay insulated within their sub-cultures where there ARE shared meanings, relationships, ideals, etc. For those that attempt to take in all societies and all cultures is does become next to impossible to establish any consistent, coherent set of meanings and ideal, and it was this search for one that united most all of the major M poets (Eliot, Pound, and Stevens in particular)."

Read how alienation of humans, loss of meanings, mass production of socio-cultural artifacts, absence of interactions become part of the postmodern critique against Modernism. It has something to do with forms, structures, functions, systems that are all part of the Modernist metanarrative. You can dig examples in architecture, film, fashion, philosophy, and even in the treatment of text.

[islandclimber]

Jump right in Morpheus. The more the merrier. :)

I think Miyako is trying to suggest that basically all technological development, and scientific progress finds its roots in Modernism and its many branches (structuralism, formalism, systems theory, etc.). And this is perhaps true, although I might suggest that Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle alone casts some doubt as to whether any sort of scientific metanarrative can really be trusted. Yet, regardless of whether Modernism was around for the past 50 years, in the form of its offshoots, it still was not the dominant cultural movement in the Western World after about 1950-1960. Morpheus puts it perfectly when he suggest some do not find that alienation and "loss of meaning", because they stay insulated in their sub-cultures with shared meanings, ideologies, etc. Small localized narratives as Lyotard suggested. Modernism was all about the grand overarching metanarratives, but when one takes on the macro view of culture and society that falls apart. And in the face of that crumbling of values and significance, you have the reaction of postmodernism with its understandable cynicism towards the enlightenments and universals of modernism. We see a movement that indirectly caused two world wars and terrible social upheaval around the world. Where Modernist ideologies like Marxism led to violence, oppression and cultural hegemony. Where high art and low art could not be reconciled at all. Postmodernism was bound to arrive as a reaction.

And again, Morpheus makes an apt observation when saying Postmodernism was more of a "critique of the various assumptions" of modernism. It was successful in this critique in my opinion also, inasmuch as we see a movement into the future where the cynicism and irony of postmodernism can live alongside the sincerity and rationalism of modernism. We see it in the post-ironic and the metamodern. 'tis why I much prefer the term metamodern to post-postmodern. Because it is not just a step beyond the post-modern, but both a reconciliation of postmodern with modern, and therefor a step beyond each. Postmodern was a reactionary movement (albeit a necessary one in my opinion). Post-postmodernism would be another reactionary movement (in the context of what the term signifies), whereas metamodernism seems more a reconciliation in order to finally move forward with the salient points of each.

[miyako73]

How can a mere critique against modernism, which has established vast cultural materials, social texts, and historical artifacts, be successful in its intellectual goal of decentering and deconstructing the Modernist narratives and processes?

Remember the narratives of Modernism are mostly prescriptive and tangible. Formalist architects design buildings. Functionalist policy makers think of programs that will actually function. Technologists build infrastructures based on systems. Philosophers rely on structures to make sense of the world.

Has Postmodernism erased those? I don't think so.

I'll tell you how postmodernism has failed. Postmodern Critical Theory has attempted/has been attempting to invade science and technology, the strongest foundation of Modernism, with the establishment of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) or History of Science and Technology or Science and Technology Studies. As far as I can see, the project has failed miserably. One reason is that a critical theorist cannot really argue with a physicist about particle physics. So, if you enroll in those courses all you hear are complaints about science and technology that revolve around ethics and values. Again, the Postmodern project is descriptive and a mere critique. It seems to me the Postmodern program to invade science and technology has failed also because first, scientists and technologists, in general, do not take it seriously, second, the strength of Postmodernism is in language, which is not really the core of science and technology, third, science and technology exist because of metanarratives.

I mention science and technology because it is the field nobody can accuse of being tainted with postmodernism.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle has been studied thoroughly already. The disturbance caused by observation and measurement is negligible. Social scientists and statisticians encounter that discrepancy often that's why they use margin of error. I don't see any academic protests.

[islandclimber]

I don't think it has erased these things either. I don't think that was ever the idea of postmodernism. I think the idea is that modernist narratives aspired to universality and this eventually brought about a cultural status where deconstruction and decentering of this universality was desirable due to the alienation and fragmentation of humanity these universals had caused. This led to things like biopower and "language as oppression", and cultural hegemony, and oppression, as universals and metanarratives generally do. I think postmodernism succeeded in bringing attention to this and creating an understanding of the mechanisms behind it. For those buildings, those programs, those infrastructures were and have led to a world where context is often severely lacking, where appearance and object are appearance are almost interchangeable, where we fail to grasp that there can be no full understanding of self-referential things (which should be obvious, but we so often try to ignore that certain things are self-referential and can only be understood to a certain degree due to inherent bias in observation). Advanced technology has its benefits, even in the information realm, but it also creates a world that is easy to be alienated from, and this advance led to the perfect conditions for a reaction against modernism.

Deconstructing and decentering aren't the same thing as destruction though, nor was the idea to erase and do away with modernism and its tenets. It was more-so to understand the problems with it, and to deconstruct the binary oppositions that modernism insists upon and to reinterpret them without making such a black and white value judgment. For the fundamental precept of modernism is that "this is good, and that is bad" and that we can know this objectively. I think postmodernist thought succeeded to some extent in proving its point that objectivity and metanarratives and self-referential things are almost quasi-mythological.

Postmodernism was never going to be really all that relevant in the science and technology field. I don't think it ever was really meant to be. I mean, there have been movements in that direction, within it, but they've been generally half-hearted. It's a cultural critique of the social, cultural, and ideological concepts of modernism. I suppose this links into science and technology in the sense that postmodernism wants us to be aware that technology, science, and especially information technology can lead to destabilization of meaning, and that blurring of the line between object and appearance. I think it has been successful in showing this. When we lose that distinction between the copy and the real, so that a copy is no longer a copy but a truth in its own right, a simulacrum, that's slightly disturbing. We were slowly starting to displace the real with an invented fiction. Postmodernism was the backlash, perhaps metamodernism is the reconciliation where we can move forward with an evolved modernism.

In saying that, I agree with you, that perhaps postmodernism was just a blip in the evolution of modernism. I still think we learned something from it. Or I sure hope we did.

[miyako73]

As far as I can remember, the myopic view of postmodern critique is focused on basically the destruction of metanarratives and metatruths. To do that Postmodernism relies on deconstruction, decentering, decontextualization, defamiliarization, and anything that can overhaul those metanarratives and metatruths.

I think it has been the goal of Postmodernism to erase the intellectual influences of Modernism. It has succeeded in arts and literature. Formalist writers are now rare. Artists don't care about art movements anymore. I believe it is the case because arts and literature are the haven for interpretation, which cannot be separated from language, the foundation of Postmodernism.

Don't get me wrong; I want Postmodernism to still exist but as a reaction to the excesses of Modernism. Yes, only its excesses not its foundations. Postmodernism should not overestimate itself; it should not compete with Modernism. Modernism has a long established history. It is a tree of many schools of thoughts. In art alone, there are a lot to mention. Cubism for instance has many variations as a visual style.

Some stuff in postmodernism already existed even in 1900's. Duchamp transgressed a metanarrative concerning art appreciation and definition with that urinal. I like postmodernism to be an intellectual transgression. Postmodern transgressions or critical narratives can actually help Modernism adapt, develop, and become stable.

[JBI]

Post modernism varies by country anyway. So if one talks of a coheberent post modernism, one is going to run into trouble. If one talks about aspects of post modernity in a specific textual body one has a much better chance as not being plagued by negative disbelievers (which is also a post modern habit).

Basically for the anglosphere, modernity was plagued by a necessity of authentic experience and sincerity in a fragmenting world, post modernity is very much a denial of the nature of authenticity and coherence, and a movement of doubting everything that cannot be reduced to "proof". This means the actual value of the written word has been do beaten down that one must question all meanings without getting or proving anything. Generally the populace has never taken to meaninglessness, but as a sort of trend I see the anglosphere pushing back toward a less ironic sense of understanding of authenticity, and a more sincere sort of cultural awareness, that I would be tempted to call neo-Romantic. This is particularly true of the American literary world, which is nowin the process of redefining itself in a world where it is not the only big guy, and no longer needs to hate itself for the cold war. Such was sort of to be expected, and is also seen in Germany, China, Japan and Russia. The guilt and meaningless generation is dying out, and the hard-headed youngsters are moving into maturity. There is a lot of unemployment and discontent, so the political rationalism is being channeled into national development.

It's quite scary actually, especially here in Asia where the politically charged generations are now old and dying, and the young generations are ignorant of anything. But young Americans too are heading down this sort of distorted romantic path.

[islandclimber]

As far as I can remember, the myopic view of postmodern critique is focused on basically the destruction of metanarratives and metatruths. To do that Postmodernism relies on deconstruction, decentering, decontextualization, defamiliarization, and anything that can overhaul those metanarratives and metatruths.

I think it has been the goal of Postmodernism to erase the intellectual influences of Modernism. It has succeeded in arts and literature. Formalist writers are now rare. Artists don't care about art movements anymore. I believe it is the case because arts and literature are the haven for interpretation, which cannot be separated from language, the foundation of Postmodernism.

Don't get me wrong; I want Postmodernism to still exist but as a reaction to the excesses of Modernism. Yes, only its excesses not its foundations. Postmodernism should not overestimate itself; it should not compete with Modernism.

Some stuff in postmodernism already existed even in 1900's. Duchamp transgressed a metanarrative concerning art appreciation and definition with that urinal. I like postmodernism to be an intellectual transgression. Postmodern transgressions or narratives can actually help Modernism adapt, develop, and become stable.

Agreed. Which is why Postmodernism borrows so heavily from Sassurean Semiotic analysis. It was quite influenced by the relationship between sign, signifier, signified and how this related to the Modernist viewpoint, especially in the arts and literature. The idea of deconstruction was basically a (somewhat) practical application of Sassure's ideas, taking them a step further also.

I agree with you, insofar as thinking Postmodernism is, and should be a reaction to the excesses of Modernism. Metamodernism and Post-postmodernism and transmodernism and remodernism, all these new names for movements that are essentially one and the same, the movement forward of modernism after the trimming off of some its excesses by postmodernism. That's why I like the term metamodernism, because it is suggestive of just this very thing. It's a return to the foundations of Modernism while keeping the "intellectual transgressions" as you say, of Postmodernism in mind. And perhaps it has helped Modernism adapt and develop into something more stable, less volatile, and hopefully a little less easy to be exploited for purposes of cultural hegemony. Sometimes though I wonder if humanity is ready for the metanarratives and universal ideologies that Modernism suggests, if we are capable of discovering and using such things without perverting them to the grotesque and the oppressive. That's another question entirely though.

I'm off to sleep. Thanks for the discussion. :)

[islandclimber]

Post modernism varies by country anyway. So if one talks of a coheberent post modernism, one is going to run into trouble. If one talks about aspects of post modernity in a specific textual body one has a much better chance as not being plagued by negative disbelievers (which is also a post modern habit).

Basically for the anglosphere, modernity was plagued by a necessity of authentic experience and sincerity in a fragmenting world, post modernity is very much a denial of the nature of authenticity and coherence, and a movement of doubting everything that cannot be reduced to "proof". This means the actual value of the written word has been do beaten down that one must question all meanings without getting or proving anything. Generally the populace has never taken to meaninglessness, but as a sort of trend I see the anglosphere pushing back toward a less ironic sense of understanding of authenticity, and a more sincere sort of cultural awareness, that I would be tempted to call neo-Romantic. This is particularly true of the American literary world, which is nowin the process of redefining itself in a world where it is not the only big guy, and no longer needs to hate itself for the cold war. Such was sort of to be expected, and is also seen in Germany, China, Japan and Russia. The guilt and meaningless generation is dying out, and the hard-headed youngsters are moving into maturity. There is a lot of unemployment and discontent, so the political rationalism is being channeled into national development.

It's quite scary actually, especially here in Asia where the politically charged generations are now old and dying, and the young generations are ignorant of anything. But young Americans too are heading down this sort of distorted romantic path.

Neo-Romantic. It's interesting to see that. There are those social movements like New Sincerity, and Post-irony, that are of similar stuff. A sincerity that doesn't despair fragmentation, an irony that slices like a scalpel instead of bludgeoning like a bat. That sort of mixing irony and sincerity together and moving them both in order to understand authenticity a little better.

[MorpheusSandman]

Probably too much is being covered here for me to respond in depth, but to this:
Read how alienation of humans, loss of meanings, mass production of socio-cultural artifacts, absence of interactions become part of the postmodern critique against Modernism. Alienation and nihilism was already implicit in much of M. Really, both M and PM recognized the growing subjectivism/relativism of human experience and the threat this presented to shared and coherent cultural meanings, narratives, etc. The only difference is that M thought that a coherency and universal meaning could be preserved, while PM did not. The methods of PM are almost entirely bound up in pointing out how M's attempts at "shoring the fragments against ruin" (to paraphrase Eliot) failed. So if structuralism was about showing how everything including language and economics could be understood in terms of coherent, consistent structures; post-structuralism was about showing how these coherencies were illusory, incomplete, and mediated by other contexts that revealed contradictions, paradoxes, ambiguities. Or, while New Criticism was about showing how literature could be understood purely through its formal devices, PM showed how these formal devices themselves were dependent on various contexts for their meaning.

I would certainly agree that science is, for the most part, immune to the critiques of PM, but science is far more rigorous a system in its goals and methods than is most all other cultural products. PM is philosophical, by comparison, and while science has its roots in philosophy and can be affected by it, it has, by-and-large, become a separate, isolated, even insular discipline that rarely requires anything from philosophy for it to function and function well.

As for "absence of interactions," this HAS happened in a sense in today's world, since the internet, texting, phones, etc. exchange physical interaction for virtual interactions. I don't recall any PM critiques that said that people would be COMPLETELY alienated and lose all semblance of interaction, as that would be absurd.

[MorpheusSandman]

I think Miyako is trying to suggest that basically all technological development, and scientific progress finds its roots in Modernism and its many branches (structuralism, formalism, systems theory, etc.).Technology and science far predates M. One thing to point out, though, is that technological explosions are usually met with anxieties that manifest in both art and philosophy, and you can find this even in the writings of the Romantics during the industrial revolution.


I might suggest that Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle alone casts some doubt as to whether any sort of scientific metanarrative can really be trusted.I have no idea what you think HUP has to do with "scientific meta-narratives." HUP is a very precise mathematical model on how accurate we can be in our measurements and predictions of particles. While one can use the HUP in a metaphoric manner, like the Coen Brothers did in A Serious Man and implicitly in No Country for Old Men, the HUP isn't really about the idea that there is some kind of pervasive uncertainty in science or the "macro" world, in general. HUP is, in some way, an expression of what Q(uantum)M(echanics) is from the subjective perspective of beings (us) that also function by QM laws, namely the S(chrodinger) W(ave) E(quation). So while the SWE is as deterministic as Newtonian physics, because we ourselves are subject to microscopic decoherence and entropy, we can not subjectively experience this determinism, and HUP is a precise probability of our experience rather than how particles actually behave. But science is very precise in its uncertainty (if that makes sense), similar to how one might be "precise" in saying that a coin-flip is 50/50.


...we see a movement into the future where the cynicism and irony of postmodernism can live alongside the sincerity and rationalism of modernism. We see it in the post-ironic and the metamodern. 'tis why I much prefer the term metamodern to post-postmodern. I've heard it referred to as "Transmodernism," and while I have not read much into it, I like the concept just based on the brief summaries I've read. Honestly, I think a poet like Wallace Stevens prefigured this M/PM reconciliation in his poetic preoccupation of finding a way to wed the imagination, human subjectivity, to reality, without flinching away from reality, distorting it, or mistaking our imagined systems, structures, and narratives for being reality itself. To me, that preoccupation mirrors what the best of modern science says about the human condition, that however deterministic reality is, we necessarily experience it in uncertainty. So the goal shouldn't be towards absolute certainty and knowledge that has been our primary concern since the origins of philosophy, but rather the recognition that we can't be certain, but we can be more or less wrong about the reality and world we live in. Stevens may have laid out the issue, but I don't think he ever found a fully satisfactory answer as to how to solve it in the realm of art (at least his art of poetry), which means there's still work to be done and, perhaps, someone from Transmodernism will pick up where Stevens left off.

[islandclimber]

As for "absence of interactions," this HAS happened in a since in today's world, since the internet, texting, phones, etc. exchange physical interaction for virtual interactions. I don't recall any PM critiques that said that people would be COMPLETELY alienated and lose all semblance of interaction, as that would be absurd.

I suppose Baudrillard has suggested that the digital stream of references and appearances and information outside context or any sort of consequence to the viewer would render the separation between appearance and object indiscernible, therefore, ironically, leading to the "disappearance" of humankind, but metaphorically speaking, in the sense that we'd enter a holographic/virtual state, made up of only appearance. And that is exactly what this overwhelming trend towards virtual interactions (twitter, facebook, instagram, tumblr, etc) is doing. Interaction is still there, but it's really only the appearance of interaction, interaction on that Borgesian map of the world, where we can really be whatever we want to be, copies without originals, in a sense, simulacra.



I have no idea what you think HUP has to do with "scientific meta-narratives." HUP is a very precise mathematical model on how accurate we can be in our measurements and predictions of particles. While one can use the HUP in a metaphoric manner, like the Coen Brothers did in A Serious Man and implicitly in No Country for Old Men, the HUP isn't really about the idea that there is some kind of pervasive uncertainty in science or the "macro" world, in general. HUP is, in some way, an expression of what Q(uantum)M(echanics) is from the subjective perspective of beings (us) that also function by QM laws, namely the S(chrodinger) W(ave) E(quation). So while the SWE is as deterministic as Newtonian physics, because we ourselves are subject to microscopic decoherence and entropy, we can not subjectively experience this determinism, and HUP is a precise probability of our experience rather than how particles actually behave. But science is very precise in its uncertainty (if that makes sense), similar to how one might be "precise" in saying that a coin-flip is 50/50.


You are right about HUP. I suppose I only meant it to refer to the problem of human experience vs underlying reality, and also the accuracy-precision conundrum, that a couple postmodern critics (I think Agamben was one if I recall correctly) have spoken about before. I was a little hyperbolic in suggesting it had that much to do with Scientific meta-narratives though. Often accuracy requires a sacrifice of precision and likewise. Often human experience bears little resemblance to the underlying realities of science. But like you say, with regards to SWE and the determinism "we cannot subjectively experience", HUP is a precise probability of our experience of our experience. Then again, I think that was one of the discussion points, was a metaphor of some sort regarding the the difference between human experience and the underlying reality. Postmodernism does often suggest that the more ordered and coherent the surface level, the more chaotic, fractured, and schizophrenic is the reality hiding beneath. I mean 1930s Quantum Physics was a point in PMs original attacks on Modernism. Alan D Sokal parodied this quite well if I recall. And this is where Post-modernism failed most of all perhaps, in its attacks on scientific determinism. I don't know. I think you have a much better grasp on QM, HUP, and SWE than I do Morpheus. So I try to stay away from formulating strong opinions in that area. I do like what the Coen brothers did with the idea metaphorically speaking in A Serious Man, I found it quite poignant. I'd forgotten about that film. I must revisit it sometime soon. Thanks for the reminder.


To me, that preoccupation mirrors what the best of modern science says about the human condition, that however deterministic reality is, we necessarily experience it in uncertainty. So the goal shouldn't be towards absolute certainty and knowledge that has been our primary concern since the origins of philosophy, but rather the recognition that we can't be certain, but we can be more or less wrong about the reality and world we live in.

This. Yes.

[miyako73]

Morpheus, I think you are not getting my explanations. Sorry English is my second language. I'll explain myself again.

Alienation, estrangement, loss of meaning, lack of interaction are intellectual devices, processes, or results inherent in the school of thoughts that are considered Modernist.

Bertolt Brecht used estrangement in his drama. Rusian formalist critics used Verfremdungseffekt. Alienation was inherent in the politics and films of Leni Riefenstahl. Now, those are just for formalism. Structuralism alienates too because of its rigidity and strict and restrictive grouping of terms, concepts, meanings into binaries. The weakness of functionalism is the loss or absence of meaning. A good example of that is the mass housing after the second world war in which the focus was "shelter" not "home". I can go on and on. Those are what postmodernism sees and critiques in Modernism.

Everything you wrote about what Postmodernism does against Modernism was correct. But you forgot to mention "metanarrative," the recurring target of postmodernism. Modernist school of thoughts are metanarratives. So formalism, for example, which includes its inherent intellectual devices, its processes, and its cultural effects and social results, is criticized by Postmodernism.

That the focus on form by formalist architects is illusory is debatable. That's the part of Postmodernism that I usually question-the denial of truths. Baudrillard worked on that--simulacra, simulation, hypertext, and hyperreality. That said, I am more inclined to critique the excesses of Modernism-- such as alienation, estrangement, loss of meaning, absence of interaction, mass production of objects, mass replication or mimicry, etc.--than to target its foundations--fundamental theories, accepted assumptions, shared truths, etc. Formalist architects believe that form can be a magnet as a public space and can change a landscape. That has been proven to be true again and again. Why should Postmodernism question that?

[AuntShecky]

OMG.
To me postmodernism is a descriptive term for literary works (and in some other arts, like movies such as Fargo.) There are certain characteristics to a "postmodern" work, the most prominent being irony -- involving a sense of humor. Postmodern writers never take themselves seriously. That is why all the postulating in this thread seems --sorry-- almost laughable. It's "blowing smoke."

Postmodernism is both anti-theoretical and anti-"literary." The characteristics of a postmodern novel are free-wheeling, not prescribed or set in stone.

Oh, and incidentally, Tristam Shandy, published way back in 1767, meets all the criteria for a post-modern work. So much for high-tech devices, existentialism, and various influences of the "modern" world.

[islandclimber]

I'd be loath to suggest that all postmodern writers never take themselves seriously. Irony may be a prominent part of postmodern literature of the "fictional" sort, but so is cynicism and the mistrust of Modernist metanarratives. Postmodernism, right or wrong, has been the dominant social theory of the past 50-60 years. To reduce it to a descriptive term for literary works and occasionally other works of art, is "almost laughable", as you say (disregarding the fact that the general sense of the term began not with literature but with architecture and urban planning and the reaction to the Modernist idea that a rational and comprehensive architectural/urban model could be knowable and logically followed, and the homogenous, fractured, isolated urban landscape this inspired). Postmodernism is not as anti-theoretical as you suggest. It doesn't lend itself to metanarratives, and neat and tidy universal theories, but what it does do is provide small localized narratives as Lyotard posited. Nor is it so anti-literary, unless we are talking as though there is some universal literary model that is infallible and postmodernism transgresses this. It transgresses the very idea that there could be such a literary model.

Tristam Shandy was an exception, not a trend. We could discuss modernist trends that predated the modernist era as far back as Roman literature, yet, what would be the point? Stating that a single book written 250 years ago, has similarities to what Contemporary literary critics call postmodern literature, is great, but what's your point? If the the problems of Modernism (which did not yet really exist) were so prevalent in the 18th century, then there would be a whole bevy of postmodern works from that time... However, there are not. Postmodernism was a reaction to the overtly deterministic nature of Modernism that spanned are rather wild and catastrophic time for Western Civilization.

There's quite a bit of Postmodern critique and theory out there to read. Lyotard, Agamben, Baudrillard, Jameson (Foucault, Derrida, and Barthes also, if you see Poststructuralism under the broader social movement of Postmodernism which many do), Irigaray, Cixous, Ettinger, and so on. All of these well-known cultural theorists/sociologists/philosophers wrote about "The Postmodern Condition" as the name of Lyotard's rather famous work was called. So... I'm unsure as to what you're having a laugh at?

[miyako73]

For some reason, Island, I like the Postmodernism of Guatarri and Deleuze, and you forgot to include them. They are the only postmodernists, it seems, who loudly critique some dreamy parts of Postmodernism.

[islandclimber]

Thankfully, I have you to do bring them to the general attention for me! :) I've only read the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia by those two. I quite like the experiment in 'nomad' thought process of A Thousand Plateaus. They are rather seminal figures of early Postmodern thought. A notable omission by me.

[miyako73]

I can understand why many people are easily convinced by Postmodernism. For me the postmodern condition is in the psyche-our instincts, desires, impulses, fantasies, etc. We ruin to create. We destruct to start all over again. We deconstruct or tinker to find meanings and narratives. We displace to create vacancies. Didn't we destroy toys when we were kids to find out how they worked inside and commented on their poor qualities and simple ideas afterwards? Then we said, "I can make a better toy than that." I hope I'm not alone who experienced that. Yes, so dorky. That process of disassembly and deconstruction is already postmodernist.

[islandclimber]

I've always been rather easily seduced by various developments on Saussure's semiotic theory. Derrida and Foucault and Barthes and Butler mostly. The relationship between sign-signifier-signified has always fascinated me. As has the deconstruction of binary oppositions and the interesting superior-inferior relationships found there. 'tis likely that this is from childhood dismantling of and tinkering with toys... I know I did much the same as a child.

[MorpheusSandman]

Often human experience bears little resemblance to the underlying realities of science. But like you say, with regards to SWE and the determinism "we cannot subjectively experience", HUP is a precise probability of our experience of our experience. Then again, I think that was one of the discussion points, was a metaphor of some sort regarding the the difference between human experience and the underlying reality. Postmodernism does often suggest that the more ordered and coherent the surface level, the more chaotic, fractured, and schizophrenic is the reality hiding beneath. I mean 1930s Quantum Physics was a point in PMs original attacks on Modernism. Alan D Sokal parodied this quite well if I recall. And this is where Post-modernism failed most of all perhaps, in its attacks on scientific determinism. I don't know. I think you have a much better grasp on QM, HUP, and SWE than I do Morpheus. So I try to stay away from formulating strong opinions in that area.Yeah, I think we're mostly in agreement here on the divide between human experience and scientific reality. One thing to understand about that point is that our psyches developed to survive and reproduce, so most of what we think/feel is bound up in that. Understanding how particles behave never meant squat to either evolutionary paradigm, so such things are quite alien to our intuitions.

Regarding scientific determinism and QM, it would really depend on how one is referring to determinism. As many around here know, I'm a proponent of the Many Worlds interpretation of QM, which basically just takes the mathematical models as real; doing this resolves the apparent paradoxes of QM and reconciles it with classic physics (excepting gravity). If you take the SWE as real then there is, in an objective, "underlying reality" sense, determinism. However, we don't experience this determinism because we are quantum systems ourselves. If you take the Schrodinger's Cat example, according to the SWE there is a world where the cat is dead and one where it's alive; one version of yourself experiences one world, another version the other. Subjectively, you've only experienced one or other, even if, objectively, you've split into two yous and experienced both. How precisely we can know which world we'll end up in is what HUP models, and that is entirely probabilistic, so not deterministic from our perspective.


I do like what the Coen brothers did with the idea metaphorically speaking in A Serious Man, I found it quite poignant. I'd forgotten about that film. I must revisit it sometime soon. Thanks for the reminder. No Country for Old Men is implicitly about the same theme, and it and A Serious Man make for good "companions." I wrote a lengthy review for both that dealt with their themes of uncertainty if you'd care to read them.

[MorpheusSandman]

Morpheus, I think you are not getting my explanations. Yeah, I think I simply misunderstood you. I'm not really sure if we're in much disagreement now.

[MorpheusSandman]

I've always been rather easily seduced by various developments on Saussure's semiotic theory. Derrida and Foucault and Barthes and Butler mostly. The relationship between sign-signifier-signified has always fascinated me.I learned more about how language works from this guide (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/A_Human%27s_Guide_to_Words) than I ever did from the Saussurean semiotic schools.

[PeterL]

OMG.
Oh, and incidentally, Tristam Shandy, published way back in 1767, meets all the criteria for a post-modern work. So much for high-tech devices, existentialism, and various influences of the "modern" world.

That is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for time travel that we have.

[islandclimber]

Yeah, I think we're mostly in agreement here on the divide between human experience and scientific reality. One thing to understand about that point is that our psyches developed to survive and reproduce, so most of what we think/feel is bound up in that. Understanding how particles behave never meant squat to either evolutionary paradigm, so such things are quite alien to our intuitions.

Regarding scientific determinism and QM, it would really depend on how one is referring to determinism. As many around here know, I'm a proponent of the Many Worlds interpretation of QM, which basically just takes the mathematical models as real; doing this resolves the apparent paradoxes of QM and reconciles it with classic physics (excepting gravity). If you take the SWE as real then there is, in an objective, "underlying reality" sense, determinism. However, we don't experience this determinism because we are quantum systems ourselves. If you take the Schrodinger's Cat example, according to the SWE there is a world where the cat is dead and one where it's alive; one version of yourself experiences one world, another version the other. Subjectively, you've only experienced one or other, even if, objectively, you've split into two yous and experienced both. How precisely we can know which world we'll end up in is what HUP models, and that is entirely probabilistic, so not deterministic from our perspective.


I think certain PM theorists were more so attacking the idea that HUP and QM were probabilistic and therefore undermined the determinism of other Scientific Research and Theories. I don't agree with this, but that is what I seemed to get from the readings I did in the area. Myself, I'm also a proponent of the Many Worlds interpretation of QM. I've always been fascinated Schrodinger's Cat, but more so Max Tegmark's Quantum Suicide thought experiments and the idea of quantum immortality that Everett seemed to so firmly believe. I like Tegmark's rejection of death as being a binary quantum event but more so a progressive process/decay.


No Country for Old Men is implicitly about the same theme, and it and A Serious Man make for good "companions." I wrote a lengthy review for both that dealt with their themes of uncertainty if you'd care to read them.

I'd be happy to read them. Do you have a link?

[islandclimber]

I learned more about how language works from this guide (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/A_Human%27s_Guide_to_Words) than I ever did from the Saussurean semiotic schools.

I don't doubt it. 'tis more so for me, enjoyment of the thought experiments I find later developments of Saussurean semiotics engender. They seem quite pleasurable. Or maybe that's masochism speaking.

[MorpheusSandman]

I think certain PM theorists were more so attacking the idea that HUP and QM were probabilistic and therefore undermined the determinism of other Scientific Research and Theories. I don't agree with this, but that is what I seemed to get from the readings I did in the area. Myself, I'm also a proponent of the Many Worlds interpretation of QM. I've always been fascinated Schrodinger's Cat, but more so Max Tegmark's Quantum Suicide thought experiments and the idea of quantum immortality that Everett seemed to so firmly believe. I like Tegmark's rejection of death as being a binary quantum event but more so a progressive process/decay.PM is correct about QM being probabilistic if it's from OUR perspective (which is what HUP is; a model of our perspective), but to suggest all of QM is probabilistic because of our perspective is where the debate lies. If you're a proponent of MW then you think like I do that, objectively, QM is deterministic but subjectively indeterministic. I, too, agree with Tegmark about death not being a binary event, so as to nullify the Quantum Immortality thought experiment.


I don't doubt it. 'tis more so for me, enjoyment of the thought experiments I find later developments of Saussurean semiotics engender. They seem quite pleasurable. Or maybe that's masochism speaking.Yeah, I do very much get this. i find a lot of philosophy fun to think about more so than genuinely enlightening or even correct in their musings about how reality works.


I'd be happy to read them. Do you have a link?Looks like the original site (Cinelogue) is down (I was merely a contributor and the admins seemingly abandoned it). I'll copy/paste them here:
At the end of Hamlet, everybody dies. It’s the classic “kill-em’ all” tragedy. In the hands of the great English playwright, however, the finale’s massacre becomes a mordant, almost morbidly ironic commentary about the unavoidability of death and the inability of man to effect (perhaps even to affect) any kind of certain outcome. The indecisive, inactive, introverted Hamlet and the decisive, active, and extroverted Laertes cancel each other out. Death is equally doled out to the “behind-the-scenes” masterminding of King Claudius and the ignorant, innocent, and loving mother, Gertrud. Earlier, it comes equally to the scheming Palonius, as well as to his innocent daughter, Ophelia. Perhaps it’s safe to say that The Coen Brothers would disagree with Shakespeare’s mortal egalitarianism, but they certainly seem to agree with the dark irony, as well as the striking combination of absurd humor in the face of existential crisis and angst.

By 2007, The Coens had become perhaps the most lauded American filmmakers of the last 20 years. But if they had attained critical and commercial success, they hadn’t quite reached that Oscar pinnacle with a film that was universally hailed as a masterpiece. No Country for Old Men is that masterpiece. The film was adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel, and it stars Tommy Lee Jones as Ed Tom Bell, an old-time sheriff in the ancient land of 1980s West Texas, who finds himself lost in a frightening, brave new world of drug-runners and mass-murderers. Josh Brolin is Llewelyn Moss, a retired Vietnam veteran who lives with his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), in a trailer. One day, Moss stumbles on to the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong. After finding and taking the money (symbolically situated beneath a decaying tree; the ultimate “Forbidden Fruit”), Moss quickly finds himself pursued by the psychotic Anton Chigurh (Javier Barden), who had been hired to track him down. After Chigurh kills his benefactors, Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) is hired to track the both of them down. What ensues is a nigh-metaphysical cat-and-mouse game between all the parties involved.

Of all The Coen’s films, I find myself at a loss as to where to begin (much less end) with lauding this one. For starters, the dynamic duo has done a phenomenal job rendering the West Texas landscape, rhythm, and atmosphere. There’s an eerie stillness, calmness, and ease that pervades the film even at its most action-oriented moments. The cinematography from the Coen’s longtime collaborator Roger Deakins is impeccable, capable of rendering both the painterly beauty as well as the starkness of the settings. Languid long-shots of the landscape open the film, and they are a consistent feature throughout, reminiscent of the symbolically heavy pillow shots in Ozu, or perhaps the poetic rendering of the same landscape in Wenders’ Paris, Texas. The Coens have always been fascinated by the almost ritualistic act of doing things in order to effect outcomes. No Country is almost leisurely in how it goes about focusing on the mere “doing” of things, like Moss figuring out how to hide the money satchel in a rundown hotel air vent. This rhythmic patience is echoed in the editing, which hangs on static or slowly changing shots longer than the norm, paradoxically ramping up the tension to extreme degrees without ever uttering a word.

The writing is as pristine as the visuals and, here, the Coens have achieved a monumental minimalism. Like the best minimalism, it rings the utmost value and potency from what’s there. Two of the most haunting, poignant monologues in film history bookend the film; both utter metaphysical philosophy (the latter in a dream allegory) while still sounding utterly authentic to the types of down-home country-boys that reside in the region, like Tommy Lee Jones’ Ed Tom Bell. Elsewhere, as in the already infamous confrontation between Chigurh and the gas station proprietor (“What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo?” … “What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?” … “Call it.”), there’s an understated naturalness married with a hyperbolic absurdity, an oxymoronic combination if ever there was one. The Coens may not quite be art-house directors, but in these scenes they’re reminiscent of a director like Tsai Ming-liang who frequently manages to craft scenes that violently clash the ordinary and everyday with the extraordinary and fantastic, finding drama, humor, philosophy, and humanity smashed somewhere between the real and the artifice.

Luckily, the performances match the direction. Brolin is so convincing that anyone would swear that he’s been a cowboy all his life. Tommy Lee Jones is actually from the region and he renders Ed Tom Bell with an effortless ease. Perhaps most surprising is the Scottish Kelly Macdonald as Carla Jean who manages to nail the Southern drawl accent while still creating chemistry in the few scenes between her and Brolin. Towering above all of them is the singular performance of Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh. The Coens mention that the character is just lightly sketched in the book, which gave them plenty of freedom to construct the character. Bardem certainly jumped at the chance, creating a character that is quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen in cinema. The miracle is that so much is achieved by the look alone; the costumes provided by another longtime Coen collaborator, Mary Zophres, sets the immediate tone by contrasting Chigurh with everyone else in West Texas. He’s clearly a character out of place, and perhaps even out of time. Bardem capitalizes on this stylistic and temporal ambiguity by creating an ethnic one as well. To Bardem’s immense credit, he also doesn’t push the character too far into cartoonish extremes. Chigurh may be a near-inhuman force, but he’s a terrifyingly realistic one, nonetheless.

The film is also marked by subtle parallels, contrasts, and foreshadowings that give it a musical rhythm. The plaintive voiceover of Bell washes over the opening frames of the desert landscape like a spectral (for)shadow. This leads to the scene of Chigurh being arrested, only to brutally strangle the arresting officer with his handcuffs (ironically, after the officer uttering that he has everything under control). Next, Chigurh pulls a man over to the side of the road and tells him to “hold still” while he kills him with a pressurized cattle gun. This transitions to Moss whispering “hold still” while he trains a dear in the sights of his rifle. He fires and injures the dear (contrasted with Chigurh much more effectively killing the man), and proceeds to track him with the blood trail (one of the film’s many motifs). When the trail ends, Moss instead finds a limping, bleeding black dog (an uncanny echo to the mysterious, magisterial, perhaps supernatural black dog in Tarkovsky’s Stalker) that leads him to the scene, the money, and the man dying of thirst. After taking the money (situated beneath a decaying tree—the ultimate “forbidden fruit” metaphor), the morally conscious Moss finds himself unable to sleep without bringing the man some water, the decision that ultimately sets off the film’s violent chain of events. The Moss/Chigurh parallels don’t end there, as after their only real confrontation, both receive bullet wounds. This sends Moss to a Mexican hospital for others to take care of, while Chigurh elects to take care of himself, digging the bullet out of his own leg (a potent contrast between the two).

Like Shakespeare, The Coens are obsessed with the forces that move us—with those who are aware of such forces and try to willfully move them, those who are unaware of such forces and are ignorantly moved by them, and what happens with any such combinations clash. But The Coens inject a modern—perhaps postmodern—sense of quantum uncertainty (much more obviously manifested in 2009’s A Serious Man) as opposed to Shakespeare’s fatalism; such forces my come into conflict, the outcome may not be certain, but the outcomes are certainly influenced by the types of forces and the decisions made by those involved. Moss dies because he is an active force that is afflicted with a moral consciousness—a decisive uncertainty—that renders him weaker than the active force that has no such conflict. Wells dies because, in spite of his calculated intelligence, he’s still tied down by materialism. Bell survives because he’s effectively on the outside looking in, always one step behind the forces that he’s chasing, always looking into the dark abyss, hoping for a guiding light. Carla Jean, like the gas station proprietor, is simply subject to the forces of chance and fate, having lived lives where they allow themselves to be moved.

But what about Chigurh? Certainly, he’s the most enigmatic case, but when viewed in the force-framework, Chigurh becomes the party that is completely devoid of any materialistic weight. He lacks Moss’ morality and compassion and he lacks Wells’ materialism. He IS simply a force of chaotic nature, a force that allows himself to be freely blown towards a higher (perhaps unconscious, perhaps unknown) objective. Anyone that gets in the way is either collateral damage (such as the people whom he kills when hijacking), or have it coming because they are opposing forces (Moss, Wells, the businessmen behind it all). In such confrontations, the stronger force wins, and Chigurh is the stronger force precisely because he is not subject to the cares that the others have. However, in a stroke of genius, The Coens reveal a flaw in the force’s design; Chigurh can’t make conscious decisions. When it comes to forces that aren’t either directly or indirectly in his way, Chigurh can’t kill them, because doing so would violate his code. In these cases, the coin becomes the surrogate consciousness and chance becomes the decider.

This framework sets up the ending where Chigurh confronts Carla Jean. Chigurh had promised Moss that he would kill her, yet the earlier killing of Moss by others interrupts the planned confrontation, so Chigurh is left in a position where he can’t possibly fulfill the higher plan. So, to avoid making the decision, he uses the coin. But Carla Jean overcomes the device by refusing to call it, by refusing to take the decision out of Chigurh’s hands (or head). This utterly forces the unconscious force to make a decision and, once he does, he equally becomes subject to the forces of uncertainty and fate (like Richard III being swallowed up in the world of the play in which he was previously outside of and commenting on). The conscious entity awakes into this new dynamic world and is immediately met by the most random of events—a car crash. The ghost bleeds because the ghost is human, and it’s the human Chigurh that walks out of the film, stripped of his mythical godlike status. Because, as the great philosopher Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “if it bleeds, we can kill it”.

Even outside Chigurh the Coen’s find uncanny ways of presenting this theme. In one of the more direct scenes, Bell relates a story to Carla Jean about a friend of his who was injured while trying to slaughter a steer. After whacking it in the head and slitting its throat, the steer was just stunned and “starts thrashing around, six hundred pounds of very pissed-off livestock”, as Bell puts it. When the man tries to shoot it, the bullet ricochets and catches him in the shoulder. Bell concludes with “even in the contest between man and steer, the issue is not certain”. It’s precisely that uncertainty that ends with the cattle gun that farmers use now, and that Chigurh uses. If uncertainty afflicts the film’s characters, the Coens equally thrust it onto the audience. The final scene with Moss contains the pregnant exchange between him and an anonymous poolside woman where he says he’s looking for what’s coming, while she replies, “nobody ever sees that”. This particular foreshadowing shock is delivered to the viewers who next see Moss dead in a hotel room, murdered by anonymous Mexicans who are only seen as they’re fleeing the scene. The Coens even end the film with Bell’s monologue that leaves the film hanging in an uneasy, suspended limbo, like a musical composition where the dissonance is left unresolved.

The attempt at eliminating this uncertainty and the ability to cope with it when you can’t is truly at the heart of the film. But, in the wise words of Bell’s friend Ellis (played lovingly by Barry Corbin), “Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity.” The world doesn’t revolve around us, as much as we love to (unconsciously) think it does, and even the most certain and calculating actions can lead to the most random of outcomes. So, perhaps, the philosophical lesson of the film is in-line with Shakespeare, even if the conclusion of the events and fate of the characters aren’t: After all the “To be or not to be”, the only conclusion left to come to is: “Let be”.
] It’s become somewhat of a running joke between my geek friends and I that when something can’t be explained in a work of science-fiction, the ultimate “fanwank” answer is always “LOL, Quantum Magic”. Of course, there’s nothing really “magical” about quantum physics, though when Sci-Fi writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated his third law—“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”—he could easily have replaced “technology” with “science”. There’s no denying that quantum physics has proved to be the ultimate brain-teaser for scientists throughout the 20th Century and has provided a formidable challenge against the (perhaps now) antiquated notion that we can ever know everything (perhaps anything) to a certainty. Perhaps you might think that such complex science is better left to the scientists or academia, but leave it to a visionary pair of cinematic brothers like The Coens to capitalize on the humor and absurdity innate in the most serious of subjects.

Of course, what better place and time could there possibly be to stage such a cinematic thought experiment than the suburbs of Bloomington, Minnesota, 1967, and what better person to subject to such narrative torture than a Jew? Michael Stuhlbarg is Prof. Lawrence “Larry” Gopnik, a professor of quantum physics at a local college where he teaches the mathematics behind quantum physics. Soon after the film begins, Larry’s life begins quickly unraveling. His wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), announces she’s leaving him for a neighbor, Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed: The “Sex Guy”, according to the Coens); His son, Danny (Aaron Wolff) is about to be Bar-Mitzvahed, even though he seems more concerned with getting high, watching F-Troop, and listening to Jefferson Airplane in class; his daughter, Sarah (Jessica McManus), spends more time at The Hole than she does at home; his brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), has taken to staying with him while working on his mathematical Mentaculus formula and draining a sebaceous cyst on his neck; finally, to top it all off, a South Korean student of Larry’s, Clive (David Kang), is hassling Larry about his failing grade that he received for failing the math part of the quantum physics test, and puts Larry in a tough spot when he, perhaps, implicitly bribes him and gets him in a Catch-22 where either Larry passes him, or they will sue him for defamation of character (for Larry claiming he was bribed), or for taking a bribe.

As with No Country, Fargo, and so many of the Coen’s other great films, it seems most apropos to start by praising their superb rendering of such distinct milieus. There may be other directors out there today that are as aesthetically, intellectually, and narratively satisfying and challenging as the Coens, but none of them I know manage to combine those aspects with such an acute sense of the place, the time, and the people that inhabit both. Their films are as much time machines into the past as they are universal stories that resonate today. Such a thing is especially tricky when focusing on a culture with a history as rich, diverse, and notorious as The Jews, but the Coens manage to avoid the caricatured pitfalls in favor of a much more humane and loving portrait, without losing any of their sense of humor and amusement. The Coens especially achieve that humor through their nuanced writing and the contrast between the sporadic cartoonish elements contrasted against the understated realism; it’s always a tricky balance the Coens are going for, but they have a real knack for constantly hitting it on the nose.

The performances are a major contributing factor in achieving that balance, because it’s a heavy burden to place on actors to be funny and distinct without lapsing into broad generalizations and maintaining a sense of character. A Serious Man may not boast the Coen’s most star-heavy cast (they certainly went for authenticity over star-power), but all of the relative unknowns and the relative knowns do a fine job. Stuhlbarg is particularly cast with carrying most of the film as his portrayal of Larry, and his constant bemusement is as funny as it is frustrating, as absurd as it is sad. Stuhlbarg is one of those actors that achieve so much through facial expressions alone, and this is an important feature in a cast that’s much more stone-faced throughout. There’s a surety in the faces of those around them that potently contrasts with Larry’s own uncertainty. Fred Melamed should also be praised for his idiosyncratic take on the mellow, laid-back Sy Abelman (SY ABELMAN?!!!), who manages to steal every scene he’s in.

Of all The Coen’s films, A Serious Man may be the one that utilizes allusions most deeply, connecting the story with the distant past to illuminate the present. The film opens with a fabricated Jewish folktale, which, in the Coen’s own words, “we couldn’t think of any old Jewish folktales, so we made one up, just like how in Fargo we wanted to tell a true story but couldn’t think of any, so we made one up”. The opening provides a haunting prelude to all that’s come, as an old Jewish couple in old, Eastern Europe encounter what may be a dybbuk, a malevolent or benevolent possessing spirit of a dead person’s soul. The scene ends without really answering whether the figure was actually a spirit or not since there’s disagreement amongst the husband and wife over whether or not the person (a relative) had actually died. The final words of the woman, “Blessed is the Lord. Good riddance to evil,” ironically set up the Job-like parallels with what befalls Larry throughout the rest of the film, dramatizing the classic Theodic “problem of evil” and how we can possibly deal with it.

In The Book of Job, Job is famously subjected to numerous horrors (including his possessions being destroyed by a ‘ruach’, or wind spirit, which also kills his children, and being smote with boils), and is tempted by his wife to curse God and die, even though he refuses. His friends swear that he must have done something wrong, even though he swears he didn’t. Job finally questions God as to what he has done to deserve such treatment, prompting God to reveal himself in a whirlwind and respond with a series of rhetorical questions about Job’s ignorance of the ways of God. When a whirlwind appears at the end of the film, we’re certainly left to wonder if it’s God finally coming to reveal himself, or if it’s the wind-spirit that’s come to destroy everything else that Larry has. Job’s questioning of his wrongdoing is a nigh-perfect mirror to Larry’s, whose mantra throughout the film is “I didn’t do anything!”

“I didn’t do anything!”—It’s a perfect response to counter Larry’s statement to Clive that “actions have consequences, not just in physics, but morally”. What we do affects what happens to us, so if we don’t do anything, then there’s no reason for things to happen to us. For the attentive viewer, we realize that such an absolutist cause-and-effect thinking—call it Newtonian physics, if you will—is completely out of line with the quantum physics that Larry teaches, which states mathematically that such cause and effect is uncertain. What’s further, we’re always doing something, even if we’ve failed to realize what that something is by our inability to examine our own lives. Larry also misses the point of Schrödinger's cat; he explains to Clive that the cat is just an illustrative story to help one understand, but it’s the math that explains how it works. Clive insists he understands the cat even though he failed on the math, while Larry understands the math (indeed, he’s never more self-assured and certain than when he’s doing the math) but states, “nobody understands the cat”.

It’s a good metaphor for cinema, actually; an illustrative medium that uses story to explain how stuff works, even though it doesn’t prove how stuff works the way math does. Larry’s mistake is in assuming that the math that proves uncertainty makes the math and, therefore, life (like cause and effect) certain. It also illustrates that even though he understands the explanation behind the theory, he doesn’t really understand the theory itself. It’s the same way that a philosopher might understand how life and people work, but be completely incapable of living life, or getting along with others. It’s this mistake, this realization, that nothing was what he thought it was that forces him to look for the meaning behind it all. Afterall, who worries about the meaning behind it all when it’s going well? It’s precisely when everything breaks down that we’re forced to confront the whys behind it, and it’s our inability to find the answers that leads to such frustration. Then we turn to faith (Larry encountering the three Rabbis)… we turn to semiotics (what’s happening must be signs that mean something)… we turn to anything that transcends our limited scope of our own lives and life in general because we become powerless to affect what’s happening to us.

But is that powerlessness an illusion? Larry clearly tells Arthur that: "It's not fair to blame Hashem, Arthur… Sometimes you have to help your-self.” That sense of “helping yourself,” of doing something active to change your life, is precisely what has eluded Larry. It’s a potently rendered point that the Coen’s make; it’s so easy for us to have perspective on others and to tell them what they need to do to improve, but it’s entirely different to apply that same kind of thinking to ourselves. Of course, when we feel we can’t help ourselves we turn to others to find the answers. We see this kind of doubt/acceptance/doubt cycle when Larry questions the younger Rabbi about his situation. “It’s all a matter of perspective, it’s a good thing” says the Rabbi. Larry is incredulous, but when he goes to see his lawyer, he repeats the same cliché, only to quickly respond with an “or maybe not”. Larry is a man that’s so desperate he’ll latch on to any answer that seems like it may be right, whether it’s right or not.

The Goy Teeth story expands on this concept of encountering something that shakes up your world by provoking you to look for a meaning, only to be endlessly frustrated when none appears. Like the sage Rabbi Marshak says near the end of the film (by quoting Jefferson Airplane), and the Rashi quote says at the beginning (“Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you”), the moral behind the Goya Teel story is stupidly simple: “Being good to people… it can’t hurt.” But the real lesson is the absurdity that it should take something extraordinary to make someone realize something so simple that should be a given already. So how does this apply to Larry? Larry is the exact opposite of the Rashi quote, incapable of receiving what’s happening to him with simplicity. Instead, he takes to magnifying everything that happens to him to apocalyptic levels. He looks for answers when he should be looking for life, he’s trying to solve the mystery instead of embracing it—something he encounters in the near-Liar’s Paradox nature of his Catch-22, defamation/bribery problem with Clive.

Given the film’s thematic complexity, it seems almost trivial to return to the more plebeian forms of criticism, but Roger Deakins’ dreamlike, almost surreal cinematography deserves it. It brilliantly contrasts the comic book-like colors and geometry of suburbia in wide lenses and deep focus with the hazier colors and angles of Larry’s subjectivity and dreams in long lenses and shallow focus. This echoes the theme of Larry being cut off from objective reality by his distorted view of his life. The tilt-shift lenses (which can arbitrarily render an area of a flat-focus frame in or out of focus) parallel the two marijuana scenes (with Larry and his son, respectively). The production design is as equally provocative, perfectly reconstructing the era. My own negative criticisms might simply be that the characters aren’t as compelling as some of the Coen’s best creations. The film occasionally verges dangerously on telling more than it shows, and that perhaps there aren’t as many relevant interconnections in the film as there should be (if anyone can fill me in the significance behind the son’s storyline, I’d be appreciative).

Finally, to address the critics that have condemned the film as being too bleak and belittling, I think they’ve missed the point. A Serious Man doesn’t really present anything that’s bleaker than Job, it merely ends before the uptick. Job was eventually “rewarded” for his faith, for not abandoning God amidst his crisis. Larry fails his morality test, taking the money and changing the grade. So does this mean that the whirlwind and his implied health problem is the effect of his failure, or is it merely two more random events completely unconnected to it? Part of the brilliance of A Serious Man (and No Country) is the ingenious way that the Coen’s have found to express the same uncertainty in cinema as we encounter it in life. Like Kieslowski, they love presenting metaphysical teasers that suggest paradoxical answers depending on your perspective. If the ultimate answer of No Country was to “let be”, perhaps the ultimate answer to A Serious Man is to “be”.

If No Country for Old Men could be called the Coen’s ontological masterpiece (figuring out how to be amidst uncertainty), then A Serious Man must be their epistemological masterpiece (figuring out how to understand amidst uncertainty). The film stresses that knowing how a thing works doesn’t mean that we can work a thing, that what we think we know that’s wrong is more dangerous than what we don’t know, and that looking for answers in randomness by considering them signs may be the most frustrating thing in life that man can do, which is all the sadder considering we seemed pre-programmed to do just that. Afterall, if Hashem (God, The Universe, Life, et al.) isn’t going to give us the answers, why does he/she/they/it make us feel the questions?