Antedating of "Postmodern"

James Harbeck jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA
Thu Apr 5 02:11:02 UTC 2007


>The nature of this term (a term constructed from basic elements) is such
>that it was undoubtedly independently invented many times and applied
>inconsistently.  In fact, I wrote an article in _American Speech_ a few
>years ago about the history of _post-modern_ that makes clear the multiple
>independent inventions.

Sorry to have missed it -- I'll have to look it up.

I find it interesting that now "postmodern" is used mainly in the
same mode as "politically correct" is: as a straw man. Generally I
see "postmodernism" attacked by people who want to take a kick at
whatever dunderheaded relativism they despise, but few of them have
any real understanding of it as its advocates defined and presented
it. So many movements end up with such reducations... surrealism is
now a sort of joke, for instance. I don't even want to talk about the
foggy use of "Zen"! But nobody seems to use Dada in such ways (or
please post the citations if I'm wrong!). Perhaps because it's hard
to go farther with it than it already went.

Thanks,
James Harbeck.

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