Bon Appetit!
>How to Speak and Write Postmodern
>Stephen Katz
>Associate Professor, Sociology, Trent University,
>Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
>The Rules
>
>1. First, you need to remember that plainly expressed language is out of
>the question. It is too realist, modernist and obvious. Postmodern language
>requires that one uses play, parody and indeterminacy as critical techniques
>to point this out. Often this is quite a difficult requirement, so obscurity
>is a well-acknowledged substitute.
>For example, let's imagine you want to say something like, "We should listen
>to the views of people outside of Western society in order to learn about the
>cultural biases that affect us". This is honest but dull. Take the word
>"views". Postmodernspeak would change that to "voices", or better,
>"vocalities", or even better, "multivocalities". Add an adjective like
>"intertextual", and you're
>covered. "People outside" is also too plain. How about "postcolonial
>others"?
>
>To speak postmodern properly one must master a bevy of biases besides the
>familiar racism, sexism, ageism etc. For example, phallogocentricism (male
>centredness combined with rationalistic forms of binary logic). Finally
>"affect us" sounds like plaid pajamas. Use more obscure verbs and phrases,
>like "mediate our identities".
>
>So, the final statement should say, "We should listen to the intertextual,
>multivocalities of postcolonial others outside of Western culture in order to
>learn about the phallogocentric biases that mediate our identities." Now
>you're talking postmodern!
>
>2. Sometimes you might be in a hurry and won't have the time to muster
>even the minimum number of postmodern synonyms and neologisms needed to avoid
>public disgrace. Remember, saying the wrong thing is acceptable if you say
>it the right way.
>This brings me to a second important strategy in speaking postmodern-which is
>to use as many suffixes, prefixes hyphens, slashes, underlinings and anything
>else your computer (an absolute must to write postmodern) can dish out. You
>can make a quick reference chart to avoid time delays. Make three columns.
>In column A put your prefixes: post-, hyper-, pre-, de-, dis-, re-, ex-, and
>counter-. In column B go your suffixes and related endings: -ism, -itis,
>-iality, -ation, -ivity, and -tricity. In column C add a series of
>well-respected names that make impressive adjectives or schools of thought,
>for example, Barthes (Barthesian), Foucault (Foucauldian, Foucauldianism),
>Derrida (Derridean, Derrideanism).
>
>Now for the test. You want to say or write something like, "Contemporary
>buildings are alienating." This is a good thought, but, of course, a
>non-starter. You wouldn't even get offered a second round of wine and cheese
>at a conference reception with such a line. In fact, after saying this, you
>might get asked to stay and clean up the wine and cheese after the reception.
>
>Go to your three columns. First, the prefix. Pre- is useful, as is post-,
>or several prefixes at once is terrific. Rather than "contemporary
>buildings," be creative. "The Pre/post/specialities of counter-architectural
>hyper-contemporaneity" is promising. You would have to drop the weak and
>dated term "alienating" with some well suffixed words from column B. How
>about "antisociality", or be more postmodern and introduce ambiguity with the
linked phrase, "antisociality/seductivity."
>Now, go to column C and grab a few names whose work everyone will agree is
>important and hardly anyone has had the time or the inclination to read.
>Continental European theorists are best, when in doubt. I recommend the
>sociologist Jean Baudrillard since he has written a great deal of difficult
>material about postmodern space. Don't forget to make some mention of gender.
>
>Finally, add a few smoothing out words to tie the whole garbled mess together
>and don't forget to pack in the hyphens, and slashes and parentheses.
>
>What do you get? "Pre/post/specialities of counter-architectural
>hyper-contemporaneity (re)commits us to an ambivalent recurrentiality of
>antisociality/seductivity, one enunciated in a de/gendered-Baudrillardian
>discourse of granulated subjectivity." You should be able to hear a
>postindustrial pin drop on the retrocultural floor.
>
>3. At some point someone may actually ask you what you're talking about.
> This risk faces all those who would speak postmodern and must be carefully
>avoided. You must always give the questioner the impression that they have
>missed the point, and so send another verbose salvo of postmodernspeak in
>their direction as a "simplification" or "clarification" of your original
>statement.
>
>If that doesn't work, you might be left with the terribly modernist thought
>of, "I don't know." Don't worry, just say, "The instability of your question
>leaves me with several contradictorily layered responses whose
>interconnectivity cannot express the logocentric coherency you seek. I can
>only say that reality is more uneven and its (mis)representations more
>untrustworthy than we have time here to explore." Any more questions?
No, then pass the wine and cheese.
Mark S. Moore
Training Manager
Technical Education
AT&T Wireless Services
mark.moore@attws.com
--"Moore, Mark" <mark.moore@attws.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>