Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:56:06
From: Mark Bower <mab207-AT-psu.edu>
Subject: Re: Anybody there??????


I'm still here.  I've been reading Postmodern Fables, which begins:

"...Today life is fast.  It vaporizes morals.  Futility suits the
postmodern, for words as well as things.  But that doesn't keep us from
asking questions:  how to live, and why?  The answers are deferred.  As
they always are, of course.  But this time, there is a semblance of
knowing:  that life is going every which way."

"But do we know this?  We represent it to ourselves rather.  Every which
way of life is flaunted, exhibited, enjoyed for the love of variety.  The
moral of all morals would be that of 'aesthetic' pleasure."

"Here then are fifteen notes on postmodern aestheticization.  And against
it!  You're not done living because you chalk it up to artifice."

_________

What has struck me most about it so far is a line from a dialogue (between
"he" and "she")  called "Interesting?"

"SHE:  The only interesting thing is to try to speak in the language of
another you don't understand."

This "fable" points out that most conversation has the effect of confirming
what we already know.  This kind of conversation helps us keep going, doing
being.  But it is not "interesting," not what we want or need.  That which
is interesting stops us.  It causes us to lose time.  

It points to a kind of call that is not understood, but is nonetheless
recognizable as a call that somehow is received in an attitutde of hope of
being able to understand and respond.

If you understand this, is it still interesting?  

Mark