File spoon-archives/nietzsche.archive/nietzsche_1995/nietzsche_Mar.95, message 22


Date:         Mon, 13 Mar 95 17:06:40 CST
From: David Westling <U55954-AT-UICVM.UIC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: postmodernism


  There is an interesting article in the book _Nietzsche as Postmodernist_
(State Univ. of NY Press, 1990), by Kathleen Higgins, entitled "Nietzsche
and Postmodern Subjectivity", in which she asserts that postmodernism is
flawed by the same historicist perspective as modernism itself; it
is history (read: philosophy) that preoccupies both philosophical
approaches.  As a corollary, it is argued here that Nietzsche
completely rejected the quintessential postmodernist notion that human
subjectivity is an illusion.  A quote from _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_
(p.152 of the Portable Nietzsche) runs: "Of all that is written, I love
only what a man has written with his blood."  The postmodernists would be
guilty, then, of "excessive historical consciousness", the inability or
unwillingness to "submit" to an immediate engagement with the moment.
The obsession with pastiche, a mere manipulation of the elements of
our cultural heritage, as if everything had been already accomplished,
indeed, already _experienced_, is integral to the postmodern outlook, it
seems to me. This extreme form of cultural weltschmerz was strongly
depolred by Nietzsche.  Higgins goes on to needle the principal "post-
modernist" writers (she includes De Man, Derrida, Lyotard, and Baudrillard
at least) for a dearth of lightheartedness in the writing itself.  She
seems to relate this to the "incredulity to all metanarratives", which
does seem to be inseperable from the idea of the de-centered subject, a very
sobering notion indeed.  Can the de-centered subject feel unbridled joy?
I suppose, as in the numbing intoxication of a presentation such as David
Salle's paintings, it is possible.  But it is a very peculiar joy if it
is one at all.
   I will write more in a subsequent post, hopefully tomorrow.
                                   David Westling


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