Why Postmodernism Was a Huge Intellectual Step Back
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 มิ.ย. 2020
- We're joined by Catherine Liu, professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine and author of American Idyll: Academic Antielitism as Cultural Critique, to talk about what postmodernism was, where it came from, and how it represented a degenerative left response to neoliberalism and labor defeat.
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I went to university in the late 1990s, the English department was in complete thrall to Jamison and PostModernism. It really bothers me that so many hours of seminars and tutorials were wasted on smug, ironic “deconstructions” of literary classics, filling students’ heads with bogus theory intended to kill off their idealism or capacity for collective action. It was done so the university could turn around to donors and say “look, you have nothing to fear here, this is a good investment”. Thanks for this great video Catherine Liu.
Jameson seems to be critiquing postmodernism. He is a Marxist.
@@johnstewart7025 they made that concession
Jameson wrote a whole book critiquing postmodernism...
Critique of the Postmodern Condition.
Postmodernism has at least one redeemable feature that no one can gainsay: it produced Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
Lol
Felix is that you?
That redeems it a little
Agreed. It’s best - and only - accomplishment.
Blade Runner and the Matrix too.
"They love the term play." Yes! This was always one of the things that annoyed me about Joan Scott. Liu makes great points about pseudo-transgression. A lot of postmodern writing about consumption was a kind of academic counterpart to what Frank describes in The Conquest of Cool. Reed's critique of cultural studies and the celebration of small-scale acts of resistance in Class Notes is also relevant here. What it boils down to is that academics produced a massive amount of work in the 1980s and 1990s that seemed radical, but actually served the capitalist system and undermined clear strategic thinking about class, and for that matter about race and gender as well.
@@user-wl2xl5hm7k Again, you are missing the point. The problem is not play itself, but a subset of privileged intellectuals fetishizing it at the level of discourse and language games. The type of pseudo-radicalism that Liu critiques made much of the academic left unhelpful for organizing the kind of class project that would give the vast majority of people more free time for fun and play. Postmodernism gave academics more space to intellectually masturbate about wordplay, but it did not contribute one iota to giving working class people more free time and material security to engage in actual play.
@@user-wl2xl5hm7k I already cited Joan Scott. I could have cited Baudrillard, Butler, etc., but this isn't a fucking exam. I think you're wrong about Reed, and your claim that I haven't read the authors I'm critiquing is arrogant, falsely assumptive, and annoying. You don't know shit about me or what I've read, and you have missed the point of what I've read over and over. I have run out of patience with you.
@@user-wl2xl5hm7k Now you're just repeating yourself. I answered your question, you ignored the authors I cited, and now you're asking for more citations, while continuing to make annoying false assertions about what I supposedly haven't read. You're just wasting my time, and being arrogant about it to boot.
@@user-wl2xl5hm7k I already cited Scott, Butler, Baudrillard, and Foucault. I'm not giving you an annotated bibliography of their published works with quotes and page numbers to support obvious points about poststructuralism in a TH-cam comments section. You are being obtuse and pedantic, and you seem to lack basic reading comprehension skills.
@@beyondaboundary6034 @P N Hey, did you two make up after this comment section fight?
Saw all the outrage at the title before this happened, ended up watching an hour of optimistic and thought-provoking lessons on architecture and culture. You lot had us in the beginning, I won't lie ;)
It is so fucking painful listening to her discursive presentations. She rarely finishes a thought without moving to the next step in her ladder of supporting concepts. She speaks in an arrogant and condescending tone as if her opinions are a given fact that is universally understood. Clearly explaining her logic and the reasons which would support her views would make for a better talk. Jumping from concept to concept without connective reasoning or supporting ideas is confusing and leaves the listener with the onerous task of trying infer her conclusions while continuing with her progression of supporting arguments. Ugghh!
This talk is self contradictory and murky! She does not explain clearly what Postmodernism is nor explain why she believes it is self defeating. She uses a lot of intellectual terms and academic references that may not be readily understood by most people. She talks about the Brahmin left and sounds just like one.
@@michaeljensen4650 Wow, what a fucked up comment, everything you said here is WRONG!
@@michaeljensen4650 this is clearly NOT a presentation for anyone who doesn't know what the topic is about.
@@lunaridge4510 I am familiar with the topic and found this presentation misleading and annoyingly intellectual, it needn't be. Postmodernism is not primarily a method or perspective for literary critique. The basis of its theory is the sociological impact that modern living and capitalism has on societies and individuals. The belief is that modern living and capitalism is pernicious and changes the way societies and individuals behave. Its central thesis is that capitalism and modern living destroy our humanity and sense of community. That modern living and capitalism disrupt our social bonds and turn people into mindless materialistic followers and ruthless, power hungry, predators. Not once does she mention this in her presentation. Post Modern Literary Critique came later and built upon the idea that language, art, architecture, philosophy, science and social organization have all been polluted by colonial, capitalistic and warlike ideologies. The belief is that these ideologies serve the expansionistic agenda of hegemony, material acquisition and domination. To some extent that is true, however many artists and academics have argued that Postmodernism has gone too far. Their belief is that Postmodern Literary Critique destroys the inherent value of many works of art and literature finding only demons where there is beauty, great genius and profundity. This abstraction does not diminish the central and primary thesis of Postmodern theory. PM Literary Critique is often used as a straw man which capitalist attack to discredit Postmodernism altogether. When so called Postmodern Intellectuals claim that everything is racists, sexist and exploitative it makes Postmodernism appear extreme, paranoid and solipsistic. It is important that intellectuals who claim to be Leftists do not mislead people in this manner and parrot these arguments. It is extremely disappointing to see presentations like this which fail to address the primary theory of Postmodernism and the nuances and subtleties of PM critique. People unfamiliar with the topic may be misled and make the mistake of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Why would someone who supposedly supports the left make a presentation like this.
Would love more videos on literary and cultural criticism. Def don't remember being exposed to arguments like Prof. Liu's in college.
Fantastic, I graduated in Art in 1971...you could feel this stronghold marching in! So well explained here. I have been at war with this my entire adult life. This, and EST, and continuous appropriation/ cooptation
I went to art school too in the early 1990‘s. And was very much interested in Jung but was surrounded by postmodern cynicism that rejected anything that seemed idealistic or transformative.
If you haven’t seen Adam Curtis‘s Century of the Self on TH-cam I think you will be very interested being that you mentioned EST. His newest film Hypernormalisation also mentions a shift in art in culture around 1970.
EST! Truly evil. Worth a dissertation.
@@matthewkopp2391 I went to art school in the early 1980s -- the best (accidental) timing I've ever experienced. But my situation was similar: I was attracted to Jung but was told that was passe because....of whatever it was. But the point was, the pursuit of meaning was viewed skeptically, if not disdainfully.
Just after 32 mins in I completely agree. This is perhaps one of the most aggravating misunderstandings of both Hegel and Marx concerning the concept of 'progress' and contradiction. Neither of them speak of this manichaen style historical development between pure good and bad. As a matter of fact, this is one of Hegel' great attacks on Kant. And really, it was Fichte who basically overturned this abstract ought, or moral agent of Kant' that stands above and beyond their time.
Thought is a reflection of its time. Post modern language like 'accessibility' and 'simplification' of theoretical endeavours is merely the logic of of neo liberalism which would have the poorer masses turn against their own intellectual progression in order to remain mindless cogs in the reproduction of Capital and their own misery.
It is inevitable that one has to struggle to accomplish anything worth while. As Marx, again borrowing from his greatest predecessor, said: there is no royal road to science. And I would add, there is no spoon fed version of the metaphysics of capitalism, history and philosophy. It requires a brutal amount of intellectual heavy lifting and it should.
Wow! I wish I lived next door to you! The poorer masses turning against their own intellectual progression is the secret that today's non-Marxist ( & non-anarchist) left have mastered. Before 2008, one needed a grad degree in order to be a Marxist (or anarchist). America, from the 70's on, turned real class consciousness into something only the bourgeoisie had vocabulary to describe. Liberals, claiming to occupy the left-most regions of political possibility, have turned life into an empty, bimbo existence. Thank you for your comment.
Mk
@@peternyc I’m not a part of academia really what if there was a proper synthesis of post modern ideas and Marxism in someway? I also don’t understand at all in anyway the comment about before 2008 you needed a grad school degree to be a Marxist unless it’s a joke. I would love to go back but it’s very possible that someone that has a falling out with academia could lead to new ways of thinking themselves, kinda like Marx.
Don’t gatekeep criticism of capitalism
Hard is the good.
You are my new role model, Ms. Catherine Liu! You are an inspiration to young women academicians. Thank you for the discussion.
I’m so glad I finally committed to watching this! It was fantastic, way better than I expected, and I now really want to explore more of the lecturers work. Definitely in my top 5, maybe top 3, of all these conversations/lectures so far! 🙏✌️
thanks so much for sharing this. I was engaged all the way through. Hearing reasonable voices speaking ideas that aren't afraid to be critiqued is such a relief.
I don’t understand anything about life but this was great
Great discussion!
Catherin Liu is the GOAT. she's just awesome, the way she speaks, the language is so sharp and it breathes freedom. great class analysis
Thank u guys for bringning such people as Catherin. really appreciate it
Thanks to Catherine Liu from the heart. She lanced a great boil.
Excellent lecture. I have never had a post modern analysis that included architecture and fashion. Always from a political / philosophical point of view. I've been trying to convince people for years that Leftism took the worst possible turn during this time period.
I'm discussing these ideas with my 8 year old daughter and she is totally into it. Lol.
We design eco-villages in Minecraft. I use it as a way to explore leftist ideas about design, community planning, the environment, care economies, workers self-mgmt (there are villagers and stores in our world), permaculture, public interest, consumerism, non-hierarchical collectivism, participatory democracy, etc. Its something that she really enjoys doing. So, I use architecture and city planning as a jumping off point. She will sit for hours engaging me in these discussions as we play.
She is very creative and self-declared "modernist" and "minimalist". Its too adorable.
Anyhoo... I just wanted to share that.
RaRaRabbleRouser this is amazing.
Thank you for sharing it was great and such an interesting idea to engage kids with ideas that I would have loved to have gotten educated on from such a young age! Good luck!
@N L Nah, you got it all wrong, coercive hierarchy is a part of the problem. People commit crime largely because of either what life under capitalism pushes them into or because they have been neglected and not cared for by society (this is the case for people with mental disabilities who commit crime). Your perspective on both policing and labor hierarchy is a right wing oriented reactionary one which simply boils down to "people need people above them to tell them what to do and how to behave because, human nature." It's a dumb, tired, fascist enabling argument. Murray Bookchin debunks this well in his work.
@N L Rojava would like a word with you
@N L No, actually most on the whole of the libertarian left think this. Are you an ML by any chance?
She is brilliant. Where was she 40 years ago? Architects and artists, she is giving you the keys to the kingdom.
oh hell yes, love to hear catherine liu talk
Prof Liu is SO GOOD. And the chat replay is positively hilarious. Thank you!
This was really thought provoking and interesting, thanks
The moment where Prof. Liu flips the table on her colleagues by saying, "In your language, 'You don't see me!'" is simply the best.
Super-like, very interesting and well argues. Thank you!
Catherine Liu: “By the nineteenth century in Europe, one of the most powerful sites of bodily discipline is the factory, and **Foucault does not write about the factory**.”
That’s glaringly false.
The last sentence of his famous chapter on Panopticism in ‘Discipline and Punish’ asked, “Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”
He expected readers not to be surprised given that he’d recurringly referred to factory discipline throughout the preceding two chapters. Some examples:
_ “As the machinery of production became larger and more complex, as the number of workers and the division of labour increased, supervision became ever more necessary and more difficult. It became a special function, which had nevertheless to form an integral part of the production process, to run parallel to it throughout its entire length. A specialized personnel became indispensable, constantly present and distinct from the workers: ‘In the large factory, everything is regulated by the clock. The workers are treated strictly and harshly. The clerks, who are used to treating them with an air of superiority and command, which is really necessary with the multitude, treat them with severity or contempt; hence these workers either cost more or leave the factory soon after arrival’. But, although the workers preferred a framework of a guild type to this new regime of surveillance, the employers saw that it was indissociable from the system of industrial production, private property and profit. At the scale of a factory, a great iron-works or a mine, ‘the objects of expenditure are so multiplied, that the slightest dishonesty on each object would add up to an immense fraud, which would not only absorb the profits, but would lead to a loss of capital … the slightest incompetence, if left unnoticed and therefore repeated each day, may prove fatal to the enterprise to the extent of destroying it in a very short time’; hence the fact that only agents, directly dependent on the owner, and entrusted with this task alone would be able to see ‘that not a sou is spent uselessly, that not a moment of the day is lost’, their role would be ‘to supervise the workers, to inspect all the places of work,' to inform the directors of everything that takes place. Surveillance thus becomes a decisive economic operator both as an internal part of the production machinery and as a specific mechanism in the disciplinary power. ‘The work of directing, superintending and adjusting becomes one of the functions of capital, from the moment that the labour under the control of capital, becomes cooperative. Once a function of capital, it requires special characteristics’ (Marx, Capital, vol. i, 313).”
_ Discussing the functioning of Bentham’s Panopticon, “Each individual, in his place, is securely confined to a cell from which he is seen from the front by the supervisor; but the side walls prevent him from coming into contact with his companions. He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication. The arrangement of his room, opposite the central tower, imposes on him an axial visibility; but the divisions of the ring, those separated cells, imply a lateral invisibility. And this invisibility is a guarantee of order. If the inmates are convicts, there is no danger of a plot, an attempt at collective escape, the planning of new crimes for the future, bad reciprocal influences; if they are patients, there is no danger of contagion; if they are madmen there is no risk of their committing violence upon one another; if they are schoolchildren, there is no copying, no noise, no chatter, no waste of time; **if they are workers, there are no disorders, no theft, no coalitions, none of those distractions that slow down the rate of work, make it less perfect or cause accidents**.”
_ “The discipline of the workshop, while remaining a way of enforcing respect for the regulations and authorities, of preventing thefts or losses, tends to increase aptitudes, speeds, output and therefore profits; it still exerts a moral influence over behaviour, but more and more it treats actions in terms of their results, introduces bodies into a machinery, forces into an economy.”
_ “If the economic take-off of the West began with the techniques that made possible the accumulation of capital, it might perhaps be said that the methods for administering the accumulation of men made possible a political take-off in relation to the traditional, ritual, costly, violent forms of power, which soon fell into disuse and were superseded by a subtle, calculated technology of subjection. In fact, the two processes - the accumulation of men and the accumulation of capital - cannot be separated; it would not have been possible to solve the problem of the accumulation of men without the growth of an apparatus of production capable of both sustaining them and using them; conversely, the techniques that made the cumulative multiplicity of men useful accelerated the accumulation of capital. At a less general level, the technological mutations of the apparatus of production, the division of labour and the elaboration of the disciplinary techniques sustained an ensemble of very close relations (cf. Marx, Capital, vol. i, chapter XIII). Each makes the other possible and necessary; each provides a model for the other. The disciplinary pyramid constituted the small cell of power within which the separation, coordination and supervision of tasks was imposed and made efficient; and analytical partitioning of time, gestures and bodily forces constituted an operational schema that could easily be transferred from the groups to be subjected to the mechanisms of production; the massive projection of military methods onto industrial organization was an example of this modelling of the division of labour following the model laid down by the schemata of power. But, on the other hand, the technical analysis of the process of production, its ‘mechanical’ breaking-down, were projected onto the labour force whose task it was to implement it: the constitution of those disciplinary machines in which the individual forces that they bring together are composed into a whole and therefore increased is the effect of this projection. Let us say that discipline is the unitary technique by which the body is reduced as a ‘political’ force at the least cost and maximized as a useful force. The growth of a capitalist economy gave rise to the specific modality of disciplinary power, whose general formulas, techniques of submitting forces and bodies, in short, ‘political anatomy’, could be operated in the most diverse political regimes, apparatuses or institutions.”
And this is well-noted in Foucauldian scholarship - as Toni Negri and Michael Hardt wrote in ‘Empire’ twenty years ago:
“Foucault argued in several works in the mid-1970s that one cannot understand the passage from the ‘sovereign’ state of the ancien regime to the modern ‘disciplinary’ state without taking into account how the biopolitical context was progressively put at the service of capitalist accumulation: ‘The control of society over individuals is not conducted only through consciousness or ideology, but also in the body and with the body. For capitalist society biopolitics is what is most important, the biological, the somatic, the corporeal’. ... A disciplinary society is thus a factory-society.”
thank you for this comment. very informative
Vinay Arun “The most plausible reading of Foucault’s relation to Marxism was that Foucault saw much of his work as offering broadly a complementary analysis to Marxism.”
www.researchgate.net/profile/Stuart_Elden/publication/285673557_A_More_Marxist_Foucault/links/5b5f1cccaca272a2d67540d4/A-More-Marxist-Foucault.pdf
Thank you for this detailed response.
I am doing a lot of reading on the history of "corporate culture" and the development of disciplinary techniques that have, at various times, arisen to answer the old question of how/why do people accept proletarian life under capitalist economy. These are both at the level of the individual workplace and eventually into academic/scientific canon (Taylorism, human relations, leadership/management studies, industrial psychology) and at the level of the level of kind of broad cultural trends (the shift over the last few decades to labor as a passion pursuit, an expression of individual subjectivity, "doing what you love"). Having read a bit of Foucault, it has entered my mind over and over again that it seems glaring that he didn't ever give the workplace the same treatment he gave the clinic, or universities, or sexuality. It seems so obvious that workplaces are far and away the brightest node where power accumulates and there was even by the time Foucault began his archaeological projects plenty of discourse on how to discipline workers (all of scientific management for example) for him to do his typical thing.
I think the point is to ask why did he avoid such an obvious location of power as the object of one his investigations. He wrote about it here and there sure, but certainly never gave it the treatment he did any of his other major objects of interest. It stands out. All the material was there for him to apply his method. There was already a when he started writing an entire developing "science" and academic discipline of how to discipline workers. Why treat such an obvious power center so lightly in a scholarly career entirely about power?
Cameron Still I’d speculate he felt workplaces were already a well-trodden field for Marxist analysis, whereas seemingly neutral institutions, like hospitals and schools, had been neglected. (He also didn’t write much about intra-family dynamics, but had he not died in his late 50s, he clearly could’ve taken up this topic too.)
One text he cited in ‘Discipline and Punish’ you may find useful: Didier Deleule and François Guéry’s ‘The Productive Body’ (www.amazon.com/Productive-Body-Didier-Deleule/dp/1780995768 ), published a few years earlier in 1972. Just as Marx sought to politicize the supposedly apolitical workings of the economy, Foucault built on this work to expose the political economy of other social spheres. The phrasing is always ‘not only … but also’:
“And, if one can speak of justice, it is *not only* because the law itself or the way of applying it serves the interests of a class, it is *also* because the differential administration of illegalities through the mediation of penality forms part of those mechanisms of domination” (DP 272).
Far from a critique of Marxism, then, Foucault contributed some indispensable appendixes.
Thank you for this! My jaw dropped when I heard that claim. It is just breathtakingly stupid.
Bizzarre to hear her conflation of F Jameson (the major critic of postmodernity) with the problem of postmodernism. She reads his diagnoses of what he sees as a breakdown of modern culture as if he were an advocate of postmodernity.
That confused me too. The subtitle of the book exposes postmodernism as ‘the cultural logic of late capitalism’...
Yes. Complete misunderstanding of Jameson.
I need to listen again. Was she reflecting in his misrepresentation of what postmodernism was in truth?
Same. I was taken aback - I thought she'd be citing Jameson as an ally to her position.
Thank you Catherine Liu. Thank you Bhaskar Sunkara.
amazing lecture, thank you very much.
This is excellent, and really unpacks my own experience ('89 BA Film Studies & Art History | '93 MA Film Studies). My department was an interesting mix of all these currents. I studied post-modernism quite a bit but also was a bit non-plussed by it, not sensing a solidity at its core. I couldn't put my finger on it, but Catherine Liu, I believe, does a great job of pointing out the key tensions and intentions of post-modernism.
Great episode!
Dr. Liu you are answering so many puzzling aspects of the open racism and consumerism worship. Thank you. Wonderful discussion! To proclaim that .now is 'death of nature' is idiotic and criminally arrogant. And to assume that that process has stopped is very well accepted, sadly. The great rewards of sustainability with nature, diplomacy/cooperation instead of war are totally ignored, ridiculed, or punished.
A great presentation. I am sympathetic with the general critique as it reflects my experience as an anthropology grad student in the late 90’s/early oughts. The academy was already steeped in the Postmodern Turn, and all the grad students were being directed away from materialist topics and toward micro-level studies of “discourse”. Ultimately, I think that there are may Postmodernisms, and that the key is distinguishing between a strong or moderate/nuanced reading of Postmodernism. A nuanced reading is an important critique of uncritical modernism and flawed meta narratives. It is wholly compatible with a Marxist analysis. A strong reading leads to a fatal atomization of identities and political projects - a capitulation to neoliberal capitalism.
That’s the problem I had, post-modernism and modernism are kinda broad and she kinda leans back on the versions that she learned herself without situating us in which ones she’s referring to
“… a fatal atomization of identities …”.
I love your phrase regarding the self-destructive nature of the post-modern period and its practitioners resulting in “… a fatal atomization of identities and political projects.”
I’ll remember that one. It’s so well turned! 👏
Way to step up Jacobin. This is the time.
I have to make this correction: at 41:45 Ms. Liu claims that Foucault does not discuss the factory in Discipline and Punish. I just read this book a few months ago and he does in fact discuss this in the book. Granted, it is only for one chapter in which he tacks on the templates of disciplinary institutions to the military academy and other social institutions, but to say he didn't discuss it is untrue.
The odd thing about Foucault for me is that he appropriates Marxist terminology and adds it to his own vocabulary palette for describing society. I think this is maybe more problematic.
Foucault: “Sometimes I quote someone without using quotation marks or a footnote to give the name of the source. It seems like I’m just supposed to prove I’ve read this famous scholar, and I say why should I have to put quotes around it if you can’t even recognize who it comes from?” He drops so much Marx in Discipline and Punish.
@@user-wl2xl5hm7k He didn't, it's a straw man.
@@user-wl2xl5hm7k You're correct that was someone paraphrasing this quote, which you will find in the Power/ Knowledge collection: "I often quote concepts, texts and phrases from Marx, but without feeling obliged to add the authenticating label of a footnote with a laudatory phrase to accompany the quotation. As long as one does that, one is regarded as someone who knows and reveres Marx, and will be suitably honoured in the so-called Marxist journals. But I quote Marx without saying so, without quotation marks, and because people are incapable of recognising Marx’s texts I am thought to be someone who doesn’t quote Marx. When a physicist writes a work of physics, does he feel it necessary to quote Newton and Einstein? He uses them, but he doesn’t need the quotation marks, the footnote and the eulogistic comment to prove how completely he is being faithful to the master’s thought."
@@user-wl2xl5hm7k I happen to have read Discipline and Punish immediately after reading all three volumes of Capital (and Capital 1 for the second time). As I read Foucault it was obvious that not only was he influenced by Marx, but that he was dropping entire sections of capital into the book to troll the PCF (well I found out about the trolling, later, in that book on interviews with Foucault on Marx). I haven't read the book you refer to, but I know that both Foucault and Deleuze took it as totally banal that they were standing on the shoulders of Marx.
P N Parti Communiste Français - the French Communist Party, which was a major force on the Left, the supposed authorities on Marxism, a la Dialectical Materialism, etc. When I read DP it was clear that entire passages were lifted from Capital; I originally just thought it was heavy paraphrase, but then read this quote and assumed he was telling the ... er ... truth.
One thing I'd offer as critique (for some of the other recent streams criticising current academia as well) is that when you're criticising something, it'd really help to know what you're talking about but also what you are NOT talking about. So if the problem is the cultural turn and radlibs, does that truly apply to all theory produced under the mantle of postmodernism? Are there some things worth keeping as we move past postmodernism and try to reimagine both academic work as well as the public intellectual?
"Are there some things worth keeping as we move past postmodernism and try to reimagine both academic work as well as the public intellectual?" Always! no matter what idea you're moving on from there are good things about it to take with you!
nothing worth keeping in postmodernism, the very idea was wrong, Liu clearly explains why.
This certainly helps me understand the context of that movement.
Excellent !!
That was really fascinating, I’m going to search out her work now! Thanks 😊
There's some great interviews with her on the Aufhebunga Bunga podcast :)
@Mathew Kopp, thank you, I will check this out!!!
Holy cow that was good, I would like to start every day listening to a lecture from Prof. Liu.
Love it, negativity as a space for solidarity! I too have waited 50+ years to see this thankyou!!! It has been so dispiriting for so long as the consumerism tsunami rose.
Identity politics has been a purposeful red herring, to obscure economic crises
I think we need a more nuanced view of identity politics, as what neurotypical, ablebodied, cishet white men think of identity politics is not actually what identity politics means. No one matters in this country unless they are neurotypical, ablebodied, cishet white men...it's totally understandable that people who are not neurotypical, ablebodied, cishet white men would want the discourse to acknowledge that not everyone is a neurotypical, ablebodied, cishet white man
@@chironOwlglass I think there's a big fear that rejecting post-modernism means rejecting the significance of how identity shapes oppression and seeing things from a purely class based standpoint. For instance, you can't really understand anti-LGBT oppression from a purely materialist, class based stand point, as much as that's a huge factor considering how the biggest issues LGBT people face are the same as the rest of the working class, but simply worse because of identity.
Love love her! Merci!
Nice links to Catherine’s work in the description.
Jacobin! Excellent...so glad to see/hear Catherine Liu!
Will you have a sociologist or social scientist (even a geographer) discuss postmodernism at some point? Literary theory, film studies, architecture theory, etc., engage these ideas in one of many ways.
Or even a philosopher lol this is such bullshit. It goes nowhere to explain where postmodernism came from.
Brilliant analysis
So glad I watched this
I need ten hours of this.
I really like Liu and a lot of what she's saying here, but have to say first off: come on, Jameson is a Marxist and his book was a critique of postmodernism, but also a recognition of postmodernity, which is something harder to get away from.
Liu refers to Jameson's point about modernisation being complete and points out all the ways it was not, but I think he's talking very validly not about his own view of it but of the logic that was in play in the places where postmodernism took off. It's the difference, as he says, between the era of modernisation, when modern still needs to be an ism, when you have cars passing horse-drawn carts in the street. To extrapolate a bit, once you're in a place where that is overwhelmingly gone, you can't bring it back except through artificial nostalgic gestures. Liu immediately goes on to talk about how our era has all these conservatives harking back to whatever it is their nostalgic for, but that - ironically given their own often ignorant and prejudicial hostility to the idea of postmodernism (which they often ludicly assume to be a form of Marxism) - is a form of postmodernity in itself, just as it is in their ultra-reactionary architectural equivalents, e.g. Quinlan Terry.
I'm sort of splitting hairs, though, because I agree that it sucks that the specifically social and egalitarian mission of modernism was not finished and feel absolutely that it would be better not abandoned. As an aside, when Liu was talking about Gehry's Disney building as a public-private endeavour, I suddenly thought, oh my god, all those Clinton and Blairite public-private partnerships: third way politics is the ultimate postmodern politics, the collapsing of binaries, the play of differences at work in bringing in all these vested interests and thinking you can make them contribute to the public good while still looking after their bottom lines - and if a critique of this kind of thinking is needed concretely, there could hardly be a better one.
But to the mission: unfortunately, I don't think it's just that a bunch of bad-faith actors took over and swept it away. I suspect it was flawed on grounds Marx himself would have spotted: it assumes we can democratise great design because mass production can make it cheap to produce, without taking account of capitalism's bottom line. Cheap furniture, electronics and architecture today often simply dispenses with the designers. Or, especially in the case of IKEA, somehow it turns out that cheaply mass produced furniture even when it has a designer is still flimsy trash. Or, in the case of the electronics, it turns out we get to a place where vast numbers of people can have access to quite sophisticated and well designed devices, without their overall material conditions being substantially improved at all (something Janet Malcolm brilliantly foresaw in her superb essay on the '80s NYC art scene, A Girl of the Zeitgeist). As was discovered over and over again with brilliantly designed housing projects and, here in the UK, council blocks being left to go to wrack and ruin, if the underlying society and systems weren't right, modernism's brilliant material solutions were for nought.
Liu should beware of idealising the old modernist mission nostalgically for that reason alone. But, ironically, to do so is also postmodern.
@@CelineOracle Maybe, but then why not just say social democracy? It's a difficult case to make anyway, given the political leanings of some of modernism's practitioners, e.g. Ezra Pound, Mies van der Rohe, TS Eliot.
To the extent that modernist design can be seen as social democratic, that's certainly a project I'd like to see continued: e.g. bring back council houses and design them according to an updated modernist best practice with ecological sustainability as standard. Doing this at scale could reinvigorate the jobs market too.
But what I was trying to take on was the modernist assumption that modernity - especially mass production - carried social democracy almost inevitably in its wake: that once you could mass produce, you could make good quality products and a better standard of living. available to all.
@@CelineOracle Good point and it relates to the origins of the welfare state not in pure social democratic altruism, but as a means of keeping the proletariat from getting too restive and interested in communism.
You're right about the core idea and, of course, to see its apotheosis and abrupt and tragic curtailment, we can look to Soviet modernism before Stalin.
Her imitation of the person equivocating Marxism and astrology as hobbies was my best belly laugh of the week!
Liu delivers a brave discussion of the problems the orthodox left faces today.
In contemporary postmodernism speech enters a fluid continuum with violence, and has the effect of both overestimating the value of efforts to reform the language of culture and also scandalizes contradiction and debate within civil society.
Very insightful. I would recommend this along with Matt Mcmannus' Critique (What is Postmodern Conservatism). Also, Taimur Rahman's Video Essay/Lecture on his channel is great too.
A few decades back I was teaching at a penitentiary on Staten Island. Getting there was a huge slog: subway, ferry, then an hour or so on the bus, so I'd read Postmodernist texts--in the original French because the English translations are for the most part gobbledygook--especially Foucault.
One day on a lark I decided to give the Bloods a quick overview of the topic. To my surprise, they were down with that, it wasn't as if Teach was telling them anything they hadn't figured out for themselves. I later mentioned that to a colleague, and her response has guided me since:
"Who else would it be intended for?"
i love this woman. Astute, bold and cuts through all the bullshit.
This was a great lecture and really got me thinking.
If I can manage a go, I think that the problem with dialectical materialism is not precisely totality, but the notion that totality is absolute rather than empty.
If postmodernism was a huge intellectual step back, is trying to step over it possibly another step back, in trying to assert that as a step forward?
It's both. See: Adorno, negative dialectic, espc. the chapter about hegel
Wow this is not what I thought it was going to be and it’s much better!
the postmodern turn was a good thing because it offered a deeper analysis of the necessary changes (cultural and psychological) that would be needed to go beyond not just capitalism but authoritarian and economic reductionist modernism as well, of which marxism could be seen as a left incarnation. the problem begins when the cultural changes become prioritized and even fetishized over the economic, which is the core or universal analysis of oppression and exploitation needed for solidarity. it emerged primarily from 1968 onward with the defeat of the left in the political protests around the world against capitalist culture and militarism, but simultaneously the victory of stonewall, feminism, and the environmental movement in the wake of civil rights struggles before them. it was seen by some as the necessary "soft" work to lay the groundwork for any future revolution in "hard" political economic matters.
This is such an important point.
Liu and lots of the comments here make it sound like postmodernism (and I am using the term as colloquial as everybody here seems to do) is a reactionary movement, that discarded communist rhetoric and a purely class-based analysis because of a naively clouded perspective, or even malicious intent. Which ignores that at that point, the socialist project could hardly been seen as anything but a complete failure: Didn't stop fascism, didn't stop the world wars, did bring us a deeply violent and oppressive USSR, did not bring us socialism, and isn't even popular with workers.
At that point, I would say it is a smart idea to ask questions like: Why won't they vote for (or march with) us? How does the ruling class do away with all our talk of oppression and revolution without firing a single bullet? How does oppression hide itself? Why is there no "worker identity"? If it turns out the socialist project is basically a purely intellectual, moralistic ivory tower thing anyway, why not have more fun and think less dogmatic?
Yes, there is cynical shell around a vacancy in the postmodern believe that nothing new can ever exist, and all the playfulness only tries to detract from it. Yet, what else can you do when you realize that all the waving of red flags and talking about ending the oppressor are crude, self-serving, and ultimately meaningless symbols?
Making things as complicated as they need to be seems like a good starting point.
@@ybrt1703 Millions of Russians died stopping fascism. The West harboured the remaining fascists and murdered nearly every socialist experiment in its infancy. Your revisionist take on history seems to favour fascism. I wonder why?
@@atomisedman6235 sounds like you are praising an authoritarian, oppressive and highly exploitative regime. If that's your thing, by all means. Though I wouldn't call it socialism. It's not accurate, and you are not helping any cause.
The same goes for calling each and everyone fascist. It's really not helping
@@ybrt1703 IS it inaccurate to classify the Nazis as fascist or something?
Jamison published this book the year i decided not to contiue my formal studies in critical theory. I was surprised by the impact this book had.
I was in university in the 90s studying history. The genius of postmodernism was that it didnt have to disprove class analysis. Instead it just relegated it to one of many facets of explanation. Postmodernist analysis festishized the "it's complicated" answers. Basically the postmodernist historical thesis was that history happened for an infinite number of different reasons and none of those reasons hold any more importance than the others.
yeah but isnt that justr the most obviosu answer everyone comes to when he thinks for more then 2 secs? that history is complicated? someone needs a phd to see that?
BigBennKlingon pomo as I interpreted it means “nothing counts”, ie, make it up, scrap everything. Has great application n is fun, but empty and a cop out by design. 40-50 yrs into this nonsense and what!? Post fucking human 😱
@@babycakes2077 Ya, "nothing counts" is good. I'd also say "don't commit to anything" is a good sort of motto. Pomo says that reality has a complicated explanation so favoring or committing to any specific element of explanation (like class struggle) is naive or even authoritarian.
@@duaneslack8516 Unfortunately I believe within postmodernist milieus the concept of "over-determination" was utilized more as a vague general rule meant to deter use of class analysis, than it was an actual critique of any specific overly-determinist analysis. The a priori assumption was that any emphasis of class was "over-determination".
Any book recommendations on topics discussed by guest?
Read the book she told you not to read. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism: or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
I would love to see a debate between Catherine Liu and Peter Eisenman. Does anyone else think this could be productive?
@Ryan Scates. My point was that the CIA funded foundations to create a financed movement. Not that abstract expressionism was wrong, but that the intent was to destroy American Realism by perpetrating an illusion that it was "better" more collectible. I like the Synchromists, the Cubists, and I see socialist realism as often very constricted. But Diego Riviera was an amazing compositionalist that also had CONTENT, and social relevance. This didn't need to be excluded, except that it threatened the corporate state that thrived on oppression. I just question how "the cultural aquarium" is created
Which are the main authors, that this critique of post-modernism goes after? (I always thought this kind of critique misrepresents post-structural thinkers like Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, etc., but maybe this is a misunderstanding on my side)
No I'd say that's pretty spot-on. And given that she claims Foucault never talked about factories, a just wildly dishonest take, it seems this is just more misrepresentation.
'...an incredulity towards meta narratives' -Lyotard, but also Baudrillard (sic) are top 'theorists' (double sic) of post modernity
@@johnbltz but Foucault only takes as site of discipline the clinic, the prison, the school - i dont know where he takes the factory or office specifically as a site of discipline and given the hierarchical/rule based nature of offices a bit of a lacunae would you not say that is 'symptomatic' in a suspicious/freudian way?
post structuralism is legit theory; postmodernism is out avanting the avante garde, a despairing gesture (poor insufficiently self-reflective 'things') of a non-existent agency (if you get my drift?)
@@johnbltz Foucault was pretty anti-Marxist and yet he didn’t focus on the main issues of Marx.
Also in the 70’s til the end of his life he was teaching Hayek and Misis and Friedman as he was searching for “ways to be free.”
Foucault’s analysis of neoliberalism completely ignored Pinochet which began 1973, and that neoliberalism could lead to authoritarianism.
He was also in California during Reagan and he somehow didn’t put two and two together. I have no idea if his History of Madness effected Reagan closing the asylums but it might of. Or it might be that Reagan did it and Foucault agreed with the decision.
I am certainly against forced treatment. But Reagan’s idea was No opportunities for help or treatment. And many on the Left didn’t think through this. RD Laing was not against striping away the welfare state but Foucault was.
@51:30 This is gold.
Liu kicks in at 4:30
Everybody forgets to “re” construct
Thanks Jacobin, btw i built this (with a little help) ;) th-cam.com/video/-s9EkaCC-zQ/w-d-xo.html
even Nietzsche was very explicit about creation/reconstructing being the most important part. common thread throughout all his work that postmodernists draw on, especially in his writing on history
Very interesting presentation. Thank you. As UK-based I have a slightly different take. UK architects and planners love Erno Goldfinger, architect of the likes of the Robin Hood estate. In demolishing Georgian houses post-war these two professions cited the virtues of the sleekness and modernism of Goldfinger but then.... the planners and architects voted with their feet.. living in Georgian houses in Islington in North London while lauding Goldfinger's therapeutic potential for the East End's working poor. Pruitt-Igoe has been repeated all around the world, particularly in "anglo" societies, such as the UK and Australia where the abandonment of the projects was not a policy. The projects devolved of their own accord. The old saw of "it takes a village" does not apply in an alienating vertical cultural ghetto. To be provocative we might say that only the middle class or PMC can ensure that a vertical residential scenario works... i.e. NY's UES...
Y'all had a typo Bevins graphic, "milions"
We need a Varn vs Liu Debate on PMC
I love Catherine, but she always whips out this line about Jameson and it’s bonkers wrong. It’s kind of embarrassing for her, too, as Jameson’s line on postmodernity is quite similar to her own. Also, I’m no adorno fan, but WTF... Adorno hated popular culture, so she’s just got that wrong right off the bat. Finally, Foucault was not anti-Marxist. Quite the opposite. His writing is full of praise for Marx, whatever he may have says about specific sub-sects of Marxism in France during his lifetime. At the end of the day, Liu is guilty of the sane sort of deepfake methodology that Zamora depends on, in his attack on Foucault. Anyone who knows anything about Jameson or Foucault watching this will really wonder how Liu is being let away with these kinds of arguments so easily.
The sad thing is that her overall threats about US academia is correct. But placing the genealogy of that with Jameson as opposed to, say, Judith Butler, is bonkers
*thesis
@@NicholasKiersey Totally agree, dude.
He may have hated popular culture, but Liu didn't say Adorno liked it, she said the Frankfurt School took it seriously. And that he did, a lot of the Frankfurt School and its student wrote about it, Adorno himself commented on these awful German Telenovelas from the 50s. I don't know if this just hasn't made it across the pond/the language barrier, but this exchange remains common knowledge in academia in Germany.
Shut up and get back to your Fully Automated podcast, Kiersey! Just kidding, I just thought it was cool I stumbled upon you in the comment section. Love your podcast, first heard about you on Adam's show.
“The deracinated working class and [our] need for some kind of collective experience…” is why I binge-watch The Expanse.
How I read it ( literally too) Postmodernism calls into question the powers of reason, asserts the importance of nonrational forces such as sensations and emotions, rejects humanism and the traditional philosophical notion of the human being as the central subject of knowledge, champions heterogeneity and difference.
“The Postmodernists' tyranny wears people down by boredom and semi-literate prose.”
-Christopher Hitchens
“Hell hath no fury like a coolly received postmodernist.”
-David Foster Wallace, Girl With Curious Hair
Prewitt Igoe failed due to lack of maintenance and security. Other factors were white flight, the gravitating of people and power towards urban sprawl/suburbs.
Urban planning was also not well thought out.
Also as far as I remember they weren't well integrated with the surrounding city.
More stores/office space/community centers could have been built to mitigate this. I'm assuming here US zoning laws might have prevented this really.
Richard Rorty is fire though.
Everybody needs to read "Achieving Our Country".
I actually like the look of the Disney Hall
In the US there was one more aspect to punk, that its participants were volunteering for a minority identification, and why the forms required where such severe commitments like shaved heads peircings and ugliness. it was dangerous for the individual to put themselves outside in this way.
Everything I know I learned from coffee table books.
Nice
Would it be accurate to say modernism is concerned with function over form, whereas postmodernism is more about unnecessary flourishes to satisfy the individual's taste, and that such flourishes can be removed without compromising the integrity of the structure of the piece?
I don't mind Frederick Jameson's critique of the Postmodern Condition. Rorty isn't bad either, for a Liberal. The latter really had the scoop on the effects of "Foucauldianism" on its disciples. Despair, cynicism, and a surrender to the Neoliberal ruling ideology being the order of the day.
I remember being at Uni in 1990-92 and anyone who openly admitted to Marxist goals, aspirations, etc were regarded with sneering contempt by so-called "Progressives". It was terribly destructive, definitely a step back.
I am surprised Prof Liu never mentions David Harvey's take on postmodernism
Academy, like Museums are the tombs of dead art, is too often the home of dead ideas or the assassins of truth before the idols of capital.
I think Foucault gets a bad rep from both left and right and his arguments are frequently mischaracterised. A key argument being that we cannot escape power; ergo even in a socialist utopia there will be power relations...they may more ‘horizontal’ but they’ll still exist. Power will still help create subjects either in-line with or resistant to dominant institutions.
Further, I think his notion of the episteme is useful as a critique of capitalism as relying upon the rationalisation of dualist thought. I hear echos of Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment within it.
If you would like a more clearer exposition what Post-Modernism is, please see my exposition at the bottom with a link to it.
Post-Modernism is affirming of a greater future of a “will of the people, represented through accountable elected leaders that operates with values of consultation and transparency”.
Most commentators like the ones above do not grasp it because P-M is approached very much how an English-speaker would read, for example French as if it is English and then flee, screaming French is meaningless, not a language at all. In other words, modernism is a paradigm qualitatively different from Post-Modernism to be approached as a distinctly different paradigm.
Post-Modernism defies definition, yet many people, invoke a definition of Post-Modernism.
Please read the segments, which are in the process of completion from the bottom to the top, chronologically:
vm.tiktok.com/ZMenfmFkY/
What's the tunez?
Found this a bit scatter-shot. Wasn't always clear what specific idea was being discussed at any point in time...
Fantastic break down... appreciate this!
Doesnt Foucault talk about factories as part of the carceral society in discipline and punish? Schools, workhouses, prisons, mental institutions, hospitals and factories?
Foucault himself was not a "post-modernist" but a post-structuralist. Postmodernism is mostly associated with Lyotard and Baudrillard
I'm not saying it's an endorsement but Foucault was presenting a 'geneological' history as opposed to a materialist one. The idea would've been to extrapolate that method out to other topics/areas of society whether that be done by Foucault or other thinkers.
@@EclecticoIconoclasta and yet all the people whining about the postmodern condition and actual postmodern theorists do not go anywhere near Baudrillard. They have no rebuke and neither do folks on the Left.
Provocative and informative discussion. FWIW, my take is that postmodernism is useful as a tool, but not so much as an ideology. Millenials and Gen Z are forming a post-postmodernism where supposed pragmatism is still nascent/emergent. Unfortunately, protecting that generates gatekeeping and purity tests that are slowing progress. Attempting critical discussion on social media results in accusations of mysogyny/intersectional bigotry more often than solidarity. Tribes will be tribes, I guess.
I'm honestly not well read enough in postmodernism and academic culture over the last century to deliver a credible or effective rebuttal to Ms. Liu, but I felt her arguments were often stretching and possibly misrepresenting post-modernist positions especially when she spoke on Foucault which is someone I have read a fair amount from.
Could we get Camille Paglia and Ms. Liu in the same room? Or would that cause an earthquake?
How about first with the label Post Modern. What comes after that? Post Modern Modern or Post Post Modern.
Individualism, hopefully. Hopefully enough stories of the failure of collectivism can accumulate to weed it out early wherever it rears it's ugly head.
Hypermodernity
It seems to me that there are only so many ways to philosophically investigate things. Do they not all start as dead ends? And universities are always going to be hung up somewhere, and there will always be those in favour and those opposed, and the will always be the rest of us. The whole human race is one big argument about how best to proceed. And then there is the politics! If postmodernism is a big mistake, it will collapse under its own weight. Chasing it out of academia can only ever be a matter of book burning. And it is never a good day for an auto de fe.
You guys really should define your terms in the beginning, especially when discussing such topics. Even in an academic context, a lot of these words don't mean the same thing in different fields. This was a very narrow depiction of the Modernism to Postmodernism to Metamodernism progression
I wish I’d know about Catherine Lieu when I was being violently force fed "post-structuralist" post content post raisin bran masturbatory narcissistic ultra myopic idiocy in grad school.
I have similar concerns about "punk." Looking back, you couldn't possibly imagine a "countercultural" movement that better served the establishment. What held so much of it together wasn't a common vision, but a common disdain -- for hippies. Its gestalt was one of contempt for engagement, for caring, for any kind of trying at all. Politically, it was the equivalent of a burning paper bag of dog shit left at your door. Ding dong.
For the algorithm. Workers of the world unite
I would guess that Weimar ideas of housing were connected to the location of work, bringing together worker with work. This would make the entire project logical and valuable to the people living in the public housing. It would demand an industrial policy from government, or more generally a planned economy. This could not be done in America since we no longer are a country with a government in 3 way partnership with industry and workers. A planned economy would be able to build housing and communities for the needs of the people working in the area.
America is a country run domestically for banking and its lending against real estate. America would not stand for good public housing. Drugs, violence, crime, all helped the banking and real estate sectors to be able to command our culture with the messaging of Reagan and Thatcher - they preached private home ownership. From that moment on, housing became an asset for the average American. This could be seen as the precursor to privatizing Social Security, another push for private ownership. The point was and still is, the ruling class wants Americans to be mini versions of their ruling class betters. The vision is to have a pyramid of claims towards wealth, both financial and real and all numerically ordered via price - small numbers make small wealth, large numbers make large wealth. Each owner of his or her claim is atomized, and self interested. There is no solidarity between owners; no social class. The pyramid has huge amounts of owners on the bottom, each having small numbers representing wealth, and a small amount of owners on the top, each having huge numbers representing their wealth.
I read a lot of contemporary non fiction and almost none of it has the depth of Foucault, Deuleuze and Baudrillard's America. The doesn't count as backwards in my book. It might be non-Marxist true, but that is just tough. Interestingly, Jameson, who is still true to Marxist tradition, is not as good a writer as the previous ones I mentioned. But I would certainly defend Jameson against outright capitalist attacks on him.
Late response, but I agree with you. I read Vivek CHibber's recent book "The Class Matrix" and felt like I was just reading a long reddit post.
I lived in Sioux Falls, SD in 1991. I was 20. I desperately wanted to live a life of dignity. At least be able to pay my bills without showing cleavage. We were key players in the punk scene in that community and had bands crashing at our house on tour. My boyfriend at the time came from a family of some means that helped him pay his bills and I had to work 12+ hour days to pay my bills. There were always people with fucked up haircuts all over my house always barking the word ‘elitist’ at anyone who isn’t them. I remember just being annoyed and yelling at everyone in my house about how they’re all a bunch of elitists because they think that everyone who isn’t them is an elitist. I dumped the boyfriend. He ended up marrying a woman 10 years older than him who is the primary bread winner plus his inheritance. It took me forever to get through school, the worst of the working class nightmare. If I made enough to keep a roof over my head, I made too much money for financial assistance.
I always thought punk was a reaction to Reagan and Thatcherite politics, never thought that it might be a kind of rebellion against the company/union man ethos.
Punk emerged in 1976 long before the Thatcher and Reagan governments - but was partially a response to mass unemployment of the Callaghan/Carter eras.
@Bryan Murley Yep. There's also the Dictators and NY Dolls.
I don’t think her critique of Punk holds water exactly. I think latch key childhoods played a big part.
Punk had many influences but it was against all forms of conservatism especially rebellious against Christian anti-LGBT in the USA. The only punk I knew personally was Ron Athy and his family was a speaking in tongues church.
Also Punk was quickly popular in communist countries. But Communist thought it was CIA while Reagan and Thatcher thought it was KGB.
And Punks: Authority sucks!
There are also a lot of fallacious attacks, on social media, of Marx ... they're calling him a racist and an anti-Semite. Can you do a vid in response to this?
We really need to call that what it is: laziness.
Those attacks on him are themselves rather anti-semitic, in essence.
Tom F. Attacking an 19th century Jewish man for experiencing self hatred is truly the Wokest thing imaginable
@@bobostanky4771 Indeed .... there was that (very) subjective factor in what he wrote!
its the truth
Algo bump