Thanks to Art Shostak for passing this along. It may be useful for those of
us who have been unable to participate due to being rhetorically challenged
or linguisticly disabled. "Symbolic analysts of the world unite; you have
nothing to lose but your obscurantism."
Michael
====================================================
Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 17:16:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Soc Humor: HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE POSTMODERN
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HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE POSTMODERN
by 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,
-itivity, and -tricity. In column C add a series of
well-respected names that make for 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 crackers 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 crackers 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/spacialities 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, slashes
and parentheses.
What do you get? "Pre/post/spacialities 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 cheese and crackers.
--------- End forwarded message ----------
Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of
Psych/Soc/Anthro, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 215-895-2466; fax
610-668-2727.
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://httpsrv.ocs.drexel.edu/faculty/shostaka/
"This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do
with it." Ralph Waldo Emerson
