I had an impulse to say a few words in defense of postmodernism, just because it's being eloquently derided, and I always want to stick up for the underdog.
But it's hard. The expiry date on that term has passed. "Po-mo" is about as exciting as a pile of old monitors, stacked up near the dumpster in the snow. It would seem self-defeating to set up shop now as a Postmodernist; that would more or less be announcing oneself as derivative. (Hey, I'm "always already" obsolete! Whoa!)
I still do love those Laurie Anderson CDs, though. And those Italo Calvino meta-stories. And, once in awhile, when I'm saturated with pundit-speak and president-speak and suchlike, I even find some solace reading Roland Barthes or Julia Kristeva.
John Cage isn't getting the concept of harmony, so he sneaks off and invents the prepared piano. The Great Figures in architecture are devising idealized, monumental Radiant Cities; meanwhile, some nobodies are noticing the beauty in clutter. Structuralists are busy categorizing and systematizing meaning-production, slipping everything neatly into its allotted slot in the superstructure, then wiseguy Derrida shows up at the seminar and pulls on a few threads.
Soon the nobodies are attracting attention (and funding). Critics and theoreticians, in their magisterial seats located at high altitude, finally tune in. It's interesting for awhile, but then it becomes evident that everyone and their brother, sister and lover is in on the game, and there aren't any free chairs left at the faculty lounge/museum board/arts council. A sense of ennui sets in. Meanwhile, over in Science Land, they’re working on stuff that might actually, tangibly benefit the rest of humanity [if it doesn't kill us].
Then some other critics point out what was obvious all along – that the intellectual basis for the movement is unsound. Which is true of just about any intellectual movement, since truths are partial. Conservatives, of course, laugh, but then they're in the low-risk biz of repeating received wisdom. "Well, your car wouldnta broke down if you hadn't gone for a drive in the first place." Poetry, quoth Wallace Stevens, is a destructive force. Or, as Tomaz Salamun put it…
Are angels green?
4:17:23 PM 
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