Postmodernism, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Frederic Jameson, from Postmodernism, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
by russlle Aadms Bukre

Well, he came to a conclusion I agreed with, eventually. I don't know how he got there, but he did. Along the way Jameson used - in typical cultural theorist fashion - all sorts of confusing unneeded words. Let's look at those first: [from wikipedia, wiktionary and google of course]
millenarianism - mostly related to Christian apocalyptic beliefs, it can also be in reference to a theory of inevitable progress and utopia, such as Marxism

coupure - cut, in French
monad - lots of meanings. About numbers? Possibly the philosopher Leibniz's ideas are relevant; a monad is his metaphysical model for a kind of atom of perspective that has appetite and perception. Whatever that is.
anomie - a kind of melancholy because of a lack of rules or values, but similar to anarchy in that it is active
durée - duration
diachronic [vs. synchronic] - not at the same time, versus at the same time. In philosophy of the mind: an immediate conscious awareness in a short time, like a tenth of a second. Also used in linguistics about how ideas change over time.
putative - "commonly believed to be true on inconclusive grounds" [wiktionary]
sinité - I don't know, either related to sin or a place in Bulgaria. Sinity is a term used in a footnote to Barthes, Myth Today, connected to the word sininess, which is a neologism coined by French occupiers, to describe China and the cultural norms they saw as morally inferior.
hermeneutic - hermeneutics is "the study or theory of the methodical interpretation of text, especially holy texts," so hermeneutic must be the singular?
praxis - "The practical application of any branch of learning." Also, "Custom or established practice"
lumber room - a room where you store excess furniture for later use in a fancy British house
mimesis - a term with a lot of baggage in art criticism. It's about imitating or mimicking. It's an idea in art that usually applies to a kind of realism, or an illusion of the real. Plato and Aristotle contrasted it with diegesis, in drama or writing, which means tell instead of show. Mimesis was once considered a synonym for Art, when you represent nature realistically. In modern art mimesis might mean it was not abstract enough. It's interesting to think that what is popular now is a hybrid, the first person TV narrative, that's both show and tell.
[I put sinité, coupure, anomie, and durée into the altavista.babelfish French to English translator and got, "sinity cut saddle-oyster duration"]

Well, I get the sense that this is a dated document. Isn't that a neat criticism of Post-modernism. Apparently it's written in 1991, not long after I predicted. The bit about "the end of this or that," seems to refer to when history was supposed to have died [in 1989!].

There are a lot of artists' ideas referenced I'm not familiar with: Godard, Heidegger, Macherey, Nam June Paik, Fernard Léger, Antonioni's Blowup, and DePalma's Blowout. On the other hand it's a nice list for interesting stuff to lookup another day.

Lists a bunch of artists that he considers modern, and those that are post modern. I don't agree with his categorisations, and he really doesn't prove that there is a fundamental change or break from the previous era. Warhol and Philip Glass are traditionalists, compared to a lot that is contemporary. I don't think individual style is waning at all. Quite the opposite, this is an individualistic era. Neither are we "liberated from anxiety." Random cannibalisation is old as the moon.

Lot's of people reject the split between modern and post modern nowadays.

He talks about space overcoming time but I don't think that's true. Space certainly is a buzzword these days. And time may have changed, it isn't natural but digital now.

I do think that his definition of simulacrum, the "copy for which no original has ever existed" is more practical than Baudrillard's.

He is right in that history is different as nostalgia and reproduction of historical imagery is consumed.

I like how he says our understanding of meaning is like a sentence: it can become disordered. It's a good metaphor but his point is still wrong. That's not a uniquely postmodern condition.
His observations about schizophrenia are different than what I think the disease actually is, I think he's misusing the word, or being arrogant in drawing supposed medical fact from an anecdote. However he is right that the situation quoted to us could easily be seen in positive terms as a drug enduced fantastic voyage.

The idea of difference. I dunno. blah.

The bit about technology is good. Computers and TVs don't show us their function the way steamengines do. "different demands on our capacity" is a good way to put it. I think he really is on to something when he looks at the unimaginable complexity of "whole [systems of] technology." I've thought about that a lot, in relation to computers. Our interconnectedness may one day [theoretically] allow us all to share ALL of the knowledge that has ever been written, we are all able to be Prometheus and god. But it is totally impossible for any individual to understand, we've outgrown our own comprehension. Even now a microchip is unimaginably complex such that no individual could ever hope to reproduce or represent one accurately.
When he talks about cities it's like he's talking about this great exciting potential topic, urban space and bicycles! [bicycles, bicycles, bicycles... did you notice my email address?] but he doesn't go anywhere with it. Except... He ends with maps. I think maps are a great idea. Borges wrote about the map that covered the entire empire. We need our own maps and to share them and that's empowering. No more imperial maps. let's get post-modern!