Postmodern prose is perhaps best approached as an exercise in posturing and phonetics — of couching slim and trite observations in needlessly Byzantine language; or as what Sokal and Bricmont refer to as “a gradual crescendo of nonsense.” Efforts to fathom deep meaning, or meaning of any kind, are generally exhausting and rarely rewarded. More often, what you’ll find is essentially a pile of language, carefully disorganised so as to obscure a lack of content.
David Thompson casts an eye over the postmodern scholarship of “radical cyber-feminist”, Carolyn Guertin.
Even the ludicrous doctrine of Duchamp and Beuys that it’s art because an artist says so has been discarded as a needless nicety, and now it’s art because it’s in an art gallery — obviously what the curators really wanted all along.
Elsewhere, I’ve noted the tendency of certain middle-class leftists to publicly decry material possessions and the capitalist infrastructure on which their own livelihoods and status depend. The general intent of such demonstrations seems to be to affect a superior tone while deflecting the potential envy of those who actually like material possessions and who may wish to possess more — perhaps even as much as is possessed by certain well-heeled Guardian columnists.
His pen writes like the eye of a camera, melding surreal fragmented mindscapes of a totalitarian past with the reality of a monotone present : shiny new shopping malls; concrete block housing estates with graffitied walkways; derelict factories and chemical plants; shattered statues of Stalin and those of Lenin and other communist leaders on display in statue parks; railway stations that are now crossing points for sex industry women…
The Stuckists have demonstrated annually since 2000 outside Tate Britain against the Turner Prize, initially dressed as clowns (as the Tate was run by them). These events have become almost an integral part of the Prize, to the extent that they received more coverage on the Channel 4 programme Twenty Years of the Turner Prize than most of the nominees. They have been broadcast worldwide as well as on radio and TV in this country, and are regularly included in press reports. On one occasion The Guardian headlined their write-up ‘Turner winner riles the Stuckists’, which doubtless in turn riled the Turner winner.
With every such betrayal, the limply looming general and council erections look more and more likely to subside to a symbolically damp fart, resulting from (among other things like Blair’s five wars, not out) the lack of governmental, er, integrity, in general and (can they be serious?) from postal ballots in particular.
America’s military adventures have always been and always will be the functions of our corporate plutocrats. They think of themselves as swashbuckling masters of their own and everyone else’s fate. They flatter themselves into believing they’ve transcended the demarcations of blood, geography and culture. But they’re merely the unconscious tools of Universal Balance in its tribal, racial and national manifestations.
