2008-04-19 - 8:25 p.m.
Wow! Wow, wow, double-wow! Quadruple-wow! In fact, infinity-wow!
I just read a book for school called The Condition of Postmodernity and it�s brought me a whole new understanding. Of my thesis, of my other courses, of where I grew up, of cities generally, of my family, of my first memory, of why I liked Brown so much more than Harvard, of my book, of our condo, of a movie I just saw, of the current presidential election, of the nature of politics generally, of war, of comedy, of music, of art, of everything. I�m giving a final presentation on it for class and I think I�ll work out what I�m going to say here.
The book examines the transition from from modernity to postmodernity .I�m completely obsessed by this shift. Just last night I saw a DVD of the film No Country for Old Men. set in 1980 early on in this transition. At the end there�s a scene between the county sheriff, Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones and his cousin Ellis, who used to be a deputy and now uses a wheelchair because he was shot by a criminal. Tommy says he�s retiring since he doesn�t really understand the world anymore, given the brutal killer he just dealt with. I think I�ll use part of the ensuing dialogue in my presentation:
Ellis: ...What you got ain't nothin� new. This country is hard on people. Hard and crazy. Got the devil in it yet folks never seem to hold it to account.
Bell: Most don�t.
Ellis: You�re discouraged.
Bell: I�m... discouraged.
Ellis: You can�t stop what�s comin�. Ain�t all waitin� on you.
The two men look at each other. Ellis shakes his head.
...That�s vanity.
�Modernity� and �postmodernity� may seem like big concepts to grasp, but they�re really quite simple. I think the terminology of �modern/postmodern� may come off as overly academic. This is a shame because everyone should understand it. I think �modernity/postmodernity� is actually much like the social model of disability. The social model is not more widely known in part because it�s often couched in language that seems over people�s heads. But this idea can be boiled down to a far more comprehensible statement. �Wait, it�s not me!� is much easier to grab onto. In the other half of this � �it�s not me, it�s you!� � the �you� refers to placemakers who created a built world (as was done in the Modernist era) with no thought of people�s differing needs.
I�ll suggest that the words �Modern/Postmodern� can be replaced with �Then/Now�. This can be applied to almost anything. I�ll talk about a lot of these in future entries, starting with those pertinent to my current classes.
Wow, again.
� 2008 Geoff Gladstone
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