Is It Fair To Say That...

[Brainaddict]

Communications course?

Write about Big Brother, and how the annual circus is a microcosm of structural and post-structural thinking in that it gives both participants and viewers the means to construct an ongoing story with both parties being simulataneously aware and unaware that they are creating both a mythical and critical narrative simulataneously, and this is done at the micro (water cooler tv moments) and macro (blanket national press coverage), along with the creation of Jungian archetypes in bodies of the Housemates, cf. Jade Goody, Cesar etc.

You've thought about that waaaaay too much. Did this come to you while watching it because your brain had to come up with something to do to alleviate the boredom?

 

[kyser_soze]

Nah, it came to me while reading this thread in a stream of consciousness stylee...I just saw 'commuincations' and 'post modernism' and thought 'Big Brother'...

 

[Fruitloop]

the thing that strikes me about BB is the way it's explicitly involved in the creation of a kind of public morality, and it's one that stretches its legislative power right into the most personal sphere in the way that the Victorians only dreamed about.

 

[Dubversion]

Communications course?

for the record, i am NOT doing a communications course

 

[kyser_soze]

the thing that strikes me about BB is the way it's explicitly involved in the creation of a kind of public morality, and it's one that stretches its legislative power right into the most personal sphere in the way that the Victorians only dreamed about.

BB is the channel or vessel through which that creation is pushed through, but the actual process is the public's own - without viewers BB would be nothing at all. It's a consensual two-way process. The best example of this was the Shilpa Shetty row - it started off with 'Well were they actually racist comments', a debate which continued until C4 'revealed' the 'hidden' comments, when the public debate crystallised into 'Jo, Jade and the WAG are clearly the most evil racists in the history of the world ever'

 

[gorski]

the thing that strikes me about BB is the way it's explicitly involved in the creation of a kind of public morality, and it's one that stretches its legislative power right into the most personal sphere in the way that the Victorians only dreamed about.

By definition "public morality" = contradiction in adiecto!

The spheres [bourgeois society and political state] were never separated in principle, as they were made on/from the same principle. Marx eventually learns this and says that political state is bourgeois society's principle raised on N-th power...

The recognition of it keeps coming back to haunt us in a variety of ways, slowly, bit by bit...

To be discussed ad nauseam...

 

[Dubversion]

you're a pompous, self-regarding tit

 

[gorski]

Nowhere near as dumb as you, though, Dumbversion...

 

[goldenecitrone]

We still live in Modernity, which did not exhaust its potential by any means...

This is true. All the post this, post that, postman pat academic baloney is just a fad.

 

[kyser_soze]

What's most interesting is that PoMo has generally been more acceptable in Continental Europe (esp France) rather than in the Anglosphere, where it's often held up as meaningless wanking...

 

[Dubversion]

What's most interesting is that PoMo has generally been more acceptable in Continental Europe (esp France) rather than in the Anglosphere, where it's often held up as meaningless wanking...

i think postmodernism is interesting, did have a worthwhile critique of the certainties and homogeneity of modernism and made culture a bit more fun.

and gorski - fuck off and die, you tiresome cunt

 

[kyser_soze]

Bits of it are, bits of it are off the scale nonsensical (I can't remember whom but a French academic, when quoted his own work, decried it as nonsensical grammatically as well as philosophically...and was then very red faced when it was pointed out it was his own work)

It's a good stab at making sense of the world as it stands that's more emotionally satisfying than the more mechanistic ideas that C19th modernism (including Marx) had about life...I used to have a statement that the main problem that sociology has always had is that it started studying a subject at the complexity level of quantum mechanics and it's only become moreso since...

 

[Dubversion]

of course, bits of it are. Lots of it is bollocks. But it still threw up a lot of interesting stuff. it definitely functions as a critique of modernism rather than an usurper of it.

 

[Fruitloop]

Hmm, should have said 'spectacular morality' maybe.

 

[Fruitloop]

I like this from Bruno Latour on the constitution of modernity:

"If you criticize [the moderns] by saying that Nature is a world constructed by human hands, they will show you that it is transcendent, that science is a mere intermediary allowing access to Nature, and that they keep their hands off. If you tell them that we are free and our destiny is in our own hands, they will tell you that Society is transcendent and its laws infinitely surpass us. If you object that they are being duplicitous, they will show you that they never confuse the Laws of Nature with imprescriptible human freedom. If you believe them and direct your attention elsewhere, they will take advantage of this to transfer thousands of objects from Nature into the social body while procuring for this body the solidity of natural things. If you turn round suddenly, as in the children's game 'Mother, may I?', they will freeze, looking innocent, as if they hadn't budged: here, on the left, are things themselves; there, on the right, is the free society of speaking, thinking subjects, values and of signs."

 

[kyser_soze]

Hmm, should have said 'spectacular morality' maybe.

Morality of the spectacle...like it...is that explored in any way by anyone?

Like that Latour quote too...

 

[kyser_soze]

Talking about post-modern...theocrat protests against dictatorship by deciding that his post should be elected, not selected

 

[Fruitloop]

I approve. The current Dalia Lama is a dude.

 

[gorski]

i think postmodernism is interesting, did have a worthwhile critique of the

1) certainties and homogeneity of modernism

and made culture a bit more fun.

and

2) gorski - fuck off and die, you tiresome cunt

1) never existed

2) you charmer

 

[gorski]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

 

[Dubversion]

1) never existed

of course they did, you daft fucker

 

[gorski]

I rest my case, as you obviously have no idea about any of that, let alone the debates about the core of Modernity!!!

 

[Dubversion]

yes, dear.

 

[Dillinger4]

I am quite interested in PoMo. The first stuff I came across that I later realized was some kind of proto - PoMo was the situationist stuff, which I still find really interesting.

I don't really feel confident enough to be able to debate about it though!

 

[Dubversion]

I don't really feel confident enough to be able to debate about it though!

there's nothing to debate, just uncritically absorb all gorski has to offer

 

[gorski]

That's yet another contradiction in adiecto - how very PoMo of you, as you seem to be really into it, dearest...

 

[kyser_soze]

If modernists don't have any certainties and homogeneities...

how come you're the way you are? I find lots of your stuff alternately amusing/interesting/frustrating (altho that's language and style more often than not, but the one thing that really sticks out is your utter certainty that you're right and the rest of the world is either wrong or simply doesn't understand your position adequately.

 

[gorski]

Nope, I'm just more informed than some very vocal poor sods here.

I also know how much I don't know.

The only "certainty peddlers" here are crude materialists, "scientists", Social Darwinists and now we see also - the PoMo twats, who think there's some sort of a dogma in Modernity, that is, interestingly enough, built on Methodical Skepsis. Blimey!

Modernity gives rise to the phenomenon of Critique and yet...

Obviously not even read the minimum necessary to open one's mouth on the problem - and yet...

 

[Dillinger4]

You sure do use a lot of emoticons for a clever person.

 

[gorski]

Depends who I'm talking to. Now, with children like you [see your silly, crude and offensive posts above, obviously written from some serious sense of insecurity ] it's quite useful... You just might get the drift... one hopes...