Trigg's scathing critique of postmodernism (The Aesthetics of Decay, Chapter 7, "The Decline of Postmodernism?") led me to wonder about what kind of text The Aesthetics of Decay really is. It is partly a narrative of intellectual history. Amid the rapid transition from Maximilien Robespierre to the landscape gardener William Chambers (pp. 80-81), the thought occured to me that Trigg's opposition to postmodernism might not be without irony. Trigg says of this narrative:
The preceding account of concepts does not claim to be a genealogical analysis that situates intellectual history in causal terms. Instead, my intention has been to show, by way of historical examples, how rationality has informed modes of artistic and intellectual engagement. My account remains deliberately partial and incomplete: firstly, because intellectual concepts are viewed from a temporal perspective, and secondly, because I have sought to draw an idea rather than a system from these concepts. From the perspective of rationality alone, we see how the process to confront the failure of reason has been a struggle that has often reverted to claims of certainty and permanence.
(pp. 83-84).
This emphasis on the partial account appears to be at least consistent with postmodernism; however, Trigg claims for himself a temporal grounding which he finds unacknowledged in postmodernism.
By subverting the metanarrative and the Enlightenment conception of rationality, postmodernism involves a mode of nostalgia that depends on what was annihilated to affirm itself in the temporal present. Because of this negative identity, postmodernism remains locked in the past despite its attempt to evade temporal determinism. The incompletion of the present is reinforced as postmodernism withdraws from a committed stance into a conceptual impasse.
(p. 74).
Ultimately I am not reading The Aesthetics of Decay as a postmodern text, though it self-consciously does come after the decline of postmodernism. I am seeing in this exposition, the way Trigg sees in the ruin, the possibility of a "critical resistance against the enforcement of spatial rationality" (p. 150). Why does there need to be such a critical resistance if not for the sake of rationality? Is this not an essentially an argument about proportionality, about seeing decay as clearly as we see growth? I'm not really sure about that. (I haven't quite finished with the book though it is deeply engaging.)
Labels: narrative, postmodernism, Trigg
3 Comments:
The so called "enlightenment" was in effect a shutting down of the Divine Radiance and Possibility from the cultural landscape of western man.
And also the complete banishment of the Goddess or Shakti dimensions.
Put in another way it amounted to trapping (and reducing) the consciousness of western man in (to) a deadly iron cage.
No Radiance, no Grace, no transcendence possible.
Just utterly fearful mortal objectified meat bodies continuosly at war with each other.
The "culture" of death now rules!!
Please check out this reference as to the eternal nature of the Radiant Conscious Light in which all of this is arising.
1. www.dabase.net/2armp1.htm#ch1b
These two essays are about the origins & consequences of the "culture" of death.
2. www.dabase.net/coop+tol.htm
3. www.dabase.net/spacetim.htm
This essay is about the catholic complicity in this process of the shutting down of the Divine Radiance.
4. www.beezone/com/AdiDa/jesusandme.html
John, with the five comments you left last night it seems like you regard this space as equivalent to a supermarket bulletin board. I'm not seeing much genuine discussion on your part. I've already told you that I don't share your beliefs. There's never going to be much here for you. You should be thinking of finding a different space to advertise your beliefs.
Fido, Perhaps I am "sharing" or advertising my beliefs.
But so does everybody else.How many hundreds of thousands of blogs are there in cyberspace?
I dont have a blog because anything that I could possibly say is said in/on the essays and comentaries of the various Adi Da inspired websites.
Here I go again.
My statements are based upon my understanding of Adi Da's Luminous Wisdom Teaching---especially as it relates to the origins & consequences of the spiritual emptiness of western "culture" in particular and how it has brought the entire world to the brink of catastrophe.
The second paragraph in my first posting is a very concise and accurate summary of the state of the world. It is based on a talk titled (oddly enough) "The Realization of The Beautiful".
As with all of his essays and talks on politics & culture it contains a very sobering assessment of the individual & collective situation/predicament, and simultaneously the most extraordinary description of the Radiant Conscious Light in which all of the absurd human drama is arising.
A brief sentence or two from that talk.
"Humanity is like rubble in its present state.
You are destroying the Divine Gift.
All is Energy--and Energy Is all there is. But you are using Energy as if it were mud.
Look again--and find the Beautiful, the Unlimited, the Conscious Light, the "Bright" of Consciousness Itself,the Midnight Sun, the Star in the midst of the colour."
By contrast you seem to prefer to put your attention on the "poetics of decay" only. You wont find any Grace or Infinitely Radiant Conscious Light in that neck of the woods.
But then again how much dialog and/or discussion can one really engage via a blog comments section?
And despite my beliefs any one of the essays that I have pointed to provide a totally unique understanding and perspective of/on the topics/themes they discuss.
I am also pointing you to the most extraordinary and complete Spiritually Illuminated "philosophical" communication ever given.
A final quote.
"Happiness is the now-and-forever Mystery that Is the Real Heart and the Only Real God of every one"
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