On Tue, 12 Oct 1999 19:20:08 +0100, Orlando wrote:
>I'd say that PoMo was rarely oppositional precisely because of the idea
>that it embraces pluralism. Whilst this might seem to be oppositional, my
>experience tells me that the pluralism of PoMo tends towards appropriation
>of ideas into a renewed (re-freshed) version of 'something' (or perhaps the
>'more than something' you allude to above), rather than taking an
>oppositional stance.
- Interesting. That'll larn me to interpolate... I see what you mean,
and yet... when you look through those anthologies I mentioned, it's
the sheer _contrariness_ of much of the work, their
wish-to-be-themselves-ness which comes across. And of course, there
are threads of social opposition and political opposition which crop
up in such work too often to be ignored, and yet, as you say, there's
this grab-everything pluralism. But is that necessarily
not-oppositional? In terms of "a movement" (which it isn't) defined
solely in terms of what it isn't (the past, formalism, authority)
isn't there always going to be an oppositional edge? If a boat is a
place of not-water - in fact opposition-to-water - what happens if it
gets too plural in its attitude to water?...
I think this is the kind of arguing which Billy urged us to purge.
Sorry.
RC
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|