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Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts : An Example of Creative Non-fiction Academic Writing
著者 Karn Lawrence, Hattori Takahiko journal or Otsuma journal of social information studies publication title volume 27 page range 99-119 year 2018-12-30 URL http://id.nii.ac.jp/1114/00006660/
Creative Commons : 表示 - 非営利 - 改変禁止 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.ja 大妻女子大学紀要 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018 99
Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts:
An Example of Creative Non-fiction Academic Writing
“Modern man drags an immense amount of indigestible knowledge stones around with him which on occasion rattle around in his belly.” Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, 1874. (Loc. 508)
Lawrence Karn ＊ and Takahiko Hattori ＊
Abstract
This paper uses the metaphor of facts as stones to stimulate a limited-selection retrospective on five aspects of the postmodern debate — 1.) postmodern feminism; 2.) post-colonialism and postmodernism; 3.) the turn to literature for direction in the role of postmodern thinking toward resolving present-day challenges; 4.) whether to care about context and relegate authorship to an “author function” rather than a particular personality, in short, the question of whether context is the truest “author” of the postmodern world; and 5.) the all-embracing question of how we may behave morally and ethically in light of the work-in-progress status of the preceding four areas of inquiry — to reflect on the place of the individual in reconstructing the ethical universe after postmodernism.
Key Words : feminism, colonialism, postmodern ethics, Foucaultʼs “author function”, literary imagination
Facts are stones. Some stones are used to build Part 1: Introduction great edifices. Others are broken up to gravel Enlightenment, Modern, and roadways. Many are used as weapons. Postmodern Steps: From Texts to Foundational ideas of modern thought, on Textual Analysis to Contextual topics ranging from the science of perception to Analysis transformation of moral philosophy, owe much to
＊ School of Social Information Studies, Otsuma Women’s University 大妻女子大学紀要 100 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018
Enlightenment reformulation of earlier notions on interpretation. Science uses its methods to unravel these subjects. DNA from RNA and reveal the patterns that Modern thought may be characterized as an determine future generations. Literary criticism exercise in critical thinking—often a stated outcome dissects a different set of specimens. Both claim to of the successful completion of university-level have prized the meaning, or at least one plausible coursework. Of course, critique craves criteria. In meaning, from the object itself. Individuals, co- this regard, methodology is to modernism what the authors, or research teams present evidence based belief in reason and the scientific method was to on rigorous analysis, based on accepted standards the Enlightenment. Methodology was the bedrock within their particular disciplines, and based on the of modernism. Beyond the sciences, methodology expertise they have painstakingly earned to qualify manifested itself in everything from the creation as legitimate practitioners. of operational definitions in the social sciences to the science and craft of textual analysis in the arts. The addition of postmodernism Works could be regarded as artifacts and subjected Postmodernism expands modernism. All the to the same forensic analysis one might apply to a modern tools are used. A new and wider way shard of pottery from an archeological dig. of understanding modern conditions is also Modernism, in the simplest terms, may then introduced. That is the post in postmodernism; be characterized as a process of textual analysis. postmodernism is the next step, not the elimination Artifacts can be texts and texts can be artifacts; of the staircase. Careful textual analysis and the symmetry is elegant and direct. Books and examination of artifacts continues to provide bones, symphonies and sonnets, paintings and evidence for the verification of information. Facts photographs, dances and dramatic performances, are established in light of earlier knowledge gained architecture and anatomy, legal procedure and and challenged and refined within standards that religious liturgy may all be regarded as texts. Each are always being elevated. Confirmation provides text is a nut; crack it to get to the meat. Break a provisionally workable proposition; the proof atoms to get to the energy of the universe. The is used insofar as it is useful, and proofs are story of every text as artifact or artifact as text—the upgraded as better solutions are crafted. Accredited narrative that propels us through the arc of every gatekeepers, from researchers to editors along the account—is there to be told. line of peer reviewers and qualified commentators, Currently, our knowledge of the external world critique each claim and lively debate advances the is gained by regarding its elements as artifacts to discussion. be examined and as texts to be analyzed. Once What next step, then, takes us to the realm of we can establish/ determine/ or lay claim to postmodernism? The postmodern step is from text an understanding of the narrative of a text, its to context. The question, “What is going on in this secrets may be revealed and deeper meanings text/ work/ artifact?” expands to the consideration can be plumbed and satisfactory explanations of of the circumstances in which the text/ work/ the phenomenon can be presented. The wonder artifact was created—its context. of textual analysis was and is that everything ever While this paper is presented as an example of needed was already there to be discovered in the creative non-fiction academic writing, we also offer entity itself. Patterns and motifs, metaphors and discussion of how a wider sense of creative writing tropes—the full array of indicators—are open to may connect with the context of postmodernism. Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 101
Rather than to opine in the abstract, it will be useful Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women to consider a selection of postmodern luminaries of Color. Appiah feels, “Yoruba Man with a Bicycle … across a variety of perspectives. These include provides us with an image of an object that can feminism and post-colonialism; the turn to literature serve as a point of entry to my theme: a piece for direction in the role of postmodern thinking of contemporary African art that will allow us to toward resolving present-day challenges; whether explore the articulation of the postcolonial and the to care about context and relegate authorship postmodern” (Appiah 139). to an “author function” rather than a particular personality; and to reflect on the place of the 2.1.1 Alarcon and Post-feminist Feminism individual in reconstructing the ethical universe In “The Theoretical Subject(s) of This Bridge after postmodernism. Called My Back and Anglo-American Feminism”, Alarcon lays out the problem that in a work specifically designed to move beyond where “writers Part 2: A Sampling of the Varieties of were aware of the displacement of their subjectivity Postmodern Contextualization across a multiplicity of discourses: feminist/lesbian, 2.1 Feminism and Post-colonialism nationalist, racial, socioeconomic, historical, etc. … In critical response to Norma Alarcon’s “The [and which] implies a multiplicity of positions Theoretical Subject(s) of This Bridge Called My from which they are driven to grasp or understand Back and Anglo-American Feminism” and Kwame themselves and their relations with the real, in the Anthony Appiah’s “The Postcolonial and the Althusserian sense of the word … Bridge writers, Postmodern”, the theme we explore is in how we in part, were aware that these positions are often may see the world from the perspective of others. incompatible or contradictory, and others did not How does one get beyond a position—feminism, have access to the maze of discourses competing post-colonialism, or postmodernism—that seems for their body and voice” (140). so easily to fall into being characterized as simply Alarcon explicates a number of the features of amounting to an oppositional situation? this maze, beginning with the question of who is How does one get beyond a narrow concept of regarded as the subject of feminism. We find “The feminism as a concern of white, Western, educated, modal ‘person’ in feminist theory still appears to affluent women and take a wider and non-binary be a self sufficient individual adult … [who] … perspective? This is the question in Alarcon’s corresponds to the female subject most admired article. For Appiah, the linkage between post- in literature which Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak colonialism and postmodernism explores how the had characterized as one who ‘articulates herself linguistic and literary turn may offer insights into a in shifting relationship to . . . the constitution and wider view of postmodenism and postmodernity. ‘interpellation’ of the subject not only as individual As a vehicle for analysis, though more narrowly but as ‘individualist’ [and that] Consequently, the for Alarcon, each scholar uses a particular cultural ‘native female’ or ‘woman of color’ can be excluded artifact as an entry point into discussion. Alarcon from the discourse of feminist theory” (141). assesses the challenges and impact of “a collection The “‘masculine cast’ of radical feminist language, of essays, poems, tales and testimonials that for example, noting the terms of ‘raw power, brute would give voice to the contradictory experiences force, martial discipline, law and order with a of ‘women of color’” (Alarcon 140), entitled This feminist face - and voice’” (142) is also discussed, as 大妻女子大学紀要 102 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018 are its theoretical consequences. These are laid out a tendency in more sophisticated and elaborate in the following extract. Alarcon says, gender standpoint epistemologists to affirm this gendered standpoint epistemology leads ‘an identity made up of heterogeneous and to feminism’s bizarre position with regard heteronomous representations of gender, race, to other liberation movements, working and class, and often indeed across languages and inherently against the interests of non- cultures’ with one breath, and with the next to white women and no one else. For example, refuse to explore how that identity may be theorized Sandra Harding argues that oppositional or analyzed, by reconfirming a unified subjectivity thinking (counteridentification) with white or ‘shared consciousness’ through gender. The men should be retained even though “[t] difference is handed over with one hand and taken here are suggestions in the literature of away with the other” (150). Native Americans, Africans, and Asians Alarcon comments that, “The choice of one or that what feminists call feminine versus many themes is both theoretical and a political masculine personalities, ontologies, ethics, decision. Like gender epistemologists and other epistemologies, and world views may be what emancipatory movements, the theoretical subject of these other liberation movements call Non- Bridge gives credit to the subject of consciousness Western versus Western personalities and as the site of knowledge but problematizes it by world views. (143) representing it as a weave” (152). Alarcon ends Alarcon notes a number of problems, ranging saying, “current political practices in the United from the “exclusionary practices in Women’s States make it almost impossible to go beyond an Studies”(145) to the fact that modernist-based oppositional theory of the subject, which is the assumptions are decidedly Western. prevailing feminist strategy and that of others; Standpoint epistemologists have made use however, it is not the theory that will help us grasp of the now gendered and feminist notion of the subjectivity of women of color” (152). consciousness, without too much question. These two extracts set up interesting possibilities (This notion, of course, represents the to consider. Having explored the difficulties and highest value of European culture since dead ends in theoretical approaches to feminism in the Enlightenment.) The inclusion of other the years following Bridge, two approaches seem analytical categories such as race and class implied. One is that the political aspect must be becomes impossible for a subject whose given more energy. A second is that oppositional consciousness refuses to acknowledge that ‘one theory must be both altered and augmented to becomes a woman’ in ways that are much more include female as a feature that interacts with complex than in a simple opposition to men. In immigration status, race, ethnicity, income, cultures in which ‘asymmetric race and class language, culture, LGBT orientation, physical relations are a central organizing principle of condition, psychological status and an ongoing society,’ one may also ‘become a woman’ in series of ‘woven discourses’ that respond to the opposition to other women. In other words, the richly complex conditions of gender in an emerging whole category of woman may also need to be postmodernist and post-feminist context. problematized. (145) We now turn from Norma Alarcon’s “The The challenge of meaningfully engaging Theoretical Subject(s) of This Bridge Called My difference is also a paradoxical pursuit. “There is Back and Anglo-American Feminism” to focus on Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 103
Kwame Anthony Appiah’s views on post-colonialism modernism, the very significance of those features and postmodernism. changes when they become a cultural dominant with a precise socio-economic functionality” (142). 2.1.2 Appiah and Art as Engagement Appiah says that this view does “leave open, While Norma Alarcon’s article considered how then, the relations between postmodernism and a “gendered standpoint epistemology leads to postmodernity. Where the practice is theory— feminism’s bizarre position with regard to other literary or philosophical—postmodernism as a liberation movements … [that] … may be what theory of postmodernity can be adequate only if it these other liberation movements call Non-Western reflects to some extent the realities of that practice, versus Western personalities and world views” because the practice is itself fully theoretical. But (Alarcon, 143), Appiah explores the linkage between when a postmodernism addresses, say, advertising postcolonialism and postmodernism in terms of or poetry, it may be adequate as an account of them how artistic, linguistic and literary turns may offer even if it conflicts with their own narratives, their insights into a wider view of postmodenism and theories of themselves. For, unlike philosophy postmodernity. and literary theory, advertising and poetry are not We feel that Appiah has effectively accomplished largely constituted by their articulated theories of two goals. First, he has applied the sort of critique themselves” (142). that Alarcon makes of feminism to postmodernism’s We find the central moment of Appiah’s ability to provide supportive insights into Non- argument comes forward most clearly in the Western liberation movements. Second, he has following extracts. He says, “I want to argue that provided tangible (paradoxically, by examining to understand our—our human—modernity we cultural artifacts such as art and literature) criteria must first understand why the rationalization of for analysis that go beyond ‘theoretically totalizing’ the world can no longer be seen as the tendency projects he and Alarcon critique. either of the West or of history; why, simply put, the On the subject of postmodernism as a term modernist characterization of (144) modernity must fraught with as much contention as that of feminism be challenged. To understand our world is to reject (in our comparison, not in Appiah’s words), which Weber’s claim for the rationality of what he called Appiah describes as “shark-infested waters around rationalization and his projection of its inevitability; the semantic island of the postmodern” (140), he it is, then, to have a radically post-Weberian contends that, “postmodernism is equally offensive conception of modernity” (145) and “Modernity has in all the respects enumerated (think of punk rock turned every element of the real into a sign, and or pornography), it is no longer at all ‘oppositional’ the sign reads ‘for sale’; this is true even in domains in that sense; indeed, it constitutes the very like religion where instrumental reason would dominant or hegemonic aesthetic of consumer recognize that the market has at best an ambiguous society itself and significantly serves the latter’s place” (145). commodity production as a virtual laboratory In terms of providing a concrete basis for of new forms and fashions. The argument for a assessment of the postmodern and post-colonialism conception of postmodernism as a periodizing through considerations of cultural artifacts such category is thus based on the presupposition as art and literature, Appiah’s excoriates, “What that, even if all the formal features enumerated is postmodernist is Vogel’s muddled conviction above were already present in the older high that African art should not be judged ‘in terms 大妻女子大学紀要 104 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018 of [someone else’s] traditional criteria.’ For artworks. What is called ‘syncretism’ here is modernism, primitive art was to be judged by made possible by the international exchange putatively universal aesthetic criteria, and by these of commodities, but is not a consequence of a standards it was finally found possible to value it. space-clearing gesture. (149) The sculptors and painters who found it possible Finally, while Appiah concedes “the international were largely seeking an Archimedean point outside commodification of African expressive culture … their own cultures for a critique of a Weberian [is] a commodification that requires, by the logic modernity. For postmoderns, by contrast, these of the space-clearing gesture, the manufacture works, however they are to be understood, cannot of Otherness” (156), he also contends “the be seen as legitimated by culture and history- contemporary African art piece called “The Man transcending standards” (148). In a key passage with a Bicycle is produced by someone who does not further on in this argument, Appiah asserts, care that the bicycle is the white man’s invention— All aspects of contemporary African cultural it is not there to be Other to the Yoruba Self; it is life—including music and some sculpture there because someone cared for its solidity; it is and painting, even some writings with which there because it will take us further than our feet the West is largely not familiar—have been will take us; it is there because machines are now as influenced, often powerfully, by the transition of African as novelists” (157). African societies through colonialism, but they This is a demonstration of the concrete basis for are not all in the relevant sense postcolonial. his earlier-stated dictum that “postmodernism as a For the post in postcolonial, like the post in theory of postmodernity can be adequate only if it postmodern is the post of the space clearing reflects to some extent the realities of that practice” gesture I characterized earlier: and many areas (142). of contemporary African cultural life—what In an assessment of literature, one with a has come to be theorized as popular culture, in conclusion far less cheerful than the insights particular—are not in this way concerned with offered about The Man with a Bicycle art object, transcending, with going beyond, coloniality. Appiah points to literature as the most useful entry Indeed, it might be said to be a mark of popular into the reality of practice through the humanism culture that its borrowings from international it communicates and the social justice it demands. cultural forms are remarkably insensitive He explains, “For what I am calling humanism to—not so much dismissive of as blind to— can be provisional, historically contingent, the issue of neocolonialism or ‘cultural antiessentialist (in other words, postmodern), imperialism.’ This does not mean that theories and still be demanding. We can surely maintain a of postmodernism are irrelevant to these forms powerful engagement with the concern to avoid of culture: for the internationalization of the cruelty and pain while nevertheless recognizing market and the commodification of artworks the contingency of that concern. Maybe, then, we are both central to them. But it does mean that can recover within postmodernism the postcolonial these artworks are not understood by their writers’ humanism—the concern for human producers or their consumers in terms of a suffering, for the victims of the postcolonial state … postmodern ism [italics added for emphasis]: —while still rejecting the master narratives of there is no antecedent practice whose claim to modernism” (155). exclusivity of vision is rejected through these Here we find, along with powerful critiques of Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 105 notions of the postmodern, what may be termed a impact to the academy and distances it from more “turn to literature” as offering the most promising pedestrian popular culture. Parker simply observes method of gaining insights leading to practical that turning toward theorists means “the ‘turn strategies applicable to feminism as well as Non- toward the ethical’ within literary studies is closely Western liberation movements. connected to a turn toward the literary within ethics” (33). It’s notable that Parker conflates ethics 2.2 The turn to literature for direction in the with the formal theorizing of scholars rather than role of postmodern thinking toward the social practices of individuals. Yes, it would be resolving present-day challenges: Parker more cumbersome to say ways academics study and Preston how humans conduct themselves in interacting with In critical response to David Parker and Larry the world instead of ethics. It would also be more Preston’s work on the vital nature of the literary accurate, but having stated that refinement, let’s imagination in framing the postmodern condition, move on. we continue our theme that the turn to literature Considering that “literature and the arts help provides the most promising direction in the role of ethics” the way that “mathematics helps physics postmodern thinking toward resolving present-day do its job” (33) does set up another typically challenges. postmodern conundrum. A positive outcome of the In the writings of Parker and Preston there is rejection of positivism is that ethics stops being a tension between wanting some essential, some “a second-class discourse which dealt only with irreducible spirit of human goodness versus the the ‘subjective’ or ‘ephemeral’ side of experience, postmodern rejection of totalizing and idealized as opposed to science, which alone addressed Enlightenment notions of a grand narrative of ‘objective’ reality” (33). The difficulty arises in metanarrative that too-often becomes equivalent finding a method for avoiding the sort of “ethical (if it was not already so at its inception) with white, skepticism leading from Hume … in which ethics is male, European, educated, moneyed and privileged at the very best a second-class discourse” (34). Western structural institutional hegemonic We find the central moment, the “charm point” oppression. We begin with Parker. of the turn to literature summarized in Parker’s précis of Nussbaum, is in emphasizing “either 2.2.1 Parker the mutually antagonistic nature of important In Chapter 2, “A new turn toward the ethical”, in a values, or the ethical importance of contingency section of his work called “The ethical unconscious”, or the passions, or the priority of particulars over David Parker reflects on a number of contemporary generalities–all of which tend to resist systematic philosophers who link literature with ethics. Parker theoretical statement of the kind attempted in the feels it’s significant these individuals—such as available styles of conventional philosophy” (35). Martha Nussbaum, Richard Eldridge, and Richard Parker poses the following question. Is it Rorty—are theorists rather than literary critics “impossible to remain purely on the level of the (33). It may be argued that the consequence of linguistic or the semiotic … [and are such claims] … this shift amounts to a turning away from literary simply self-delusive” (39)? He answers this question figures to establish, discuss and validate the ways in the affirmative to require his readers to grant the literature engages with ethical issues to create a inescapability of the sphere of ethics (39) to present form of academic specialization that isolates its his idea that any attempts to escape (he uses the 大妻女子大学紀要 106 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018 word suppress) the presence of ethics signals the issues of passing and passages in a number of ways” existence of an “ethical unconscious” (40). (942) and takes issue with the situation in which What we see is the tension we alluded to at the “theorists seem to view their language as a (the?) start of this section—the wish for an irreducible neutral passageway through which all identities and spirit of human goodness versus the postmodern differences can be seen and interpreted” (942). rejection of totalizing and idealized Enlightenment In a section titled “passing for”, about the notions of a grand narrative. Parker flags as language of theory, Preston observes that the his crucial point that “the erosion of the canon postmodern “view that language is central to how [presumably in the form of the existence of an we understand ourselves and others is now rather “ethical unconscious” safeguarding the irreducible unproblematic (Derrida 1982; KoJodny 1985; spirit of human goodness] … has serious ethical Miller 1988; Rorty 1989; Showalter 1982, 1985; consequences” (40) and this really doesn’t Wittgenstein 1953; and countless others)”[, that] seem like much of a point. Rather, it seems like “‘empirical’ patterns emerge because they reflect he is foregoing his conclusion. What are those the ways in which linguistic meanings and practices consequences? And, if an “ethical unconscious” is have played out within the context of social life”[, always at work, doesn’t this preserve the canon? which lead to the conclusion that] “it is no longer Finally, it seems Parker has done such a good sensible to view different sociological ‘ways of job of linking the roles of ethical theory with life’ as anything more than the distinct meanings imaginative literature that his conclusion is and practices—the language games—associated unsurprising. He notes that literary theory already with different linguistic ‘forms of life’” (943). acknowledges this relationship and that because This situation is important to Preston’s argument “other theorists [and here he is referring to ethical because he feels that the rules of this language theorists] have not been quite so sensible… a game must be expanded. Moreover, Preston’s defence of the continuing importance of the literary contention—which we agree with and which echoes canon as theory’s necessary Other is continually Parker’s position above—is that this dynamic has being called for” (42). always been in play and that it must be consciously Now, let’s turn to an article by Larry Preston, cultivated rather than pompously attacked. which takes up the same challenges and may While Parker sees “literary canon as theory’s provide a more satisfing discussion of meeting necessary Other” (Parker, 42) and Preston would them. certainly agree, Preston is more specific about how language forms passageways for other voices to be 2.2.2 Preston heard. In terms of theory’s challenge in ever seeing The abstract to Larry Preston’s “Theorizing itself clearly, the following concerns are pertinent. Difference: Voices from the Margins,” states his “Isn’t the language-of-theory falsely passing as a main premise. “Theory more attentive to difference language that can speak for everyone? Is it not needs to gain access to the meanings that circulate only the echoed voice of those who have been within different lives, especially as reflected in constructed by—who speak and write from—the literary writing of those who, themselves, speak and practices and routines of the language-of-theory?” write from sites of difference” (941). (Preston, 945). Assuming an affirmative answer to Preston says that “The problematics of difference those questions, the distillate from this conclusion within the arena of political theory are related to is that one must pass beyond theoretical language Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 107 because “attention to literature and literary forms academic writing. undoubtedly extends the reach of careful analysis Under the title, “Literary Life and Language: and theoretical argument” (947) while also bearing Passing Beyond the Language of Theory”, Preston in mind the caveat that “major literature is typically observes, written from the meanings offered by the dominant If not routine, the use of literature and literary discourse” (948). forms of writing are not absent from social and While never using the term ‘minor literature’ political theory. Allegories and metaphors, as in juxtaposition to major literature, the best well as writing that is richly literary, are central available option in attempting to hear the voices to Plato’s Republic and figure prominently in from the margins is to appreciate that “creative the writing of such disparate philosophers reterritorialization of language by minority writers as Niccolo Machiavelli (1957, 1988), Jean matters for purposes of political theory” (949) Jacques Rousseau (1931, 1964, 1979), Friedrich and to abjure the damning-with-faint-praise that Nietzsche (esp. 1966, 1967, 1968, 1974), characterizes celebrating the peculiar uniqueness of Michael Walzer (1988), and Richard Rorty distinct narratives. In fact, “minority voices suggest (1989). Such attention to literature and literary that if cherished parts of their particular stories are forms undoubtedly extends the reach of careful made secure, no one need waste analytical prose analysis and theoretical argument. (947) shoring up the individuality of their choices” (950). Preston rather humorously speaks in “reaffirmation Although posed as a question, Preston really makes of Foucault’s view that intellectuals who have a more of a statement when he says, “Why not leave penchant for firmly gluing together general claims disparate, reflective/literary accounts in place, or prescriptions from carefully selected scraps of clearly associated with the form of life that has aristocratic presumption and intuition are to be called them up—doubting any effort to prioritize regarded with great caution (1972,126-33) ” (951). them or to analyze just which one is more basic or Finally, Preston opines on the necessity of the consistent or true by some general view” (950). creative element—creative writing or otherwise—in As we ponder where this might leave us— the postmodern world. He writes, certainly in a condition of uncertainty, which Does this mean that those who would refashion Preston advocates as a necessary humility—it is theories may face the prospect of also learning also relevant to explore what this uncertainty might to write as novelists and poets, essayists and open us to. playwrights? I suspect so, at least some of the On the topic of how some feminist writing has time. If we are to proceed from metapolitical valued the literary turn, Preston notes that, “In an theory to political theories-without-a-gaze, it is effort to pass beyond the male-centered character of hard to see how passing beyond the voice of dominant theory, French feminists Monique Wittig secure and confident, detached analysis can (1969, 1980), Helene Cixous (1976, 1991), and Luce be avoided. It is also difficult to imagine that Irigaray (1985a, 1985b, 1993) move back and forth those who pass their days entirely within the between writing literature (essays, novels) and form of life of privileged academic theorists theory” (946). can acquire much facility in using anything but We close with three additional extracts from theoretical language. Yet those who have little Preston, which reference creative fiction non- or no facility to reach imaginatively into and to academic writing as well as creative non-fiction write about the differences within particular 大妻女子大学紀要 108 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018
people’s lives are probably not to be trusted that touch our similarities. He suggests the sorts when they would fashion the principles and of long sad stories that put us in another person’s politics that affect those lives. Their analytical position are the ways to invoke a more useful sense reach exceeds their imaginative grasp. (951) of culture. Rorty’s relevant question isn’t “ ‘Why While we feel the rocks roll in a concerted should I be moral?’ but rather … ‘Why should I care fashion, we may also envision the image of a dance about a stranger, a person who is no kin to me, a palace as we consider the various moves and person whose habits I find disgusting?’ [and advises gestures—each with its own meaning and intent— that a] … better sort of answer is the sort of long, involved in communicating the ideas and actions sad, sentimental story that begins, ‘Because this is needed to create a better world to remove obstacles what it is like to be in her situation” (Rorty 1989), that stop groups and individuals from creating a “Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality”, better world for themselves. We may see Larry 185). In terms of the socially transformative Preston orchestrating a rumba demonstrating his potential of Rorty’s invocation to experience the contention that “literary and analytical languages lived reality of the other, his observations on need to learn how to dance together, leading and changing the vocabulary/ the narrative itself by following and moving together in turn as suggested understanding, reinvention and refusing to “play by the tempo of different rhythms” (Preston, 943). by the rules of somebody else’s final vocabulary” We end this section with brief discussion of two (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, 133) are part of luminaries, Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty, the action plan. weighing in on the turn to literature for direction in Nussbaum (1995) and Rorty (1989) are clearly the role of postmodern thinking toward resolving on the same page, with an “interest in the ordinary” present-day challenges. (Nussbaum (1995), 9) and in Rorty’s (1989) comment above (“Human Rights, Rationality, and 2.3 Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty Sentimentality”, 185) even though they pen different The idea of personal stories drawing in voices marginal notations on that page. Nussbaum from the fringe, that echoes Larry Preston’s (1995) argues for the novel as the best way to “get (1995) comments on voices from the margins, also potentially universalizable concrete prescriptions bears on Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty’s by bringing a general idea of human flourishing assertions on the work personal stories in literary to bear on a concrete situation, which we are works do in understanding other communities and invited to enter through the imagination” (8). Rorty in creating more humane social contexts. (1989) would abjure the universalizable concrete Nussbaum (1995) chooses novels, in particular, prescriptions part of Nussbaum’s (1995) sentiment as important creative works in terms of “literary while expanding the texts from novels to a wider imagination and public life” because they invoke range of literature, including oral traditions and story arcs that confer the “ability to imagine what it spoken word testimonies. While Nussbaum advises is like to live the life of another person who might, that literary “insights should not displace the given changes in circumstances, be oneself or one workings of economic science” (12), Rorty (1989) of one’s loved ones” (Nussbaum (1995), 5). would challenge economic science to present the This is a sentiment Rorty(1998) also expresses. sort of insights into the human condition a literary He refers to this action as “sentimentality” and imagination provides. describes how it operates through sharing of stories Both Nussbaum and Rorty comment of the Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 109 function of literature in providing the narratives one in which the turn to the self as represented by that allow context to play such a pivotal role in the individual authors is repudiated and the “absence” postmodern world. This formulation, of context of the author is employed to suggest a useful as the defining necessity in truly understanding construct in the form of the “author function”. the texts—the operating manuals—of current This is, “a matter of depriving the subject (or its scholarship and the narratives of our postmodern substitute) of its role as originator, and of analyzing world, leads to another question. Since context is the subject as a variable and complex function of the primary function, how important is the author? discourse” (FR, 118). Might the author simply be noted as having We may now use the author function to explore performed an “author function” as a way to allow a number of problematic terms that comprise the the reader/ audience to more directly engage with vocabulary of postmodernism as want (of some the narrative? Michel Foucault addresses this issue basis for the author function) and repudiation (of in our next section. the notion of author as subject originator). Author as the author function is invested with three 2.4 Whether to care primarily about context operational features: authority, authenticity, and and relegate authorship to an“author authorization. function” rather than a particular By authority, we may refer to concepts such as personality: Foucault and the use of the the legitimate use of power, control and rights. author function as a deus ex machina The question arises, “By what right may we say In critical response to Michel Foucault’s someone is an author?” Foucault poses the question multilayered discourse in “What is an author?” as, “If an individual were not an author, could we say and the relation this bears to the significance of that what he wrote, said, left behind in his papers, individual agency in the postmodern world, we or what has been collected of his remarks, could contend there is merit in exploring associations be called a ‘work’? [and notes that] Even when an correlated with the word author. In presenting individual has been accepted as an author, we must another way of looking at Foucault’s concept of the still ask whether everything that he wrote, said, or author function, introducing notions of authority, left behind is part of his work” (FR, 103). authenticity, and authorization leads to a sense of On the question of authenticity, there is the what a postmodern ethic must seek. nuance that we seek a truth that can be genuinely Foucault ends “What is an author?” by posing the validated. The following query speaks to this rhetorical question of what difference it makes who functionality. “If I discover that Shakespeare was is speaking. He begins by reflecting on the time not born in the house that we visit today, this is before the concept of author attained privileged a modification which, obviously, will not alter the status as an individual mark of honor and quoting functioning of the author’s name. But if we proved Beckett’s absurdist (and what Simon Critchley, that Shakespeare did not write those sonnets which below, would term passive nihilist) query “‘What pass for his, that would constitute a significant does it matter who is speaking,’ someone said, change and affect the manner in which the author’s ‘what does it matter who is speaking’” (Foucault name functions” (FR, 106). Here we have a Reader, 101) as a portrayal of the indifference of functional (we may say a performative) designation contemporary postmodern writing. of the author’s name in which a demand for The project “What is an author?” engages in is authenticity wishes to be met. 大妻女子大学紀要 110 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018
This leads to a third association, authorization, His works are appreciated as of a similar quality correlated with the word author as embodied and standard, he asserts his voice consistently as in the author function, which is nuanced with the author of the works, we see the contradictions notions of the need for agreement, permission, in his work explained through references to consent or some species of consensus—as a way his maturation as a thinker and explicable as of representing what is actually taking place. “The experimentation with different ways of formulating author function is therefore characteristic of the his thoughts, and there are no peculiar gaffs mode of existence, circulation, and functioning whereby he references something that happened of certain discourses within a society” (FR, 108) after his death. [and] “The author is the principle of thrift in the As for Foucault as the initiator of another kind of proliferation of meaning (FR, 118) [because] these discursivity, we sense that’s his desire and also feel aspects of an individual which we designate as he provides himself, in the following extract, with making him an author are only a projection, in more an “out” if posterity fails to elevate him to the status or less psychologizing terms, of the operations that of a Freud or Marx. Foucault explains, “What I have we force texts to undergo, the connections that we just outlined regarding the initiation of discursive make, the traits that we establish as pertinent, the practices is, of course, very schematic; this is true, continuities that we recognize, [and, moreover, in particular, of the opposition that I have tried to these] operations vary according to periods draw between discursive initiation and scientific and types of discourse. We do not construct a founding. It is not always easy to distinguish ‘philosophical author’ as we do a ‘poet’” (FR, 110). between the two; moreover, nothing proves that In conclusion, the heart of the author function they are two mutually exclusive procedures. I have seems to be in its use as a substitute/ doppelganger attempted the distinction for only one reason: to for, as a deus ex machina of, the very essences show that the author function, which is complex postmodernism contests. Concepts nuanced in enough when one tries to situate it at the level the word author—authority, authenticity, and of a book or a series of texts that carry a given authorization—may be invoked via the author signature, involves still more determining factors function. when one tries to analyze it in larger units, such as As an addendum to this conclusion, and as groups of works or entire disciplines” (FR, 117). an illuminating excursion, we herein share our In current times we find Foucault’s works response to queries posed by a colleague who function to consolidate a broad flow of thought read the above section. The following questions streams. His breadth as a thinker—philosopher, were posed: “Given Foucault’s position regarding literary critic, historian, linguist, social theorist, authorship, how would you place him as an activist—and the density of his prose are attractive intellectual and why? In other words, what kind of and repulsive. By that we mean he’ll always be able ‘author’ is he? Is he the initiator of another kind of to provide insights into a range of social justice discursivity? If so what kind? What kind of functions issues, from prison reform to surveillance to do his work play in the current times?” Lacanian nuanced discussions of master signifiers We offer the following reply. and Freudian archetypes, and there will always In terms of Foucault’s position regarding be an initial tendency to balk at the degree of authorship, we think he does conform to the earlier concentration needed to fathom the depth of his classical standards of St. Jerome that he delineates. thinking. Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 111
While Foucault, above, has focused on social description to engagement (as how one feels about discourse that necessarily must go beyond it), there is also a need to justify why one feels individual personalities and challenge notions that way and to encourage/ persuade others to that authorial intent is the final arbiter of the feel the same way. Simply put, we may say this is meaning of a work, discussion of the role of the a movement from “what” to “how” to “why.” The individual is useful in providing counterpoints. We “how” concerns how we feel and the wish to explain now turn our focus to reflect on the place of the and justify how we could feel. The “why” continues individual in reconstructing the ethical universe our explanation with self-analysis that allows us to after postmodernism. We begin with two modern feel comfortable in our beliefs—in short, to feel our thinkers, William James and John Dewey. moral attitude connects with ethical behavior even in the absence of any absolute and universal and 2.5 Reflections on the place of individual totalizing ethical standards—and to try to persuade morality in reconstructing the ethical others as to why they should feel the same way. universe after postmodernism. Here we have the rhetorical element as a feature we are aware of and that we don’t seek to suppress. 2.5.1 William James and John Dewey: The Indeed, the advocacy of one’s felt needs and Imperative of Individuality and the beliefs is a mark of “critical thinking” that speaks Esthetics of Ethics to both the awareness of our own biases and the In critical response to the challenge we feel both presentation of the strongest possible arguments in James and Dewey engage in, of reconstructing the favor of our opinions in light of this understanding. ethical universe after postmodernism, we begin These observations are made in light of William with some points of commonality between them. James’ discussion of conflicting demands and the The first is that ethics on any level must be the fundamental basis of ethics lying in the contesting result of feeling from an experiential perspective. of demands that, in the real world, must necessarily We respond to what we feel. So, do we feel involve inconsistencies. intellectually or can feeling only be an emotional Akin to this concept of emotional feeling leading response? This begets a second question. How are to intellectual feeling, Dewey comments on the we to distinguish between feeling intellectually origins of sweet versus bitter and how that “was and feeling emotionally? Here it’s important not to denote qualities of sense as such but to to recognize a binary that suggests intellect is discriminate things as favorable and hostile” (15) superior to emotion. The point, however, is not that as an emotional reaction to the environment rather intellect is better than emotion. Rather, intellect than a scientific assessment of sense data. follows emotion. We end up feeling intellectually Dewey talks about how artificial it is to separate if there is enough merit in our emotional feelings. the art from the experience of seeing the art. That The mistake is in imagining that these intellectual is, we see art in a gallery and this is a community constructs are independent from the emotions that whether other individuals are there discussing produced them. the art with us or if we happen to be there and few The journey is from attempting to describe what others wander through the particular salon we’re in is, to discussing how we feel about it, to questioning (1). This is even more true about classic works of art. why we feel that way. This is a movement from the When Dewey comments “Most European discursive to the rhetorical. As one moves from museums are, among other things, memorials of 大妻女子大学紀要 112 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018 the rise of nationalism and imperialism” (7), the ethical philosophy. These are, “respectively the point is that there must be care and concern about psychological question, the metaphysical question the use to which the art was, is, or will be put. This and the casuistic question. The psychological sentiment is echoed much later in the following question asks after the historical origin of our moral extract. “Were art an acknowledged power in ideas and judgments; the metaphysical question human association … and were morals understood asks what the very meaning of the words “good,” to be identical with every aspect of value that is “ill,” and “obligation” are; the casuistic question shared in experience, the ‘problem’ of the relation asks what is the measure of the various goods and of art and morals would not exist” (362). ills which men recognize, so that the philosopher Dewey’s real project is in “recovering the may settle the true order of human obligations” continuity of esthetic experience with normal (Introduction, ¶3). Briefly, it seems a feckless quest processes of living” (9). In discussing what it really and rather a straw man argument to imagine there means to be able to appreciate (as in, to gather might be an “essence [that] would be the good in and accumulate/ appropriate in an appropriate upon which all thinkers were agreed, the relatively rather than a predatory manner) the perspectives of objective and universal good that the philosopher others—through artistic emulation or otherwise— seeks” (§III. ¶4). Equally problematic is the Dewey calls for going beyond mere imitation and notion of obligation (which is unable to resolve the decoration and to internalize, to “enter into the problem of demand) and the problem of conflicting structure [to] bring about an organic blending of demands and the question of who has the most attitudes characteristic of the experience of our own valid claim to have their demands met. age and that of remote peoples” (347) [to produce, William James draws an interesting distinction as an enduring effect,] “an expansion of their [italics between truth and good. “Truth supposes a used by Dewey to connote individuals able to standard outside of the thinker to which he must appreciate this process] sympathetic imagination” conform” (§II. ¶3), while in the search for the (348). good, “the real superiority and authority which are The philosophical ramification of this is that postulated by the philosopher to reside in some of “when the art of another culture enters into the opinions, and the really inferior character which attitudes that determine our experience genuine he supposes must belong to others, cannot be continuity is effected” (249) to create a community explained by any abstract moral ‘nature of things’ and continuity that do not physically exist, and existing antecedently to the concrete thinkers yet are functional and effective (250). Succinctly themselves with their ideals” (§II. ¶7). James’ echoing our conceptualized flow from emotional central argument is that, “ethical treatises may be feeling to intellectual feeling as the need to justify voluminous and luminous as well; but they never feelings one has acted on as a way to invoke the can be final, except in their abstractest and vaguest sympathetic imagination, Dewey quotes Shelley features; and they must more and more abandon that “the deed shall breed the thought” (363). the old-fashioned, clear-cut, and would-be ‘scientific’ At this point, we turn to William James. form” (§IV. ¶2). Roughly corresponding to our ideas above, on While James couches his discussion of personal the flow from discursive to rhetorical engagement, ethics in the mantle of the imperative of individuality James lays out an analytical progression of distinct from “any abstract moral ‘nature of things’ the origin, the meaning, and the measure of existing antecedently to the concrete thinkers Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 113 themselves with their ideals” (§II. ¶7) and Dewey [which Bernstein falls short of calling prejudices] sees an esthetics of ethics through the conflation in and through an encounter with what is radically of “morals understood to be identical with every ‘other’ and alien” (4). Bernstein notes both that the aspect of value that is shared in experience” “primary rhetorical gesture of the ‘postmodern’ (362), their commonality in invoking feeling from moment is to be critical … [and that] … there is experience as the substrate of morality and the raw also a questioning, undermining and deconstruction material of ethics after postmodern thinking (with of any and all fixed standards of critique” (7). One both James and Dewey being durably ahead of their question to consider is why this is such a problem. times) is most striking. There are two possibilities that Bernstein moots. We now turn to more chronologically contemporary One is that we’re caught in a loop of Habermasian thinkers, Richard Bernstein and Simon Critchley, and Apelian ‘performative contradictions’ and the in furthering our discussion of how these (to echo other is that this dilemma engenders “new genres Nietzsche’s phrases) “knowledge stones” which of critique without requiring affirming norms of “rumble around in our bellies”—issues of personal critique” (7). morality and public ethicality—are individual and Bernstein’s position is, “I do not think we can societal challenges, often succinctly described as any longer responsibly claim that there is or can problems of self and others in the phrase the turn to be a final reconciliation” (8) and uses a term from the self. astronomy, the constellation, as a metaphor which allows disparate elements to nevertheless group 2.5.2 Richard Bernstein and Simon Critchley: into a functioning whole, where some concepts Problems of self and others exert force fields that attract or repulse other In critical response to Bernstein and Critchley, notions. On the conjunction of ethical and political in terms of the turn to the self, we begin with the considerations, Bernstein comments, “Although following question. How is the attempt to see we can distinguish ethics and politics, they are the world through others’ eyes a postmodernist inseparable. For we cannot understand ethics dilemma, actually a post-postmodernist dilemma, without thinking through our political commitments and what can be done to resolve it? and responsibilities. And there is no understanding Richard Bernstein begins by briefly tracing a of politics that does not bring us back to ethics” (9). background on the rejection of humanism and On the question of how we may see the world undertakes to reject that rejection. He takes up the through the eyes of others, Bernstein says “I “challenge to defend these ‘shared assumptions, agree with Gadamer when he tells us that ‘in a commitments, and insights’” (2) that people seem conversation, when we have discovered the other to wish there to be. Proceeding almost by way of person’s standpoint and horizon, his ideas become hyperbole, he says he does not accept “what has intelligible without our necessarily having to now become a cliché among many ‘postmodern’ agree with him’” (10). Bernstein closes (12) with writers, i.e., that humanism is passé” (Bernstein, acknowledgement of both the need to resist forced 3) and laughable. The key point in Bernstein’s reconciliation of ideas, referencing both Kuhn and enterprise of responding to the critique of Lyotard as capturing something “in the air” even humanism is stated in the following sentence. “The though both their works have a contradictory and basic condition for all understanding requires one exploratory feel. Bernstein also acknowledges the to test and risk one’s convictions and prejudgments influence of Rorty (13) in his own work. 大妻女子大学紀要 114 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018
Simon Critchley, in a very non-Rorty frame of into an island [and that] at the present time [2007] reference, begins his Infinitely Demanding: Ethics … the quintessence of active nihilism is [the of Commitment and Politics of Resistance with a terrorist group] al-Qaeda [and] … we are living species of the “without God what meaning can there through a chronic re-theologization of politics” (5). be to life?” query that existentialism has long ago The right side of the chart must then be the proper answered. Critchley’s summation of the condition course. of solitary personal existence in a purposeless Critchley states his position with a prescription. meaningless universe is that post-Kantian “What is required, in my view, is a conception of philosophy is a history of disappointment. He ethics that begins by accepting the motivational advises that the two forms of this disappointment deficit in the institutions of liberal democracy, of most urgent concern are on the religious and but without embracing either passive or active political fronts. nihilism” (8). He refers to ethical experience as Critchley presents his point of view in the the “core structure of moral selfhood” and as following diagram: an “existential matrix of ethics” (9) and says his principal task is to develop a theory of ethical subjectivity (10). Thereafter follows an energetic attempt to construct, for want of a less-paradoxical phrase, an objective system of ethical subjectivity. While Critchley engages in interesting acrobatics, gymnastics or balletic maneuvers, to elucidate his three concepts—commitment, demand, responsibility—needed to create or appreciate his notion of ethical subjectivity, the mechanics of his system present an unconvincing complexity. Working through examples and counter examples, what we are left with is a sort of guilty conscience (4) arbiter of morality. The left side of this chart represents the Truly, there are gems in the mining Critchley ultimately untenable position we must direct is doing. For example, he closes his first chapter our attentions away from. In moving away from with two incisive points that present a useful either type of nihilism, Critchley uses the phrase role and an accurate description of postmodern “philosophical activity” to “mean the free movement ethics. We agree with his view that “ethics is the of thought and critical reflection … [as] … militant disturbance of the political status quo” [and] resistance to nihilism” (2). Critchley refines this “the continual questioning from below of any definition as, “thinking through of the fact that attempt to impose order from above” (13). This the basis of meaning has become meaningless” is certainly at variance with an ethics predicated (2) “…without bewitching ourselves with new and on maintenance of the status quo. Critchley cites exotic forms of meaning, with imported brands of moral positions, such as Adam Smith and Hume’s existential balm” (3). He concludes that, “in a world concept of moral sympathy, as demands “to which that is all too rapidly blowing itself to pieces, the the self gives its approval” (17). The problem is that passive nihilist closes his eyes and makes himself Critchley’s observations, including his concluding Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 115 sentiment that “all questions of normativity, are living in a “post-truth” era? Stanley Fish, whether universalistic or relativistic, have to follow in his recent New York Times article entitled from some conception of what I am calling ethical “‘Transparency’ Is the Mother of Fake News”, was experience” (23), are perfectly reasonable without a source of both inspiration and confirmation for his triad of commitment, demand, responsibility our limited-selection retrospective on five aspects as an envisioning/ explanation/ system of ethical of the postmodern debate—postmodern feminism; subjectivity. post-colonialism and postmodernism; the appeal Unsatisfyingly, this leaves us with more of to literature in respecting minority voices; the a general sense—a thread from inference and question of whether context is the truest “author” extrapolation—than as a sine qua non, that seeing of the postmodern world; and the all-encompassing the world from the perspective of the other is question of how we may behave morally and entailed in the turn toward the self. While Bernstein ethically in light of the work-in-progress status of takes other and alien interests into account as a the preceding four areas of inquiry. If we were to hallmark of the process whereby individuals may consider a metaphor to describe our reflections ever hope to gain self-knowledge and Critchley’s on the place of the individual in reconstructing the ethical subjectivity acknowledges Enlightenment ethical universe after postmodernism, it might be in notions of moral sympathy as foundational, the the following question: How may we steer a laden necessity of seeing the world from the perspective cart with provisionally-attached axles—sometimes of the other is not explicit. Rather, it is incidental it feels as if the cart is a sledge being dragged— and what is essential is that one is being a good over a roadway of loosely-packed gravel without the person by behaving in good ways that include being wheels being shaken off? And yet, to paraphrase virtuous toward others as a condition of improving Nietzsche from our epigraph, it is the presence of the self. Finally, it may amount to the same result. these indigestible knowledge stones rattling around At bottom, the answer to the question “Are you in the belly that defines the postmodern condition helping me because you love me or are you helping in which understanding context is the guiding me because you want to appear to be helpful as a principle for appropriate action. way of improving yourself?” may be less important Fish, in the following extract, uses the phrase than the help given. point of view in describing what we take context to entail. He asserts: Speech proceeding from a point of view Part 3: Conclusion: on the weaponization can at least be recognized as such and then of contextualization and the countered. You say, “I know where those guys vilification of postmodernism: are coming from, and here are my reasons How have the stones been for believing that we should be coming from grinding and how have the some place else” —and dialogue begins. It is stones been used and how is dialogue inflected by interests and agendas, but the gravel being thrown? dialogue still. But when speech (or information In part, the back-of-our-mind question and or data) is just sitting there inert, unattached to impetus for this paper was the following question. any perspective, when there are no guidelines, How is confusion about postmodernism connected monitors, gatekeepers or filters, what you have to present-day xenophobia and claims that we are innumerable bits (like Lego) [parenthetic 大妻女子大学紀要 116 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018
simile added by Fish] available for assimilation emergence. Postmodernism sets itself against into any project a clever verbal engineer the notion of facts just lying there discrete might imagine; and what you don’t have is and independent, and waiting to be described. any mechanism that can stop or challenge the Instead it argues that fact is the achievement construction project or even assess it. What of argument and debate, not a pre-existing you have, in short, are the perfect conditions entity by whose measure argument can be for the unchecked proliferation of what has assessed. Arguments come first; when they are come to be called “fake news.” successful, facts follow — at least for a while, We may, in light of the above extract, interpret until a new round of arguments replaces them the “bits” that Fish likens to Lego as the “facts” with a new set of facts. (Fish, 2018) (which can also be described as truth claims) we What, then, is the mundane reason for the analogize as stones. Fish, without using the term popularity of phrases like “alternate facts” and “fake weaponize, may be interpreted to be arguing that news” when legitimate methods of verification are “transparency” serves to weaponize opinions by available? On this question, Fish observes, “in the placing those of the expert and the bigot on the brave new world of the internet, where authority same level. We agree. Further, the notion that is evenly distributed to everyone with a voice or a facts are stones—durable, but not indestructible— podcast, no one believes anybody, or (it is the same leads to the following question. Whose interests thing) everyone believes anybody” and concludes are served by the destruction of the truth claims of that “what has brought us to this sorry pass is established facts? not the writings of Derrida or Foucault or any The answer is less dramatic than the question postmodern guru but the twin mantras of more free might imply. Nearing the end of 2018, we seem to speech and absolute transparency” (Fish, 2018). be at a particular historical moment when phrases, We agree and present a seven-word assessment: like “alternate facts” and “fake news”, are used, Lies used for political purposes are propaganda. respectively, to justify one proposition or discredit There’s nothing new about propaganda or the another. Yet, standards of factual verifiability and techniques of deception it employs. We recall journalistic integrity are clear and well established a 1960s educational game, aptly called “The and both can be checked. We are presented with Propaganda Game”, —it taught players 55 types the popular notion that we are living in a “post- and six categories of propaganda techniques for truth” or “post-fact” era and Fish comments on how use during the game—as throwback proof of just “the rise of fake news has been attributed by some how predictable and remarkably not new the to the emergence of postmodern thought” (Fish, techniques of propaganda are. As a perusal of the 2018). Rather, these notions of postmodernism are list in the notes at the end of this paper will reveal, the result of ignorance about what postmodernism the messages are the same even if the apparatus actually is. In reply to charges that postmodern whereby propaganda is conducted is constantly thought, “derides facts and absolutes, and insists updated. that there are only narratives and interpretations” Additionally, we draw attention to expressions (Fish, 2018), Fish counters that: like “the ethical universe after postmodernism” …insistence on the primacy of narratives used in the discussion above. The phrase “after and interpretations does not involve a deriding postmodernism” must be read as after learning of facts but an alternative story of their the lessons of postmodernism rather than as after Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 117 the rejection of postmodernism. The question panacea to entrenched injustices sparks sentiments is one which we frame as more than a search for of resentment on one side and impotence on the ethical standards in spite of the fact that all ethical other. Entrenched interests oppose a measure standards have been called into question, but an toward equalization declaring, “it’s gone too far” understanding that higher ethical standards are while disenfranchised individuals and groups not about edicts and absolutes. The bar has not protest that “it hasn’t gone far enough.” been lowered to a “situation ethics” apology (often How did public debate resolve or evolve or presented as a justification for doing whatever one devolve to bring us to a world so unlike the one can get away with) that there are no standards. we bend our creativity toward making? Academics Rather, ethical responses exist to be applied to a may contend that scholarly debate continues to variety of situations. As Richard Rorty has argued, challenge the sorts of propagandistic discourse that effort and empathy are required. Rorty uses the ensue in the polity; but this attempted disconnect term sentimentalism to characterize the sort of and suggested dichotomy of society from academy empathy required to behave in an ethical manner ill serves any self or other-defined constituency. in light of the great variety of ethical standards Intellectual abdication is egregiously irresponsible; with which we may not agree and which we must sound voices are needed in unsound discussions. understand even if we do not respect or adhere However discordant the din, ideas, which are to them. Sentimentalism, in Rorty’s ethics-after- used like stones bashing together, act in concert. postmodernism sense, is the beneficiary of Adam The clanking has the sound of Sisyphus’ rock Smith’s concept of the flow of moral sentiment from rolling down the mountain over a bed of gravel. the Enlightenment. Again, the result is that a higher The concerted effort is the engine that rolls the standard (and the word standard is used here as rock back up. And yet, the concerted effort isn’t description of the prevailing norm rather than as a concerted or coordinated in intent, only in affect. prescription for a Platonic ideal) of human conduct Rumblings are like thunder and we ponder how we is required. will be engulfed in this squall moment in the storm A variety of schools of thinking, using modern of history. We grapple with practical problems and textual analysis and postmodern contextual analysis, seek compelling conclusions. We see the power of trade ideas and debate methods in their lively and the narrative connected to life in the postmodern productive critique of each other. The question, at world. We also see the promise of simple bottom, is of what historical moment these debates solutions sabotaging the necessary complexity are the key to unlocking. How can they reconcile in the multifaceted debates where community current polarities that have transformed lively is negotiated and diversity is celebrated for the debate into violent vying for a lock grip on single creative energy it brings (rather than savaged and simplistic solutions as equivalently presentable and reviled as the instrument of the supposed- and singularly viable approaches? We may trace concessions it wrings). back the quest for best-solution-whatever-the- Time and space do not permit conversation on context systems and find there are none. We search Nietzsche’s On the Advantage and Disadvantage of deeper, betting that taking context into account History for Life. That must be the subject for a later will ensure a workable system. We lose the bet; it paper, but we also note how his observations on doesn’t provide better accommodation. Instead, there being “three kinds of history: monumental, an shallow recourse to the paean for diversity as a antiquarian and a critical kind of history” (Loc. 304) 大妻女子大学紀要 118 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018 may be discussed as entry points to our opening Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/ remarks on foundation/ Enlightenment, textual/ Postmodernity. Cambridge, M.A.: The MIT modern, and contextual/ postmodern thought. Press, 1992, pp. 1-14. Also to be the addressed in that later paper would Critchley, Simon. Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of be Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Times, in which we Commitment and Politics of Resistance. New see the strong parallel of “passage from the ‘solid’ York: Verso, 2007, p. 4, pp. 1-25, 105-132. to a ‘liquid’ phase of modernity” as a marker of Dewey, John. (1934). Art as Experience. New York: postmodernism. Perigee Books, 3-19. 344-49 For now, in this brief consideration, we trust Fish, Stanley, “‘Transparency’ Is the Mother of Fake that some useful opportunities have been offered, News”, New York Times, May 7, 2018. some vantage points have been provided, from Foucault, Michel. “What is an Author?” In Paul which to reflect on the place of the individual Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader. New York: in reconstructing the ethical universe after Pantheon Books, 1984. postmodernism and on the usefulness of what we James, William. “The Moral Philosopher and the regard as creative non-fiction academic writing as a Moral Life”, International Journal of Ethics, “free” style for presenting diverse works. Vol.1, No.3 (Apr.,1891), pp.330-354. Parker, David. Ethics, Theory, and the Novel. New *This paper was written in the main by Lawrence York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. Karn, with the very kind assistance and support 32-42. of Takahiko Hattori. Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life [Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben was first published in 1874], (Hackett Classics, References Translated, with an Introduction, by Peter Alarcon, Norma. “The Theoretical Subject(s) of This Preuss). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American Indianapolis Feminism.” In Seidman (ed.), The Postmodern Nussbaum, Martha. (1995). Poetic justice: The Turn, pp. 140-152. literary imagination and public life. Boston, Allen, Robert & Greene, Lorne. The Propaganda MA: Beacon Press. Game. http://www.pnl-nlp.org/download/ Preston, Larry. “Theorizing Difference: Voices propaganda/page1.htm#b Based on the book from the Margins,” American Political Science Straighter Thinking by George H. Moulds Review, vol. 89, no. 4 (Dec. 1995): 941-953. Published in 1966 by AIM (Autelic Instructional Rorty, R. Contingency, irony, and solidarity. New Materials) Publishers, New Haven, CT. York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “The Postcolonial and the ------“Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality.” Postmodern.” In My Father’s House: Africa in Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, 3. the Philosophy of Culture. New York: Oxford New York: Cambridge Press, 1998. University Press, 1992, pp. 137-157. Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Times: Living in an Age Endnote of Uncertainty. Wiley. Kindle Edition. Bernstein, Richard. The New Constellation: The Robert Allen & Lorne Greene: The Propaganda Karn and Hattori：Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern Rock Concerts 119
Game [Excerpts] 6. Repetition 7. Slogans The reader is urged to review the examples and 8. Technical Jargon explanations in the listed techniques. For reference, 9. Sophistical Formula below are the 55 titles and six categories of propaganda techniques used in Allen and Greene’s D. Techniques of Exploitation game, based on the book Straighter Thinking by 1. Appeal to Pity George H. Moulds, published in 1966 by AIM 2. Appeal to Flattery (Autelic Instructional Materials) Publishers, New 3. Appeal to Ridicule Haven, CT. 4. Appeal to Prestige 5. Appeal to Prejudice III. Explanations of Techniques 6. Bargain Appeal 7. Folksy Appeal A. Techniques of Self-Deception 8. Join the Bandwagon Appeal 1. Prejudice 9. Appeal to Practical Consequences 2. Academic Detachment 10. Passing from the Acceptable to the Dubious 3. Drawing the Line 4. Not Drawing the Line E. Techniques of Form 5. Conservatism, Radicalism, Moderatism 1. Concurrency 6. Rationalization 2. Post Hoc 7. Wishful Thinking 3. Selected Instances 8. Tabloid Thinking 4. Hasty Generalization 9. Causal Oversimplification 5. Faulty Analog 10. Inconceivability 6. Composition 7. Division B. Techniques of Language 8. Non Sequitur 1. Emotional Terms 2. Metaphor & Simile F. Techniques of Maneuver 3. Emphasis 1. Diversion 4. Quotation Out of Context 2. Disproving a Minor Point 5. Abstract Terms 3. Ad Hominem 6. Vagueness 4. Appeal to Ignorance 7. Ambiguity 5. Leading Question 8. Shift of Meaning 6. Complex Question 7. Inconsequent Argument C. Techniques of Irrelevance 8. Attacking a Straw Man 1. Appearance 9. Victory by Definition 2. Manner 10. Begging the Question 3. Degrees & Titles 4. Numbers http://www.pnl-nlp.org/download/propaganda/ 5. Status page1.htm#b 大妻女子大学紀要 120 ―社会情報系― 社会情報学研究 27 2018