9 ms·
Self-referential, technology-focused and shaped texts like this make me wonder what the new, dominant school of thought will be for this generation's western li
by roymurdock 11y ago
Self-referential, technology-focused and shaped texts like this make me wonder what the new, dominant school of thought will be for this generation's western literature.
Post-modernism [1] has been considered "dead" for about 10-15 years with no discernible movement coalescing to replace it. SV, entrepreneurship, and startup culture have had such a profound effect on the west that it would be hard for authors today to ignore the tropes and heroes of this movement, which is what these anonymous authors have addressed head on.
Will kids in high school 30 years from now still be reading Salinger, Vonnegut, McCarthy, Orwell, Heller, Faulkner, Steinbeck and other classics? Or will there be some literary movement borne out of SV culture to supplement these classic texts?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism
- Alex3917 11y ago> Post-modernism [1] has been considered "dead" for about 10-15 years with no discernible movement coalescing to replace it. I think transmodernism is pretty clearly on track to win right now. Just look at the rapid increase in states legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational purposes.
- urschrei 11y agoPostmodernism was never alive in the sense to which the parent refers. Now that we've neatly rejected the premise of that comment, let's move on: nobody cares or knows about transmodernism, or any other literary movement (be it imaginary, as — in the case of transmodernism — or otherwise) The days in which a movement could be dominant are long past us. That's sort of the point.
- Alex3917 11y agoTransmodernism isn't a literary movement, and no one needs to know what it is for it to become the dominant intellectual paradigm.
- nitrogen 11y agoIt's easy to say you've figured out what everyone is doing if you just introduce a term and define it as "what everyone is doing".
- HillaryBriss 11y agoPretty much no one is into Monstransmodism, which is why it will inevitably garner majority mindshare. (And therefore has already triumphed -- and pre-receded. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.)
- Alex3917 11y agoExcept for that I didn't introduce the term...
- phillmv 11y agoThat's some tight @ProfJeffJarvis shit right there. Excellently placed satire.
- CPLX 11y agoSo excellent that the rest of the comments have deftly proven Poe's Law once again.
- clock_tower 11y agoIt's true enough that postmodernism is dead in the water, though. One of the mysteries of the contemporary world is that all of its ideas are stagnant -- and yet no one has any idea what's going to replace them.
- ubercore 11y agoWhich was one of the original motivations for post-modernism. But it existed, so something else will.
- CPLX 11y ago> One of the mysteries of the contemporary world is that all of its ideas are stagnant -- and yet no one has any idea what's going to replace them. Pretty sure that's one of the mysteries of all cultures and periods of time ever, always, if you are of a certain disposition to think that way.
- clock_tower 11y agoNot really. There are plenty of eras where ideas are clearly surging forward -- and sometimes not particularly good ideas (monarchism in the late 17th century, communism in the late 19th, fascism in the early 20th).
- don_loemax 11y agoWould love to read more about SV Culture.
- caskance 11y agoThey will be reading memes and copypastas. Drink verification can will be to our children as 1984 was to us. Honestly, I envy them.
- auston 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ritchiea 11y agoInteresting question but the specific work we're talking about it not going to shape literature. It's shorter than a long magazine piece. A new literature movement doesn't appear to be the ambition here.
- copperx 11y agoI don't think so either. But, wasn't A Modest Proposal pretty short too?
- jenshoop 11y agoIn addition to this -- I'm not sure I understand why the primary discourse around this text is whether or not it conforms to a particular literary movement/genre's specifications. Those are all constructs that help us historically situate texts within a broader context; what is the goal of this exercise/conversation?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bitwize 11y agoI've maintained that our descendants will be like the aliens from the ST:TNG episode "Darmok", except instead of historical metaphors we'll use lolcats, ragefaces, and mythical characters like Scumbag Steve and Overly Attached Girlfriend.
- aswanson 11y agoI guess that's a slightly better outcome than Idiocracy.
- codq 11y agoI've got a lingering fear that we're inching closer and closer to a 'Fifteen Million Merits' future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
- ashark 11y agoIMO the point is that we're already there, and have been for a while. It's only set in the future to trick the viewer into approaching the story as an outsider. "Oh wow, that sucks, I hope we never toil at pointless tasks to earn points to buy worthless junk that doesn't make us happy" looks around house full of consumerist garbage, contemplates largely nihilistic career "Hm. Well... damn." [EDIT] (SPOILERS!) I also take the vast wilderness outside the protagonist's window at the end to be real, not some kind of illusion or projection. I do so because the episode is more effective that way, so I'd guess that's what's intended—the viewer thinks this must be some kind of overcrowded dystopic future world-city or something the whole time, or that the Earth's surface is uninhabitable, or that this isn't even Earth, and that everyone's forced to live this way, but the reveal of the wilderness raises the possibility that in fact people could leave, but simply do not, and in retrospect one realizes that no pervasive, ultra-strict police force or anything similar is depicted. The closest they come are the drugged drinks, which are only given in some circumstances to some people (compare: anxiety meds, sleeping pills, et c.). We never see anyone try to resist the collection of "detritus", for example. The protagonist damages what may well be public property in his private room, and no-one seems to care. People are demoted to janitor status, but, crucially, we don't see them dragged away screaming or anything like that. In fact the people of that world choose same option we see the protagonist choose on the gameshow, really, just less dramatically, every single day. Safety, comfort, and familiarity over freedom.
- AngrySkillzz 11y ago> SV, entrepreneurship, and startup culture have had such a profound effect on the west Only in your tiny bubble. People seriously believe this?
- peterwwillis 11y agoYeah i'm really not sure if that was a troll or not. "Heroes of a movement"? Can you actually call financial investment trends a "movement"?
- GalacticDomin8r 11y agoMore like "I am not aware that I troll therefore I am not."
- EC1 11y agoThat is a brilliant quote.
- teej 11y agoThe modern Tony Stark is literally based on Elon Musk. Interest in Computer Science programs jumped after the Social Network movie came out. I think there's more truth in roymurdocks' comment then you give it credit for.
- Apocryphon 11y agoStark is just as based upon older tech moguls like Larry Ellison, Richard Branson, or even Steve Jobs. Interest in archery jumped after the Hunger Games comes out. SV culture is significant, yes, but is it disproportionately so compared to other things?
- toyg 11y agoMovie-Stark's mannerism is openly based on Larry Ellison, who helped finance (and even had cameos in) the IronMan films. Other self-styled magnates were also an influence, of course, but Ellison is the big one, afaik.
- yolesaber 11y agoNot sure what you are talking about with regards to no discernible movement replacing postmodernism - both New Sincerity and New Narrative authors and works have gained critical prominence as well as wider readership. Ben Lerner, whose works combine memoir, poetry, and fiction, was just awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Knausgard's memoir cum novel "My Struggle" is one of the biggest literary releases of the year. From this, we can see that whereas postmodernism was concerned with the massive scope of societal and technological apparatuses which formulated our doxa (see: JR, Gravity's Rainbow, White Noise etc), these movements have instead shifted their lens to the internal scope of the individual in face of a mind-boggling hyperconnected and networked world. How we come to construct a 'self' in this environment and how that self is perpetuated have become increasingly popular themes. Poetry, interestingly enough, is actually at the forefront of incorporating technological themes into its practice. Scores of poets use autogenerated content or appropriate text from online sources or otherwise involve technology in their works. Furthermore, it is not as though SV is some uncharted territory ignored by the literati. Plenty of contemporary fiction authors have addressed SV and its "tropes and heroes" - Dave Eggers wrote "The Circle" and Pynchon himself dressed down the dotcom boom in "Bleeding Edge", and those are just two of the highest-profile examples. But I think the dearth of your SV literary movement is connected with the notion of your last paragraph. A literary movement borne out of SV culture to supplement these "classics" would probably be much like the SV blogosphere and tweet culture is today: a hollow echo-chamber filled with self-aggrandizing boasts, brags, and takedowns occurring within a delusional bubble where the ultimate focus is profit. There's a reason the work in the article is pseudonymous. Great literature and the profit-motive of SV are antithetical. Most of the "heroes" in Silicon Valley don't have the self-awareness to see how inane the business model of their unicorn is, let alone the perspective needed to write a truly great and meaningful work of literature. Let's be real: in thirty years we will be confronting the ugly face of the adverse effects emanating from this 'movement' - massive income inequality, gross materialism and greed, the privileging of technological progress over human integrity, and endless surveillance (whether conducted by gov't entities or private companies - pretty sure now that the metrics / data genie is out of the bottle it won't be going back in). So I doubt a literary movement will come from SV internally. Instead, I believe that the great works read by future audiences will be written by outsiders to address the fallout from SV's "tropes and heroes".
- Xcelerate 11y agoNot going to lie, it took me a minute. Brilliant post haha
- jsn117 11y ago> Or will there be some literary movement borne out of SV culture to supplement these classic texts? LOL
- paxtonab 11y agoThe pdf of the book is linked to in the article, and after reading a little of it I'm struck by its similarity to "Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Penumbra%27s_24-Hour_Bookstore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Penumbra%27s_24-Hour_Books...
- Balgair 11y agoLikely no. There is a dearth of 'literature' in terms of books and the like right now, it does seem. But everything is 'exploding' in the arts right now. Banksy is not a painter, but his work hangs in museums and is collected. Breaking Bad is not a play to read, but it is a strong work nonetheless. Iron Man is a movie, but Tony Stark is a character we all can reference just like John Galt. I think the post-post-modern era will not be so easy to define. There will be common works, but nothing as ubiquitous as 1984 or Romeo and Juliet. Things are changing too fast these days, and it is unlikely to stop, we are splintering and that is not a bad thing maybe.
- neom 11y agobutterfield, levie, dorsey, zuckerberg, pisoni - hopefully.
- nmrm2 11y ago> Post-modernism [1] has been considered "dead" for about 10-15 years It's really interesting -- I heard this 15 years ago. I think post-modernism has been "dead for about 10-15 years" for at least the past 15 years.