No PoMo (Part 1)

RIP Postmodernism, 1972-2023 (no but this time it's legit dead fr fr, not some weird grift to force a renaissance of "sincerity")

Since October, I thought I noticed a paradigm shift in media. The first aspect I noticed was the most obvious: the end of the center-left mainstream media’s hegemony over the left, even some liberals. A week later, I had noticed a decline in influencer power, let alone star power. Even earlier this year, I was moved to write about a break in the simulacra (I called it “simulation” because I wasn’t as familiar with “simulacra,” but I have done my research now) as well as a revolutionary great refusal that hasn’t been this big since the ‘60s.

I myself was getting irritated with how much I was comparing our current moment with the ‘60s, but now I understand why: in October 2023, postmodernism died. Postmodernism’s death in October was not dissimilar to another death in the ‘60s. In 1968, between the deaths of RFK and MLK, the failure of May ‘68 in Paris, the debacle of the ‘68 Chicago riots at the DNC Convention and the general disillusionment with the New Left’s move away from electoralism in America after Nixon won the election, modernism — and the linear, progressive arc that it followed — died. Now, revolution would be looked at with raised eyebrows, foreshadowing postmodernism’s general skepticism of alternatives to capitalism, consumerism or liberal democracy.¹ In that sense, October 2023 was like a bizarro version of 1968, with many now deeply skeptical of the status quo.

Unlike my previous piece on the end of indie rock, this is not a memorial or a celebration. This is in fact a criminal investigation using forensic methods. After the autopsy is complete, I will make a case for patiently waiting for the next big paradigm as opposed to forcing one into existence, like “New Sincerity,” “digimodernism” or “metamodernism.” Postmodernism surfaced four years after modernism’s death. Modernism itself showed up forty years after Romanticism shat the bed.

OK let’s get our gloves and masks on. We got some cutting to do.

Forensic Marker A1: A revolutionary spirit that is not being co-opted by the mainstream media and/or the government

1992 may have been the most postmodern year ever. In 1965, psychedelic folk rock grew out of a sincere effort to match the fervor of the youth in the streets. In 1992, alternative rock became popular not to match the enthusiasm of the rebels, but to negate the apathy of the music consumers that had grown jaded with overproduced pop music and sophomoric hair metal.

Also that year, thanks to MTV’s Choose or Lose campaign, Bill Clinton was elected President. The voting age was lowered to 18 in the early ‘70s, but ‘92 saw an unprecedented youth turnout, many of them inspired by Clinton’s legendary MTV Q and A.

Whether you were upset with culture or with how your country was being run, corporate media was there for you. Consumerism in the ‘90s up until recently would be equated with voting. Voting would be equated with a revolutionary coup.

In the ‘00s, we saw the rise of the postmodern counterculture par excellence: the hipsters. It was not uncommon for hipsters to be upset with the Iraq War or gay marriage being illegal. This didn’t lead to protests or riots as much as it led to listening to NPR, watching The Daily Show and The Wire as well as voting for Barack Obama.

The 2010s, in the wake of Obama and Trump, saw the postmodern marriage of consumerism and politics reach monstrous levels. Pinkwashing, greenwashing, woke reboots, gurly poptimism — hey look kids, you don’t even need a subculture or counterculture anymore. Pop culture is on your side. Just make sure to buy Beyonce’s Lemonade if you support women, blacks and gays.

Well, that moment has passed. There is a revolutionary current that is beyond Israel-Gaza. Beyond America. Or, in the words of Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick in his Substack, “it’s not just the US: everyone is dissatisfied with leadership right now.” This is not the type of itch that will be scratched with pop diva music videos or gritty realistic police procedurals. The mainstream media is losing the narrative and they are not happy.

Forensic Marker B2: Capitalist surrealism, or, skepticism of the neoliberalism and liberalism that postmodernism bases itself on

Mark Fisher’s book Capitalist Realism was published in 2009. In it, Fisher proposed Capitalist Realism as a better term than “postmodernism” to describe the contemporary condition. Understandable, considering Capitalist Realism means that any alternative to capitalism is automatically deemed unrealistic. Thatcher’s There Is No Alternative, Fukiyama’s End of History and all that neoliberal jazz.

The 2010s only further pushed this along (again, Beyonce, Obama, yassification of corporate America, girlboss energy). In 2020, this all came crashing down. Capitalist realism gave way to capitalist surrealism. As I previously wrote:

When dystopian plague events were depicted in movies, the assumption was that all the stores would be closed. Nope; just go to work with a mask. Even if COVID may have been exaggerated, youths the world over questioned what they were working for.

So we have moved from capitalist realism — where there is no alternative — to capitalist surrealism, where there must be an alternative. There have been more manifestations of capitalist surrealism, such as a ruling gerontocracy that does not represent Millennials or Gen Z, both of whom are poised to equal the boomer electorate in America this year. Also, major celebrities (Taylor Swift, Beyonce) that are unwilling to call for a cease fire, let alone speak out against war crimes.

As of this writing, a sitting President was excused for mishandling classified documents because he is a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Critiques of neoliberalism have moved from academic Marxist books to podcast subreddits.

And it’s not just neoliberalism that’s under scrutiny. Liberal modernity itself, which was taken for granted for almost half a millennium, is on shakier ground nowadays:

Our post-Enlightenment, liberal anthropology has come under fire from both populist reactionaries and progressive activists alike. “Liberal modernity” has been a dirty word in the mouths of everyone from Naomi Klein to Marianne Williamson to Adrian Vermeule to Steve Bannon. If there is indeed any truth to the idea of a horseshoe theory, the convergence of the left and the right can be found in a shared consciousness of the insufficiency—spiritual, moral, political—of our liberal assumptions.

Read Part 2

1. After 1968, there was a vacuum that remained empty until postmodernism in 1972, with the completion of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, the publication of Anti Oedipus by Guattari and Deleuze, DePalma’s quoting of Hitchock in Sisters as well as David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Roxy Music’s debut album.