Postmodernism
and poststructuralism can be taken as the theories that question modernism and
structuralism respectively. Developed in the twentieth century, both of the
theories try to undermine authority of what were considered central (establishment)
before them. Postmodernism challenges modernism – search for purposes in
whatever human beings do – and poststructuralism in the similar fashion poses
an encounter against structuralism – the theory that believes words and
languages do have meanings. Since it is language that human beings are able to experience
anything through, questioning the power of language is also question against
meanings of human activities too. In this regard, both 'post-' theories come
together in questioning the presence and confidence of a central power or a
central meaning. Such questions to certitude of the established authority can
be seen very vocal in writings of Jean-François Lyotard, a pioneer of
postmodernism and Jacques Derrida, who developed the theory of deconstruction,
which is one of the inevitable ingredients of poststructuralism.
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In his essay "Answer to the
Question: What is the Postmodern?"(1982), Jean-François Lyotard explains
how modernism is destined to fail in its purpose of finding a unity. According
to Lyotard, modernism claims to present reality in art as it is - which is
impossible because reality is unpresentable. Thus needed is postmodernism, for
"the postmodern would be that which … invokes the unpresentable in
presentation itself" (Lyotard 279). For Lyotard, then, modernism (or
realism as a mode of artistic presentation) tries hard to do what is impossible
and later weeps over the failure; whereas postmodernism gets success in
presenting the unpresentable, what he calls the "sublime".
Failure of modernism is failure to
establish unity of meaning. The foundation of modernism is the project of
Enlightenment. And, as Lyotard has presented in his essay, modernists
themselves have accepted that the Enlightenment project was a failure (273).
But yet, some of the modernists still believe that a form of art (realism) can
rescue the project from that failure. Lyotard quotes Jürgen Habermas, a
modernist, who says that the remedy comes from a "change in the status of aesthetic
experience when … it is used to illuminate a life-historical situation"
(273). The change that Habermas seeks is essentially a modernist or a realist
one. He wants that "they should form a bridge over the gap separating the
discourses of knowledge, ethics and politics, thus opening the way for a unity
of experience" (273).
Lyotard's central attack is in this very
hope for unity as protected and promoted by modernism. He questions, "…
what sort of unity Habermas has in mind. What is the end envisaged by the
project of modernity?" (273). Lyotard finds it impossible to find a
synthesis between heterogeneous language games of knowledge, ethics and
politics in the postmodern time. The human experience today is not united, but
it is fragmented, isolated and special. Thus, no one can find a unity, harmony,
organisation, centrality in human experiences, according to Lyotard. In other
words, truth, reality and truthful representation are impossible. If one tries
to seek such centrality or essence of truthfulness, they are destined to fail.
Lyotard argues there is no any reality
in its own: "There is no reality unless it is confirmed by a consensus
between partners in questions of knowledge and commitment" (276). Thus, it
is very apparent that presenting the reality in its own - which is not - is
doomed to fail. This lack of reality thus finds modernism not only
insufficient, but also inappropriate. Hence, the postmodernism comes into
existence. The postmodernism, unlike modernist realism, believes that reality
is unpresentable; thus it is free of nostalgia and pain that realism shares for
incapability of presentation of reality.
Postmodernism too, of course, involves
in experimentation in presentation and representation. But, the difference is that
it does not nostalgically weeps over, for it has realised the reality is not
simple as it can be presented as black or white in any art form. The reality
rather is "sublime", which itself is against the notion of certitude.
The 'sublime', the word originally borrowed from Immanuel Kant, means for
Lyotard "a powerful and equivocal emotion: it brings both pleasure and
pain…In it pleasure proceeds from pain" (277). Lyotard explains that the
sublime emerges when there is gap or conflict between what is conceivable and
what is presentable. The existence of this gap/conflict means that not
everything that is conceivable can be presentable. This is what realism and
modernism fail to recognise. For them anything that is conceived can be
presented. Modernism does not accept presence of the unpresentable. Lyotard
criticises, "Modern art … devotes its "trivial technique"…to
presenting the existence of something unpresentable. Showing that there is
something we can conceive of which we can neither see nor show: this is the
stake of modern painting" (277).
Lyotard concludes his essay by calling
people to enjoy the postmodernism that shatters the hopes of modernism for
unity and reality. He clearly sums up his idea that no reality does exist in
its own thus presenting reality is impossible for artists and writers. If one
tries to present reality, that attempt only becomes an allusion to the sublime
experience, "It is not up to us to provide reality but invent allusions to
what is conceivable but not presentable" (280). Arguing that desire to
reinstate the unity or centrality only leads to war on totality, Lyotard
appeals, "Let us attest to the unpresentable" (280).
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Jacques
Derrida's arguments in his essay "Differance" (1968) are no less
revolutionary that Lyotard's. In this essay, he questions the entire Western
metaphysics and ontology by questioning the presence-absence stratification which
the Western knowledge bases itself on. Derrida works within the discourse of
Western philosophy itself, looking for hidden antagonisms that jeopardise it
(Newman 5). Reinterpreting Ferdinand De Saussure's theory of meaning making
(that is, signifiers signify to the referents arbitrarily out of differences),
Derrida argues that meaning comes not only out of differences, but also with
temporalisation. Using that model of differance – the term that Derrida himself
coined to mean differences that operate in spacing and temporalisation during
any meaning making activity – Derrida in the essay questions validity and
certitude of any meaning, any centre, or any truth.
The differance – which Derrida calls
"neither a word nor a concept" (126) – is behind each and every set
up of signification, according to Derrida. He says, "It opens up the very
space in which onto-theology – philosophy – produces its systems and its
history. It thus encompasses and irrevocably surpasses onto-theology or
philosophy" (129). And, the result of this complete pervasiveness is that
every hierarchy is deconstructed, every centre is decentred and every
establishment is de-established. He
says, "In this way we question the authority of presence or its simple
symmetrical contrary, absence or lack" (132).
Operation of the differance and how it
deconstructs the centrality can be most easily seen in presence – absence
dichotomy. It is generally believed that present is privileged over what is
absent. For example, speech is considered superior to writing because in speech
the speaker is present whereas in writing the writer is absent. Saussure
himself has written, "Language is necessary in order for speech to
intelligible… but the latter is necessary in order for language to be
established; historically, the fact of speech comes first" (qtd. in
Derrida 134). Derrida, based on
Saussure's idea of signifiers signifying to referents, cleverly deconstructs the
dichotomy. He has said, "I have
tried to suggest that this differance within language… forbids the essential
dissociation between speech and writing that Saussure, in keeping with
tradition, wanted to draw" (137).
For Derrida, there is nothing which is
present in itself. There is nothing present because all linguistic signs –
through which we refer everything – are absence in themselves. Derrida says,
"Signs represent the present in its absence; they take the place of the
present. When we cannot take hold of or show things, let us say the
present…then we signify" (131). For him, thus, the sign itself is a
"deferred presence". The substitution of the thing itself (the
present) with the sign is secondary and provisional. Thus, every language is
not primary, not present, but secondary and provisional. Hence, there is no way
that once can claim speech to become primary. Both the speech and writing are
processed by the play of differance.
Also, speech cannot be primary than
writing because its privileged position is based on existence of the other
(writing) which is different – both in spacing and temporalisation – from
itself. The same applies in other presence – absence dichotomies too. Derrida
says, "…each element that is said to be "present," appearing on
the stage of presence, is related to something other than itself" (134-35).
Newman writes that "authority is continually jeopardised by the excluded
supplement because it is essential to the formation of the identity of the
dominant term" (6). In this way, centrality of any "present"
element – truth over untruth, reality over fantasy, reason over unreason,
activity over passivity – is questioned by Derrida because each element of the
each pair here operates in the differance.
Derrida also questions the claimed
self-presence of consciousness. It is claimed that consciousness is
self-present before the play of signification, thus it is privileged as the
"living preset". But Derrida claims, "Presence is a
determination and effect within a system which is no longer that of presence
but that of differance; it no more allows the opposition between activity and
passivity…" (138). That is to say, the differance even proceeds
consciousness and the consciousness is only an effect or determination of the
differance.
He supports his claim with what other
philosophers, Nietzsche and Freud in particular, said about self-assured certitude
of the consciousness before him. Derrida quotes Nietzsche as saying "the
important main activity is unconscious" (138) – not conscious. According
to Derrida, Nietzsche questioned certitude of the unconscious by claiming that "consciousness
is the effect of forces whose essence, ways, and modalities are not peculiar to
it" (138). And, these forces, as Derrida interprets, exist because of play
of the differance. What enabled Nietzsche to challenge the entire metaphysics
of culture, science and philosophy, according to Derrida, is this very
differance or something similar to it.
On the other hand, Freud's theory of
unconscious too supports the incertitude of the consciousness. Derrida
pinpoints that Freud also talked of differences in terms of spacing and
temporalisation – thus making it a play of the differance - while he explained
his theory of the unconscious. For
Freud, differing (in space) was discernibility, distinction, deviation and
diastem; whereas deferring (in temporalisation) was detour, delay, relay and
reverse (Derrida 139). As Derrida recalls from Freud, among traces of the
unconscious "the one is only the other deferred, the one differing from
the other" (139). Also, Freud claims that the only difference
between please principle and reality principle is of deferral
(temporalisation). Freud writes, "This latter principle…demands and
carries into effect the postponement of satisfaction…and the temporary
toleration of unpleasure as a step on the long indirect road to pleasure"
(qtd. in Derrida 140). This again strengthens Derrida's argument that the human
psyche has completely been operated in the pattern of differance.
Yet, Derrida writes that the differance
"commands nothing, rules over nothing… Not only is there no realm of
differance, but differance is the subversion of every realm (140). This subversion
itself is the censure against certitude and centrality; and the subversion has
always been working for "differance is "older" than the
ontological difference or the truth of Being" (142) though it cannot
present itself for it questions every presence. Derrida interestingly justifies
a lack of name for the word "differance" because it is "older"
than Being and language (146).
Both Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques
Derrida in their respective essays present convincible arguments that no
certitude can be established over existence of any centre, presence of truth.
Advocating against existence of authority, the theorists have not only involved
themselves in the stream of postmodernism, they also inspired for the rise of
other postmodernist philosophies. Studying Derrida and Lyotard, though both are
very complex for comprehension, hence provide a succinct understanding of the
postmodernism because they present censure against the modernist certitude
quite expressively, which is gist of all 'post-' philosophies.
Works Cited
Derrida,
Jacques. "Differance." The
Routledge Critical and Cultural Theory Reader. Ed. Neil Badmington and
Julia Thomas. New York: Routledge. 2008. 126-148.
Lyotard,
Jean-François. "Answer to the Question: What is the Postmodern?" The Routledge Critical and Cultural Theory
Reader. Ed. Neil Badmington and Julia Thomas. New York: Routledge. 2008. 272-280.
Newman,
Saul. "Derrida’s Deconstruction Of Authority." 21 May 2012. The
Anarchist Library. 21 Jan. 2014. <http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/saul-newman-derrida-s-deconstruction-of-authority.pdf>
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