Whaddup peeps! So, the discussions in class this week were quite interesting. One thing I was interested in talking about was myths. Whenever you think of a myth, you refer to old Greek or other ancient times, like the myth mentioned in Postmodernism For Beginners "Here is the myth of Bumba, vomiting the Moon and Stars" (25). But, what I did not know before is that myths are even used today, but in a different form. Instead of calling them myths, Lyotard refers to them as Narratives, which give purpose and reason to everything we do.
When speaking of a narrative there is a thing referred to by Lyotard as a Grand Narrative. Lyotard defines a grand narrative as "big stories... that claim o be able to account for, explain and subordinate all lesser, little, local narratives" (29). An example that Lyotard uses for a grand narrative is "the narrative of Christian salvation" (29). Grand Narratives are so big that by our time, right now, many of them are hard to believe. Many things have been discovered that contradict grand narratives. Because of these contradictions the postmodern condition of religion, and extreme myths is in decline.
Grand narratives aren't necessarily a good thing because they are biased by those who create the narratives. Many cultures have been oppressed by grand narratives, like Native Americans by the WASP grand narrative that it was their destiny to expand westward. By this they marginalize the personal individuality and cultural individuality of many peoples because of any shows of weakness. African Americans, Native Americans, Armenians, Jews, Hispanics, all of these and many more have been marginalized by the grand narratives created by people who can't keep the narratives up, which is why they eventually fell, and now most of these cultures are not oppressed any longer.
In many ways, Postmodernism explains how the society in Brave New World came to be such an oppressive world. Postmodernism can suck all of the narratives from the world so that the only one left is: constant scientific research will lead to the obtainment of absolute knowledge. When all there is left in a society is constant scientific research many narratives like the American Dream will go away, and our society will be like the one in BNW, completely singular and clone-ish.
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Hey jess
ReplyDeleteGreat Blog, awesome flow.. something i lack in. I have some questions for some of the statements you made here. Where you said American Dream will go away and become a society like BNW. Do you not think that BNW had a sort of dream or societal dream that they felt the only way they could reach would be through these scientific "renovations" do you not feel that they had sudden depression through out the world and those telling this narrative promised its people a better life something without depression any famine any murder any crime? Do you not feel like these citizens chose this to happen that they wanted this and in a time of peril they would strive for this and ask no questions to the Directors of what they are doing as long as they are enternally happy? These people wanted this eternal happiness there was some great catastrophic event or disease or depression that lead them to become these things of continuous pleasure. As many had said during the Socratic Circle "they're still human" so do you not think that this was a choice of the people not just a mass take over as you can tell a mass take over would be impossible. The grand narrative they were promised and they recieved was none were poor, none went hungry, none were unhappy with their position in life. They destroyed the pain of birth they destroyed the pain of emotions and completely replaced them with pleasure. Well that was a large piece of nothing randomness. So jess see you tommorrow possibly unless your sick then stay home.. I would highly suggest not to read this even if this warning is at the bottom of the comment.