Review: Postmodernism: Decentering, Simulacrum, and Parody

Author(s): Hamid Shirvani

Review by: Hamid Shirvani
Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 290-296
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 Decentering,
Postmodernism:
andParody
Simulacrum,

HAMID SHIRVANI
ofMassachusetts,Lowell
University

or, The CulturalLogic of Late Capitalism.By Fredric

Postmodernism,
Jameson.Durham,N.C.: Duke UniversityPress,1991. 438 pages. $19.95.

History,Theory,Fiction.By Linda Hutcheon.

A PoeticsofPostmodernism,
New York:Routledge,1988. 268 pages. $14.95.

THE CONCEPT OF POSTMODERNISM HAS BEEN ENORMOUSLY IMPORTANT

forliterarycriticsand arthistoriansin recentyears.Yet withinAmerican
studies,it has been an underusedresource,perhapsbecause it marksa
pointofrupture by studiesthatstresscontinuity.
in a fieldcharacterized Yet
scholars of U.S. culturecannot affordto isolate themselvesfromthe
importantcurrentsof cultural criticism generated by the idea of
postmodernity.
In his recentexemplaryrumination on culturalchange,David Harvey
remindsus thatmodernism is nota finiteand discretecategory,thatthere
have been manymodernisms servingmanydifferent purposes.'Similarly,
postmodernism is no monolith,as evidencedby the different approaches
taken in two now classical critical works on postmodernity: Fredric
Jameson'sPostmodernism, or,The CulturalLogic ofLate Capitalismand
Linda Hutcheon'sA PoeticsofPostmodernism, History,Theory,Fiction.

HamidShirvani is a professor anddeanof theCollegeof Artsand

of philosophy
Lowell.He haspublished
ofMassachusetts,
SciencesattheUniversity on
extensively
andcriticism,
theory Beyond
mostrecently (1990),andis currently
PublicArchitecture
workingon a volumeentitled
LandscapeofFragments.
Vol.46, No. 2 (June1994) 0 1994AmericanStudiesAssociation
AmericanQuarterly,
290

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 POSTMODERNISM 291

The summarizingidea of postmodemismis the "absence of a center."2

JamesonandHutcheonbothstartfromthisidea buttaketwoverydifferent
paths in pursuingit, as evidenced by theirtitles.Jamesonfocuses on
politics, economics, and history; Hutcheon focuses on aesthetics,
decentering,and narrative.Jamesontakes a postindustrialist position,
which views the eradication of the center as the cultural logic of late
capitalism.Hutcheonpresentsa poststructuralist stance,which sees the
absence of the centeras an opportunity createdby decenteringmoves
designed to open up ideology and social life to an appreciationof
difference.Justas houses built on similarfoundationsmay look very
different fromone another,these two books proceed fromthe same
foundational premisebutbuildverydifferent structures on top of them.
resistconclusions.They"believe[thedesireto master
Poststructuralists
thetextand to open its secrets]is vainbecause thereare unconscious,or
linguistic,or historicalforceswhichcannotbe mastered.Poststructuralists
ask questionsratherthangiveanswers."3 Hutcheonproclaimsheraversion
to closure; as a poststructuralist she seeks to open up contradictions and
develop a self-renewing listof questions.Jameson,however,sees defini-
tivecauses and effectsattendant to postmodern cultureand society,and he
makes explicithis evaluationof theirresults.In his view,economic and
historicalcircumstances shape culture."Everypositionon postmodernism
in culture,"he argues,". . . is also . . . necessarily,[a] . . . politicalstance
on thenatureof multinational capitalismtoday"(3).
Jamesonsees a profoundconnectionbetweennew technologiesand the
seeminglyrandomandheterogeneous imagesprojectedwithinpostmodern
culture.For Jameson,postmodernism emerged as a gestureof revolt
againstthecanonizationof modernismand theconsequenteviscerationof
itsoppositionalpotential.But he also attributes postmodernism to develop-
mentsin worldcapitalism-the long global economicand militarydomi-
nancebytheUnitedStatesafterWorldWarII andthesubsequentspreadof
commodification intopreviouslyuntouchedsectorsof social life.Fromhis
perspective,postmodernism has usheredin a culturaland experiential
breakwiththe past. It has therebyended the distinction between"high"
and "mass" culturecrucialto modernismand engenderednew categories,
forms,and textsforart.Aestheticchangesstemfromshiftsin capitalism
and politicsbecause artand culturehave become commoditiesintegrally
relatedto structures of economicsand politics.
Hutcheondefinespostmodernism as "fundamentally contradictory, reso-
lutelyhistorical,and inescapablypolitical,"and she does not deny the

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292 AMERICAN QUARTERLY

commercialand commodifiedqualityof postmodern culturalproductions.

But she urgesus "to make some distinction betweenartand whattheart-
promotionalsystemdoes to it" (231). She pointsout thatcriticsgenerally
make this distinctionin respect to modernismbut only rarelywhen
speakingaboutpostmodernism. She focusesherinquiryon historiographic
metafiction-novelsthat are "intenselyself-reflexive and yet paradoxi-
cally also lay claim to historicaleventsand personages"in orderto reveal
boththelimitsand thepowersof historicalknowledge(5). She celebrates
thewaythesenovelsuse ironyto subvertbutnotrejecthistoryandtheidea
of historicalobjectivityas a meansof rethinking and reworking the past.
For Hutcheon,postmodernism questions both historical
objectivity and
artisticsubjectivitywithoutdenyingeitherone. It also challengessimple
binarydistinctionsbetweenlife and art in orderto formulatean open,
flexiblediscoursethatstressestheconstructedness of bothlifeand art.
Hutcheonbelieves thatpostmodernism servesa particularlyimportant
role by problematizing For her,theperceivingsubjectcan no
subjectivity.
longerbe assumedto be a coherentdiscretemeaning-generating entity.In
herversionof postmodernism,

the decenteredperspective,the "marginal" and ... the "ex-centric". . . take

on new significancein the lightof the implied recognitionthatour cultureis
not really the homogeneous monolith (that is middle class, male, hetero-
sexual, white, western) we mighthave assumed. The concept of alienated
otherness. . . gives way ... to thatof differences,thatis to the assertionof,
not centralized sameness, but of decentralized community-another post-
modernparadox. (12)

For Jameson,loss of the centerequals the death of the subject,and it

engendersa crisis auguringthe death of meaning,history,aesthetic
inquiry,and temporality. These deaths manifestthemselvesin various
ways central to thekeyterms of Jameson'scritique-simulacrum,schizo-
phrenia,pastiche.Jamesonbemoansa situationthatHutcheoncelebrates.
The differences betweenthem,in my view,have as muchto do withthe
personalcircumstances and social situationsof thetwo authorsas theydo
withtheclimateof postmodernism.
Gender differenceshelp provide Jamesonand Hutcheon with very
different stances towardculturalauthorityand criticism.As a woman,
Hutcheondraws more effectively on the attentionto differenceand the
questioningof divisionsbetweenpublic and privateraised by feminist
criticsas a generativemove in the creationof postmodernism itself.As
Tania Modleski has demonstrated,

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 POSTMODERNISM 293

because women's experience has been privatized,and because . . . criticism

belonged to the bourgeois (male) public sphere before it could become
wholly academicized, a woman-orientedcriticismcould emerge only when
feministsbegan to public-ize and collectively explore theirprivate experi-
ence and, throughconsciousness-raising,to come to termswith the myriad
ramificationsof feminism'smost basic insight,"the personal is political."4

As a woman and a feminist,Hutcheonspeaks fromthe standpointof

someone who standsto gain voice and power by postmoderncultural
ideologies.Jameson,conversely, forall his oppositionalintentions,stands
to lose fromtheabsenceof thecenter.Postmodernism seems meaningless
and even threatening to Jamesonbecause it questions,problematizes, and
even renouncesthe values, status,and centrality of people like himself.
Hutcheon,however,sees thesameprocessesas producingnewpossibilities
and opportunities.
Jamesoninterprets visual representations withinpostmodernismand
concludes that they constitutea meaningless,centerlesssimulacrum.
Surfaceis everything in a simulacrum;meaning,truth,and referenceare
replacedby surfaceswhichresultsin fragmentation of thesubjectand the
loss of the distinction betweeninside and outside.In contrast,Hutcheon
sees the simulacrumas more than meaningless;in her view truthand
referencestill exist,but theyhave "ceased to be unproblematic issues"
(223). She sees postmodernism as less a degenerationintothe "hyperreal
withoutoriginor reality"thana questionof "what'real' can meanand how
we can know it" (223). In her view, postmodernart problematizes
representation, not to reduceit to a meaninglesssimulacrumbut to call
attention to thedangersand possibilitiesof theact of representation itself.
Jamesondefinespostmodernity as an age whenpeople have forgotten
how to thinkhistorically(ix). Because the modernistconcept of the
alienatedsubjectis no longerappropriate, capitalismhas createda new
fragmented subject.As postmodernism has become a hegemonicnorm,
Jamesonclaimsthatwe are nowfreefromalienation,butonlybecause we
are freefromeveryotherfeelingas well. Thereis no longera selfpresent
to do thefeeling,but"such feelings. .. are free-floating and impersonal
and tendto be dominatedby a particularkind of euphoria"(16). Here,
Jamesonsoundsto me likeJeanBaudrillard,who in a statement thatI find
equally outrageouscontendsthat

all these track-suitsand jogging suits, these loose-fittingshortsand baggy

cotton shirts,these "easy clothes" are actually old bits of nightwear,and all
these relaxed walkers and runnershave not yet left the nightbehind. As a

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294 AMERICAN QUARTERLY

resultof wearing these billowing clothes, theirbodies have come to float in

theirclothes and themselvesfloat in theirown bodies.5

Jameson and Baudrillard,of course, conceive of their projects very

butI am struckby the similarities
differently, to surface
in theirattention
detailsandtheircausal leaps-as ifpeople whowearloose running geardo
notthinkor feel!
Hutcheonprovidesa usefulalternative to thiskindof critique.She sees
the postmodernas an "attemptto re-historicize-notde-historicize-art
and theory"(225). She uses historicalnovelsto disprovethe chargethat
postmodernismis necessarilyahistorical,naive, or nostalgic. In her
historiographic
interpretation, metafiction refusesa searchfortranscen-
dent truthsand, in the process, confrontsand conteststhe modernist
dualityof eitherdiscardingor recuperatingthepast.Hutcheonexplainsin
directresponseto Jameson,

most theoristsof postmodernismwho see it as a "cultural dominant"

agree that it is characterizedby the results of late capitalist dissolution of
bourgeois hegemony and the development of mass culture. I would agree
and, in fact,argue thatthe increasinguniformizationof mass cultureis one of
the totalizingforces thatpostmodernismexists to challenge. Challenge but
not deny. But it does seek to assert difference,not homogenous identity...
the very concept of differencecould be said to be a typicallypostmodern
contradiction;"difference"unlike "otherness"has no exact opposite against
which to defineitself.Postmodernculturethenhas a contradictoryrelation-
ship to what we usually label our dominant, liberal humanist culture.
Postmodernismdiffersfromthis,not in its humanisticcontradictions,but in
the provisionalityof its response to them;it refusesto posit any structureor
...master narrative. . . . This does not mean that knowledge somehow
disappears. There is no radicallynew paradigmhere,even if thereis change.
(6)

Thus,Hutcheonstatesthatpostmodernism is a usefulway of questioning

how and why we thinkwe can know about the past, while Jameson
suggeststhatthereis a knownpastthatpostmodernism This
is obliterating.
erasure is not accidental in his formulation;postmodernism'sschizo-
phrenicbreakdownin thesignifying chainmovessocietyfromtemporality
to spatialityandresultsin theloss ofpersonalidentityemblematizedbythe
loss of thetemporal.
Both Jamesonand HutcheondiscussE. L. Doctorow'snovelRagtime.6
For Jameson,the readingof historythatthis novel presentsmakes it
impossibleto addresshistoricalissues directlybecause Ragtimeis orga-

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 POSTMODERNISM 295

(23). Nothing
nized to "shortcircuit"social and historicalinterpretation
seemsmoreevidentaboutthisnoveltoJamesonthanthe"disappearanceof
-a disappearancethatdrivesculturalproduction
the historicalreferent"
"back inside mentalspace which is no longerthatof the old monadic
subjectbutratherof some degradedcollective'objectivespirit"'(25).
In contrast,Hutcheonfindsthehistoricalreferents in Ragtime to be real
and powerful.For her,postmodernartentailsan ironiccontestation of an
author'srightto inscribetimelessor universalvalues. Indeed,postmodern
art stressesthe contextdependenceof all values and makes themcon-
structs,not givens.Hutcheonpresentsparodyas a quintessentially ironic
mode. She argues,

parodyis a perfectpostmodernform,. . . it paradoxically... incorporatesand

challenges that which it parodies [and forces] . . . reconsiderationof the
notionof originalitythatis compatible withotherpostmoderninterrogations.
. . . While theoristslike Jameson ... see this loss of the modernistunique,
individual style as a negative, as an imprisoningof the text in the past
throughpastiche, it has been seen by postmodernartists as a liberating
challenge to a definitionof subjectivityand creativitythathas for too long
ignored the role of historyin art and thought.(11)

Jamesonarguesthatthecollapse of high-modernist ideologies of style

leave producerswithnowhereto turnbut to the past,to the imitationof
dead stylesthatturnsthe worldinto a seriesof images of itself.This is
pastiche,the reproduction of past stylesthatleaves themdevoid of any
meaningand allows no normbutfragmentation. But Hutcheonsees a very
differenteffectgeneratedby fragmentation and commercialization. For
her,"Culture(witha capital C-and in the singular)has become cultures
(uncapitalizedand plural)"(12). She sees thishappening"in spiteof and
maybe even because of-the homogenizingimpulse of the consumer
societyof late capitalism;yetanotherpostmodern contradiction" (12). For
Jameson,thereal is dead, and postmodernism killedit. For Hutcheon,the
real mightbe dead, butthepostmodernis questioningwhyit mighthave
been murderedor how some people have come to thinkthatit is dead.
Jameson'spostmodernism mournsthe decenteredpresentas a dismal
statenow and forthe future.For him,culturalproductionhas become a
process of commodification and fetishism.The logic of late capitalism
acceleratesthe marchof commodification into all areas of societyand
cultureand destroysany and all thingsmeaningful. Hutcheon'spostmod-
ernismsees thecreationof manypostmodern centersas an opportunity for
innovationand creativityin art. Hutcheonacknowledgesthe pervasive

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296 AMERICAN QUARTERLY

commercializationof artbut does not see commerceas the sole agent

definingor orderingartisticproduction.The postmodern era opens up the
oppressedpeoples and culturesand necessarily
realitiesof traditionally
throwsinto questionthe objectivityof historicaltexts.But thisdoes not
denythepossibilityof meaning.Hutcheondiscussespostmodernism as a
processthatmergesand rearranges thebordersbetweenartand life.
Jameson'sfocuson sculpture, urbandevelopment,
art,architecture, and
public policyproducesa postmodernism verydifferent fromthosefound
byHutcheonin historiographic metafiction.ForHutcheon,postmodernism
acknowledgesthe power that ideologies have over the productionof
culturebut questionswhy these ideologies exist and wheretheyderive
theirpower. Jamesonsees all culturalproductionas an outgrowthof
politics,technology,and economics-the hallmarksof capitalismin its
presentstage. But Hutcheon uses poststructuralism to read the same
circumstancesas an opportunity to promotea decenteredmulticultural
society.

NOTES

1. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity:An Enquiry into the Origins of

Cultural Change (Oxford, 1989).
2. Raman Selden, A Reader's Guide to ContemporaryLiteraryTheory(Lexington,
Ky., 1989), 72.
3. Ibid., 109.
4. Tania Modleski, FeminismwithoutWomen: Criticismin a PostfeministAge (New
York, 1991), 43.
5. Jean Baudrillard,America (New York, 1989), 39.
6. E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime (New York, 1975).

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