Regarding Postmodernism.

A Conversation with Fredric Jameson

Author(s): Anders Stephanson
Source: Social Text, No. 17 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 29-54
Published by: Duke University Press
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RegardingPostmodernism-Aconversation
with
Fredric
Jameson
ANDERS STEPHANSON

AndersStephanson:Yourargumentabout postmodernism has two levels:on theone

hand an inventory
of constitutive and
features, on theotheran accountof a vaster
to
realitywhichthesefeaturesare said express.

FredricJameson:The idea is to create a mediatoryconcept,to constructa model

which can be articulatedin, and descriptiveof,a whole seriesof different cultural
phenomena. This or
unity system is thenplaced in a relationto the infrastructural
realityoflate capitalism.The aim,in otherwords,is to providesomething whichcan
face in two directions:a principleforthe analysisof culturaltextswhichis at the
same time a workingsystemthat can show the generalideologicalfunctionof all
these featurestaken together.I'm not sure that my analysis has coveredall the
essentials,but I triedto rangeacross a set of qualitativelydifferent things,starting
withthevisual,passingthroughthetemporal,and thenreturning to a new concep-
tion of space itself.
Sinceour firstconceptsofpostmodernism havetendedto be negative(i.e.,itisn't
this,it isn't that,it isn't a whole seriesof thingsthat modernismwas), I begin by
comparingmodernismand postmodernism. However,theobjectis ultimately a posi-
tive description,not in any sense of value (so that postmodernism would thenbe
"better"than modernism)but in orderto grasp postmodernism as a new cultural
logicin itsown right,as something morethana merereaction.Historically, ofcourse,
it did beginas a reactionagainsttheinstitutionalization ofmodernism in universities,
museumsand concerthalls,againstthecanonizationofa certainkindofarchitecture.
This entrenchment is feltto be oppressiveby the generationthat comes of age,
in
roughlyspeaking, the 60s; and, not surprisingly, it thentriessystematically to
make a breathingspace foritselfby repudiatingmodernistvalues. In the literary
context,valuesthusrepudiatedincludecomplexityand ambiguityoflanguage,irony,
the concreteuniversal,and the constructionof elaborate symbolicsystems.The
specificfeatureswould of coursehave been different in otherarts.

Thisinterview
tookplaceonJuly4, 1986,andwasfirst inshorter
published, in FlashArt
form,
(Milano), no. 131, 1986.

29

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30 AndersStephanson

You begintheexplorationwithan analysisof depthand surfacein painting.

I wantedto focuson a certainflatness,not to be confusedwith the way in which

modernistpaintingfamouslyreconqueredthesurfaceof thepainting.I describethis
in termsof the disappearanceof a certaindepth,a word I wantedto functionin a
deliberatelyambiguousway.I meantnot onlyvisual depth-that was alreadyhap-
peningin modernpainting-but also interpretative depth,the idea thatthe object
was fascinatingbecause of the densityof its secretsand thatthesewerethento be
uncoveredby interpretation. All thisvanishes.Similarly,
because it is a sub-themeof
therelationship betweenpostmodernism in theartsand contemporary theory,I tried
to show how thisgoes alongwitha new kindof conceptualization whichno longer
involvesphilosophicnotionsof depth,that is, varioushermeneutics in which one
an
interprets appearance in terms ofsome underlyingrealitywhich these philosophies
thenuncode. Finally,thereis also the abolitionof historicity and historicaldepth,
what used to be called historicalconsciousnessor the sense of the past. In short,
objectsfallintotheworldand becomedecorationagain; visualdepthand systemsof
interpretation fade away; and somethingpeculiarhappensto historicaltime.
This is then accompaniedby a transformation of the depth of psychological
affectin that a particularkind of phenomenologicalor emotionalreactionto the
worlddisappears.Symptomatic hereis thechangeoverfromanxiety-the dominant
feelingor affectin modernism-to a different systemofwhichschizophrenic or drug
languagegivesthekeynotion.I am referring to what theFrenchhavestartedto call
intensitiesofhighsand lows.Thesehavenothingto do with"feelings"thatofferclues
to meaningin theway anxietydid. Anxietyis a hermeneutic emotion,it expressesan
underlying nightmare state of the world; whereas highs and lows reallydon't imply
anythingabout the world,you can feel themon whateveroccasion. They are no
longercognitive.

You speak hereof "the hystericalsublime" and "the exhilarationof thegleaming

of all modern
of the autoreferentiality
surface." In the "dialecticalintensification
culture,"we face a completelack of affectpuncturedby momentsof extremeinten-
sity.

Dialectically,in theconscioussublimeit is theselfthattouchesthelimit;hereit is the

bodythatis touchingitslimits,"volatilized"in thisexperienceofimagesto thepoint
of beingoutsideofitself,losingitself.It is a reductionoftimeto an instantin a most
intensefinalpunctualexperienceofall ofthesethings,butit is no longersubjectivein
the oldersense that a personalityis standingin frontof the Alps and knowingthe

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 31

limitsof the individualsubjectand the humanego. On the contrary,it is a kindof

non-humanist experienceof limitsbeyondwhichyou get dissolved.

Whereuponwe reachthetemporalaspect.

Yes. The visual metaphoricdepthgivesway to a descriptionof temporaldisconnec-

tion and fragmentation, the kind of thingembodied for example in John Cage's
music.Discontinuity in sound and timeis thenseen as emblematicof thedisappear-
ance of certainrelationshipsto historyand thepast. Analogously,it is relatedto the
way we describea texttoday as the productionof discontinuoussentenceswithout
any largerunifyingforms.A rhetoricof textsreplacesolder notionsof a work or-
ganizedaccordingto thisor thatform.Indeed,theverylanguageofformdisappears.

In the60s, I was once told,theaveragecameramovement-achangeofview,a zoom,

a pan-did not go below somethinglike 1 per 7.5 secondsin an ordinary30-second
commercial,the reason being that this was consideredthe optimumof what the
humanperceptioncould handle.It is now down to somethinglike3.5 or less. I have
actuallytimedcommercialswhereit is about 1 changeper 2 seconds,15 changesin a
matterof 30 seconds.

We are approachinga logicof subliminality thereand yourexampleeffectively

illus-
tratesthisnew logicof difference to whichwe are beingprogrammed,theseincreas-
inglyrapid and emptybreaksin our time.Each trainingin an increasedtempois a
trainingin feelingit naturalto shiftfromone thingto another.

Paik's videoartis,as yousay,a valuablepostmodernist

place to explorethisproblem.

As a kind of trainingin a new logic of difference.

An emptyformaltrainingor
programming in a new way of perceivingdifference.

What exactlyis thatnew way of perceivingdifference?

I triedto putthisin theslogan"difference relates."The veryperceptionofbreaksand

difference becomesa meaningin itself,not a meaningthathas contentbut one that
seemsto be a meaningful yetnew formof unity.This kindofview does not pose the
problem "how do we relate those things,how do we turnthose thingsback into
continuitiesor similarities";it simplysays,"when youregisterdifference,something
positiveis happeningin yourmind." It's a way of gettingrid of content.

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32 AndersStephanson

From thisdiagnosisof the temporalyou proceedto thespatial.

I thenlinkthesetwo setsof features(surface,fragmentation)

in termsofthespatiali-
zation of time.Time has becomea perpetualpresentand thusspatial.Our relation-
ship to thepast is now a spatial one.

Whydoes it necessarilybecomespatial?

One privilegedlanguagein modernism, Proustor ThomasMann forexample,always

used temporaldescription.That notion of "deep time," Bergsoniantime,seems
radicallyirrelevantto our contemporaryexperience,which is one of a perpetual
spatial present.Our theoreticalcategoriesalso tend to become spatial: structural
analyseswithgraphsof synchronicmultiplicities of spatiallyrelatedthings(as op-
posed to, say,thedialecticand its temporalmoments),and languageslikeFoucault's
withitsemptyrhetoricofcutting, sortingand modifying, a kindofspatiallanguagein
which you organizedata like a greatbloc to be chopped up in variousways.This
happensto be how I in particular"use" Foucault,withlimitations thatwill probably
infuriatehis disciples.Much ofFoucault,on theotherhand,was alreadyfamiliar:the
binaryoppositionbetweencenterand marginwas largelydevelopedin Sartre/Saint
Genet; theconceptsof powerhad emergedin manyplaces,but fundamentally in the
anarchisttradition;the totalizingstrategiesof his variousschemesalso have many
analogies fromWeber on. I propose ratherto considerFoucault in termsof the
cognitivemappingof power,theconstruction of spatialpicture-models, thetransfer
of conceptionsof social powerand its formsonto powerfulspatial figures.But then,
ofcourse,once one putsit thatway,his own figures-thegrid,forexample-become
starklyrelativizedand cease to be theoriesas such.

Wheredoes "hyper-space"come into thespatial argument?

Normalspace is made up ofthings,or organizedbythings.Herewe are talkingabout

the dissolutionof things.In this finalcomponentof hyperspace,one cannot talk
about componentsanymore.We used to talk about this in termsof subject-object
dialectics;but in a situationwheresubjectsand objectshave been dissolved,hyper-
space is the ultimateof the object-pole,intensitythe ultimateof the subject-pole,
thoughwe no longerhave subjectsand objects.
At anyrate,thenotionof spatializationreplacingtemporalization leads back to
architectureand new experiencesof space whichI thinkare verydifferent fromany
previousmomentsof the space of the city,to name one example. What is striking
about thenew urbanensemblesaroundParis,forexample,is thatthereis absolutely
no perspectiveat all. Not onlyhas thestreetdisappeared(thatwas alreadythetaskof

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 33

modernism)but all profileshave disappearedas well. This is bewildering and I use

existentialbewilderment in thisnew postmodernspace to make a finaldiagnosisof
the loss of our abilityto positionourselveswithinthisspace and cognitively
map it.
This is thenprojectedback on theemergenceof a global multinational culturewhich
is decenteredand cannot be visualized, a culturein which one cannot position
oneself.That is theconclusion.

To be morespecific,you use, veryelegantly,Portman'sBonaventureHotel in Los

Angeles as an example: a mirrorfacade, a self-enclosedstructurein which it is
impossibleto orientateoneself.Yetthenew commercialspaces aroundRodeo Drive
are the veryopposite of what you describe: quaint squares, readilyvisiblespaces
wherethingscan be purchasedin quite obvious and conventionalways.

But thatis theDisneyversionofpostmodernarchitecture, theDisneylandpasticheof

theoldersquare or piazza or whatever.I pickedemblematicthingsand byno means
everything can be analyzedin thatvein.These otherexamplesare notexemplaryof
the hyperspace,but theycertainlyare exemplaryof the productionof simulacra.
Disney'sEPCOT is anotherexcellentexample.

His compressedversionoftheworldin otherwords,littletoycountrieswhereyoucan

orientateyourselfin no timeat all.

I suppose you can orientyourselfbecause pathshavebeen laid longforyouto move

along, but whereyou actuallyare is a real problem.For you may in factbe in the
Florida Evergladesand in this case you are not only in a swamp but also in a
simulacrumof somewhereelse. Disneylandis on thewhole supremelypropheticand
paradigmaticof a lot of thisstuff.

The emergenceof postmodernismis materiallytied in youranalysisto the rise of

Americancapitalon a global scale, dated to thelateSOs and early60s. However,the
United States was then actually beginningto experiencea relativedecline in its
postwar dominance: othernations were coming back economically,therewas an
upsurgeof third-world liberationmovementsand the returnin the firstworld of
oppositionalideologiesverymuchfashionedon thedepthmodel (marxismforone).

Notionsof thediscontinuity of cultureand economicscan accountforsome of that.

The settingin place of Americanpower is one thing;the developmentof a culture
whichbothreflectsand perpetuatesthatpoweris a somewhatdifferent matter.The
old culturalslate had to be wiped clean and the reason that could happen in the
UnitedStatesratherthan in Europe was thepersistenceof l'ancien regimein Euro-

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34 AndersStephanson

pean culture.Once modernismbroke down, the absence of traditionalformsof

culturein theUS opened up a fieldfora whole new culturalproductionacross the
board. Individualthingscould be pioneeredin Europe,but a systemofculturecould
only emergefromthisAmericanpossibility.At themomentwhen Americanpower
thenbeginsto be questioned,a new culturalapparatusbecomesnecessaryto rein-
forceit. The systemof postmodernism comes in as the vehiclefor a new kind of
ideologicalhegemonywhichmightnot have been requiredbefore.

Isn't thisview close to straightforward or instrumentalism?

functionalism

Yes and no. There is certainlya way in which this system-fromthe export of
Americantelevisionshows to so-calledhighculturalvalues,above all theverylogic
and practiceof "American" consumptionitself-is as effectivea vehiclefor de-
politicizationas religionmayonce have been. Therehad to be channelsof transmis-
sion and thoseare laid in place withcommunications systems,television,computers
and so forth.Worldwide,that'sreallyonlyavailablein the60s. Sufficeit simplyfora
power eliteto say: "Well, in thissituationwe need a culturalsystemwhichhas to
correspondto changes that are takingplace in people's lives and offera kind of
content."The new life experienceembodied in postmodernismis verypowerful
preciselybecause it has a greatdeal of contentthatseemsto come as a solutionto
existentialproblems.
A lot of otherdiscontinuoussystemsare goingon heretoo. Some of thesocial
effectsof Americanhegemonyare not feltuntilthe60s-the agriculturalrevolution
forexample-so it'swrongto see thismerelyin termsofpoliticalpower.A lot ofthe
social resistanceof the 60s comes when people-peasants forinstance-begin to
realizewhattheneo-colonialsystemsare doingto waysoflifethathad beenexploited
beforebut leftrelativelyintact.The emergenceof resistancedoes not necessarily
merelymean the rollingback of Americaninfluence;it can be a symptomof the
disintegrating forcesof thatinfluenceon deeperlevelsof social lifethanthepolitical
one.

Whenyoudepictthecapitalistdestruction of Van Gogh's worldofpeasantshoesand

Heidegger'scountrypathway,youdo so in termsof Tafuri'saccountofthemodernist
projectin architecture: theaim of insuringthatthefutureholdsno surprises,theidea
of "planification"and elimination of futurerisk.This seemsa validpoint.However,
you skate rathereasily over themodernizing featuresof marxismitself,theresultsof
which are clear and obvious in the unthinkingdestructionof the environment in
Soviet-stylesocieties.Planificationwitha vengeance,it actuallypreparesthegrounds
forfuturedisaster.The obliterationof Heidegger'spathwaycan thusbe seen as an
integralfeatureof any modernizingethic.

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Regarding Conversation
Postmodernism-A withFredric
Jameson 35

Plainly,in an advancedsocietyour immediateoppositionaltendencyis to talkabout

restrainingtechnologicalprogress.I am not sure poor societiesalways have that
option.Some of thesefeatures,what is happeningto citieslike Moscow, are part of
what could be called theculturaldebt crisis.Thinkof the 60s and 70s here,where
theyweresuckedinto the worldsystemand began to feeltheyhad to have tourists
and build big hotels.One has to distinguishbetweenthePrometheanscenario-the
strugglewithnature-and otherkindsof commodification thattheyreallyget from
us in a lot of ways.

YetStalinwas a greatadmirerof Americantechnology and Tayloristefficiency.The

fact thattheyengage in thissortof destruction is not a
only questionof wantingto
catch up with thewest or to
having competewith the west; it is also embeddedin a
certain kind of marxisttheory.By delineatingthe problematicin an exclusively
capitalistdomain you renderyourselfopen to the objectionthat thereis a strong
elementof conqueringnatureand older "logics" in marxistas well as capitalist
thought.Marcuse's analysisof Soviet theoryis surelyunequivocalon thispoint. If
yourargument,in short,is builton theidea of therelentlessorderingof theworldin
termsof the commodifying logic of capital, thenit mustalso be clear thatcertain
marxismsare farfrominnocent.

I agree. But the emphasison productionand productivity and catchingup with

capitalismis at least part of the rivalrythat capitalismhas laid on theseunderde-
velopedcountries:theyhaveto catchup. Therefore we have a veryelaboratedialecti-
cal processwherethesesocietieshave foundit necessaryto go beyondself-sufficiency
or autarchyto generatemodernizationfora lot of reasonslike armament.

is therefromtheoutset.
Yes,but theconceptionof modernity

That is indeedan ideologicalconception,and no doubt it needs to be rethought.

Yourmodelgoes fromthemicrolevel, assortedthingshereand there,to themacrolevel

represented by Mandel's conceptof Late Capitalism.These "homologies"between
thethreemomentsofcapitaland thethreemomentsin culturaldevelopment (realism,
modernismand postmodernism)lend credenceto descriptionsof yourpositionas
unreconstructed Lukacsianism.It does seema case ofexpressivecausality,correspon-
dences and all.
However,it is difficult to see how one can preservea consistentpoliticalcom-
mitmentif one adopts poststructuralist fantasiesof pure contingencyand non-
relation.In a nutshell,a certainamountof reductionism is necessary.Hence, objec-
tionsto theactual conceptof thethreestagesof capitalismaside, I thinktheidea of

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36 AndersStephanson

this kind of model perfectly

proper.Problemsarise, however,with the mediating
instances,theway in whichyoujump fromtheminuteto thestaggeringly global.

But Lukacs takesa moralizingpositionon modernism whichis neitherhistoricalnor

dialectical.He thinksitis something essentiallymorallywrongthatcan be eliminated
by an effortof the will. That is somethingverydifferent frommypresentationof
something that seems more morallyhorrendous,namelypostmodernism. As forex-
pressivecausality, I findit paradoxical that a discontinuous and dialectical
modelof
somethingcan be criticizedforbeingan idealisticcontinuity whichincludesa telos.
Each ofthesemomentsis dialecticallydifferent fromeach otherand has different laws
and modes of operation.I also make a place foroverdetermination, that is, some
thingsare enabled by developmentsin the culturalrealm which tie into othersat
certainconjunctures. I don'tthinkthat'swhat one woulddo in a modelof"the Spirit
of the Age." For example, the notion of hegemonyis not normallythoughtto be
Hegelian. In talkingabout a certainkindofculturalhegemony, I havelefta space for
oppositional or enclaves of resistance,all kinds of things not integratedinto the
global model but necessarily defined against it. I can see how in some veryloose and
generalsense one can make the sortof characterization you made, and in the same
loose and generalsense it wouldn'tbotherme. If we talk about the specificsof the
thing,thenI would wantto see what reprehensible thingsit endedup doingbeforeI
it.
accepted On the otherhand, as you say,any attemptto be systematic potentially
attractsthose criticismsbecause one is tryingto make a reduction.

Whatdistinguishes yourconceptof postmodernism is in factthatit is conceivednot

mode butas a culturaldominantIn thatwayitbearslittlerelationto the
as a stylistic
ideas of everyonefromTafurito Lyotard.

Two thingshere.First,it's importantto understandthatthisnotionof a dominant

does not excludeformsof resistance.In fact,thewhole pointforme in undertaking
this analysiswas theidea thatone wouldn'tbe able to measurethe effectiveness of
resistanceunlessone knew what thedominantforceswere.My conceptionof post-
modernismis thusnot meantto be a monolithicthingbut to allow evaluationsof
othercurrentswithinthis system-which cannot be measuredunless one knows
what thesystemis.
In thesecondplace I wantto propose a dialecticalview in whichwe neithersee
postmodernismas immoral,frivolousor reprehensible because of its lack of high
seriousness,nor as good in the McLuhanist,celebratorysense of the emergenceof
some wonderful new utopia.Featuresofbothare goingon at once. Certainaspectsof
postmodernism can be seen as relativelypositive,such as the returnof storytelling
afterthe sortof poetic novelsthat modernismused to produce. Otherfeaturesare

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 37

obviouslynegative(the loss of a sense of historyfor example). All in all, these

developmentshaveto be confronted as a historicalsituationratherthanas something
one morallydeploresor simplycelebrates.

Moralizingaside, is postmodernismnot predominantlynegativefroma marxist

perspective?

Think of its popular characterand the relativedemocratization involvedin various

postmodernist forms. This is an experience of cultureaccessibleto farmorepeople
than the oldermodernistlanguageswere. Certainly,thatcannot be altogetherbad.
Culturalizationofthingson a verywide frontmightbe deploredbypeople forwhom
modernismwas a very sophisticatedlanguage to be conquered by dint of self-
formation,ofwhichpostmodernism is thena bastardizationand vulgarization.Why
thisshouldbe condemnedfroma leftstandpointis howevernot clear to me.

In thatsenseno, butas youyourself

haveemphasized,simpleoppositionto totalityin
thename ofsome celebratedfragmentationand heterogeneity
renderstheveryidea of
critiquedifficult.

Yetevenheterogeneity is a positivething:thesocial rhetoricofdifferences

reflectedin
this and that is surelynot in itselfa bad thing.The point is that many of these
seemingly negativefeaturescan be looked at positivelyiftheyare seen historically.
If
you see them as itemsin a defense of postmodernart, thenthey don't look thesame.
Postmodernarchitecture is demonstrably a symptomof democratization, of a new
relationshipof cultureto people, but this does not mean that you can defendor
glamorizethe buildingsof thepostmodernists because theyare populistbuildings.

It is obvious, nevertheless,
that postmodernistdiscoursemakes it difficultto say
thingsabout thewhole.

One of the ways of describingthis is as a modificationin the verynatureof the

culturalsphere:a loss of the autonomyof culture,a case of culturefallinginto the
world.As yousay,thismakesit muchmoredifficult to speak ofculturalsystemsand
to evaluatethemin isolation.A wholenew theoretical problemis posed. Thinkingat
once negativelyand positivelyabout it is a beginning,but what we need is a new
vocabulary.The languagesthathavebeen usefulin talkingabout cultureand politics
in thepast don't reallyseem adequate to thishistoricalmoment.

Yetyou retainthe classical marxistparadigm:themasternarrativeunderneaththis

searchfora new vocabularyis verytraditional.

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38 Anders
Stephanson

Traditionalin a sensebutit impliesa thirdstageofcapitalismwhichis notpresentin

Marx ...

Nor indeedis thesecondone, "monopolycapitalism,"whichwas an inventionofthe

Second Internationalboughtwholesaleand withverybad resultsby the Third.

The marxistframeworkis stillindispensableforunderstanding

the new historical
content, which not
demands, a modificationofthe marxist
framework,butan expan-
sion of it.

Whyis thatclear?

Contemporarymarxisteconomicsand social scienceis not a rewriting of 19thcen-

turymarxism.One can as
dramatizethis Mandel does by sayingthatit is not that
realityhas evolvedawayfromthemodel,it is not thatthisis no longerthecapitalism
analyzedbyMarx, but thatit is a muchcloser,purerversionofcapitalism.A feature
of this thirdstage is thatthe precapitalistenclaveshave systematically
been penet-
rated, commodified and assimilatedto the dynamics of the If
system. the original
instruments of marxismare unserviceableit is not thatmarxismis wrongnow but
that it is truernow than in Marx's time. Hence we need an expansion of these
instruments ratherthan a replacementof them.

The old Lukacsianmodelof truthand falseconsciousnessis, I suppose,one casualty

in thisregard.

In themoreinteresting partsof Lukacs,thatis notin factthemodel.Let me put that

in a morepersonalway.Obviously,thereis falseconsciousnessand thereare moments
when one wants to denounce certainthingsas sheerfalse consciousness.That is
essentiallya politicaldecisionand part of a strugglethathas to be. In ideological
analysis,on the otherhand, the denunciationof works of art forembodyingfalse
consciousnesswas possible onlyin a moreheterogeneousclass situation,wherethe
workingclasses were a nation withinthe nation and did not consumebourgeois
culture.When one takes one's stand in such circumstances, thenone can see that
certainkindsofobjects-Proust forexample-are decadentin thesenseofnotbeing
themode in whicheitherexperienceor artisticformmakes any senseto people who
work.Fromthatviewpointone can denouncethedecadenceand falseconsciousness
which Proustundoubtedlyembodied.But now,when theseclass differences are no
longersecuredby social isolationand with a continuingprocess of massivedemo-
craticculturalization,thereis no space whichtheleftcan be outside.My positionon

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 39

ideologicalanalysisof worksof art todayis therefore thatyou don't denouncethem

fromtheoutside.Ifyouwantto denouncethemas falseconsciousness,youhaveto do
it fromtheinsideand it has to be a self-critique.
It is notbecause falseconsciousness
doesn'texistanymore-perhapsbecauseitis everywhere-thatwe haveto talkabout
it in a different
way.

You propose, then,to preserve"the momentof truth"in postmodernism.What

exactlyis it?

I am usingcontemporary Germanpost-Hegelianlanguagehere.Ideologicalanalysis
fromthatvantagepointmeanstalkingabout themomentoftruthand themomentof
untruth,and in this case I am tryingto say that insofaras postmodernism really
expressesmultinationalcapitalism,thereis somecognitivecontentto it. It is articulat-
ing somethingthat is going on. If the subject is lost in it, and if in social lifethe
psychicsubjecthas been decenteredby late capitalism,thenthis art faithfully and
authentically
registersthat. That's its momentof truth.

Modernism,as youhaveargued,emergesat thesame timeas mass cultureto whichit

is thusinextricablylinked.Postmodernism can thenbe seen as thecollapseof these
two intoone again. TerryEagletonhas reformulatedthisas a kindofsickjoke on the
historicalavant-garde,wheretheavant-gardeattemptto breakdown theboundaries
betweenart and social lifesuddenlybecomesa reactionary implosion.

It's nota matterofbecomingthat,butbeingrevealedas that.The otherversionofthat

accountwhichI findverypersuasiveis thatofTafuriin connectionwitharchitecture.
He tries to show that the protopoliticalaestheticrevolutionfirstlaid down in
Schiller-i.e., we mustchangeour existentialexperienceand thatwill in itselfbe a
revolution-is virtuallytaken over word forword by le Corbusier:we change the
space we live in and then we don't need political revolution.The protopolitical
impulseofmodernism, accordingto Tafuri,is necessarilyalwayspredicatedon exclu-
sion, for the radical new space of the modernthingmust begin by a gestureof
excludingtheold fallenspace thatis to be revolutionized. Implicithereis thebelief
that this new space will fan out and transformthe old space. Instead it simply
remainsan enclavespace; and when the existentialand culturalspatial revolution
failsto takehold in thisfallenoutlyingworld,thebuildingor workofartbecomesan
isolated monument,testifying to its own sterility
or impotence.It ceases to be a
revolutionary gesture.So what Eagleton is ironizingis in Tafuri'saccountalready
implicitin the firstmodernisms.

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40 AndersStephanson

Thereis a misreading
ofyourreadingofTafuriwhichseemsto say thatbycallingfora
"properly Gramscian youare simplycallingforsome clearedenclaveof
architecture"
not
resistance, quite what you are arguing.

In myappeal to a Gramscianarchitecture, I also mentionedLefebvre.I was thinking

not of an architectural
practiceas such but of an awarenessthatthelocus ofour new
realityand theculturalpoliticsby whichit mustbe confronted is thatof space. We
musttherefore beginto thinkof culturalpolitics in terms of space and thestrugglefor
space. Thenwe are no longerthinking in old categoriesofcriticaldistancebutin some
new waywherethedisinherited and essentiallymodernist languageofsubversionand
negation is conceived Tafuri's
differently. argument is couched in culturalterms,but
what mattersin any defeator success of a plan to transform the cityis political
power,controlover speculationand land values and so on. That's a veryhealthy
infrastructuralawareness.

How does thisdifferfromtraditionalpolitics?

The difference is thatthe politicalprojectis projectedonto at least two levels:the

practicalmatterofthisplace,thisterrain,and theseresistances;and then,above and
beyondthat,the culturalvisionof utopianspace of whichthisparticularenclaveis
but a specificfigure.All of which can be said in a morebanal way in termsof the
decayoftheveryconceptof socialismwhichwe can observeeverywhere (in all three
worlds): it is a matterof reinventing thatconceptas a powerfulculturaland social
vision,something one does notdo simplyby repeatinga worn-outnameor term.But
it is a two-levelstrategy:thespecificspace or place and theglobalvisionofwhichthe
firstis onlyone particularmanifestation or local fulfillment.
Add to thisthefactand
problemofthenewglobalsystemic space and we havea demandmadeon thepolitical
imaginationwhichis historically unparalleled.
Let me put it thisway: thereexiststoday a global capitalist,or late capitalist
culture,which we call, as is now apparent,postmodernism. It is a tremendously
powerfulforcewhich,in sheergravitationalattractionand capabilityof diffusion, is
known,or used to be known,as culturalimperialism. Nothinglike a global socialist
cultureexistsas a distinctoppositionalforceand styleto this.On the otherhand,
when one proposes such a politicalprojectto some of the interestedparties,they
rightlybeginat once to worryabout the dissolutionof thatnationalsituationand
culturewhichhas generallyplayedsucha powerfulrolein socialistrevolutions. What
is wanted is thereforea new relationshipbetweena global culturalstyleand the
specificity and demandsof a concretelocal or nationalsituation.

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 41

Is thespatial aspectnot reallywhatsocial democratsin Europe havebeenconcerned

with,sometimessuccessfully, fora long time?

The problemwiththesocial democraticgovernments is thatthey'vegainedpowerin

a nation-statewhose economicrealitiesare reallycontrolledby the international
market.They are therefore not in controlof theirown nationalspace. Ultimately,
I
am talkingabout a global space which is not an abstractspeculativething.I am
talkingabout thefactthattheproletariatofthefirstworldis now in thethirdworld,
that productionis takingplace around the Pacificbasin or wherever.These are
practicalrealities,and thecontrolofnationalspace mayitselfbe an outmodedidea in
a situationof multinationals.

Indeed,one maytakeyourmacro-analysis to meanthatthetaskofradicalfirst-world

intellectualsis a kindof "third-worldism.'"
This,to mymind,recallsvarious"bribery
theories"ofthe60s-using theabsenceofmovement amongthewesternworkingclass
as a justificationforfixationon otherand less quiescentcontinents.Eventuallythese
positions were discardedand so.
rightly

The attractivenessof "thirdworldism"as an ideologyrisesand fallswiththecondi-

tion of the thirdworlditself,but the politicalmovementgoingon today-such as
thereis-is in places likeNicaragua and SouthAfrica.Surely,then,thethirdworldis
stillverymuchalive as a possibility.It is not a matterof cheeringforthird-world
countriesto make theirrevolution;it is a dialecticalmatterofseeingthatwe hereare
involvedin theseareas and are busytrying to putthemdown,thattheyarepartofour
power relations.

But thattendsto end up in moralism:"we shouldn'tdo thisand we shouldn'tdo that

in thethirdworld." Once one has realizedthat,what is thereto do? No particular
politicsfollowsas faras thefirstworlditselfis concerned.One tendsto end up with
Paul Sweezy'spositionwheretheonly thingto do is to preventinterventions in the
thirdworld.This strikesme as a bit barren.

Well,what are thealternatives? We are talkingabout cultureand cultureis a matter

of awareness;and it would notbe a bad kindof awarenessto generatethatwe in the
superstateare at all timesa presencein third-world
realities,thatour affluenceand
powerare in theprocessof doingsomethingto them.The formthisawarenesstakes
in Americanculturehas to do not onlywithforeignpolicybut also withthenotion
that the US itselfis a third-worldcountry.In a way,we have become the biggest

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42 Anders
Stephanson

third-world
country,in the productionof unemployment,
the productionof non-
the
production, flight of factories
and so on.

Why does that make us a third-world

country?It seems like the definitionof a
one.
first-world

If thethirdworldis defined,as it sometimeshas been,as thedevelopment of under-

development, thenit does seem clear thatwe have begunto do thisto ourselvesas
well. In any case, the apparentreturnto some financecapitalismwith dizzying
edificesof creditand paper no longerreposingon theinfrastructure or "ground"of
real productionofferssome peculiaranalogies to current(poststructuralist) theory
itself.Let's say thatherethefirstworld-if it does not revertback into third-world
realities-unexpectedlyand in a peculiar dialecticalreversalbeginsto touch some
featuresof third-world experience,perhapsanotherreason third-world culturehas
lately become one of our passionateinterests.

In arguingagainstcondemnationand celebration,you wish to encouragea critique

whichgoes throughpostmodernism in a sortof "homeopathic"way.

To undo postmodernismhomeopathicallyby the methodsof postmodernism:to

work at dissolvingthe pasticheby using all the instruments of pasticheitself,to
reconquer some genuine historical
sense by using the instrumentsof what I have
called substitutesforhistory.

How is this"homeopathic"operationto be understoodmorespecifically?

The figureof homeopathicmedicineheredoes not implythatthat is the onlyway

culturefunctions, butit is oftenthecase. Modernism,forexample,was an experience
of nascentcommodification whichfoughtreification bymeansofreification, in terms
of reification.
It was itselfa giganticprocessof reification internalizedas a homeo-
pathicwayofseizingon thisforce,mastering it and opposingtheresultto reifications
passively submitted to in external I
reality. am wonderingwhethersome positive
featuresof postmodernism couldn'tdo thatas well: an attemptsomehowto master
these thingsby choosingthemand pushingthemto theirlimits.There is a whole
range of so-called oppositionalarts,whetherit's punk writing,or ethnicwriting,
whichreallytryto use postmoderntechniques-thoughforobviousreasonsI dislike
thetermtechnique-to go throughand beyond.It's certainlywrongto go down the
listof contemporary trendsand once again, in typicalleftwingfashion,tryand find
out whichis progressive.The onlyway througha crisisof space is to inventa new
space.

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 43

Despite thedisappearanceofa senseof history,

thereis no lack of historicalelements
in postmodernculture.

When I talkedabout theloss of history,I didn'tmeanthedisappearanceofimagesof

history,forinstancein the case of nostalgia film.The increasingnumberof films
about thepast are no longerhistoricalbut images,simulacra,pastichesofthepast. It
is effectively
a way of satisfyinga chemicalcravingforhistoricity with a product
which is a substituteforit and which blocks it.

But historicalimagesare always in a way substitutes.

That is notthewayLukacs analyzedthehistoricalnovelin itsemergent form.I would

also arguethatsomethinglikesciencefictioncan occasionallybe looked at as a way
of breakingthroughto historyin a new way,achievinga distinctive historicalcon-
sciousnessby way of the futureratherthan the past, becomingconscious of our
presentas thepast of some unexpectedfutureratherthan as the futureof a heroic
nationalpast (thetraditionalhistoricalnovelofLukacs).Butnostalgiaartgivesus the
imageofvariousgenerationsof thepast as fashion-plate images,whichentertainno
determinableideological relationshipto othermomentsof time: theyare not the
outcomeofanything, northeantecedentsofourpresent;theyare simplyimages.This
is the sense in which I describethemas substitutesforany genuinehistoricalcon-
sciousnessratherthan specificnew formsof thelatter.

The cannibalizingof stylesis part and parcel of thistypeof "historicity."

What thearchitectscall historicism,

the eclecticuse of dead languages.

I firstbecameawareof thisa coupleofyearsago withregardto fashion,whenthe50s

was beingminedalong withitsideologicalorientation:the schlockoftheEisenhower
epoch,thefascinationwithtelevisionseriesof thatperiod and so forth.Now, when
thatseemsexhausted,thereis excavationof the60s, not thepoliticized60s but the
60s of thego-go girls.One can imaginethateven the militant60s can be used for
stylisticinnovation,ratherin themannerin whichMacy's department storeinstantly
transforms East Villagevogues into commercialvalues.

Perhapsone couldwritea historyofthesenostalgias.It would be plausibleto saythat

in a momentofexhaustionwithpoliticstheimagesthatare cannibalizedand offered
by nostalgiafilmare those of a greatdepoliticizedera. Then, when unconsciously
political drives begin to reawaken,they are contained by offeringimages of a

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44 AndersStephanson

politicizedera. We are all happyto have a movielike Reds, but is thatnot also a
nostalgiafilm?

Perhaps,but nostalgiais difficult

to avoid in popular depictionsof thepast.

What is at stakeis a historicalsituationand one can'twishthispostmodernblockage

of historicityout of existenceby mereself-critical self-consciousness.If it's the case
that we have a veryreal difficulty in imaginingthe radicaldifference withthepast,
thenthisdifficulty cannotbe overcomeby an act of thewill,bydecidingthatthisis
thewrongkindofhistoryto haveand thatwe oughtto do it in someotherway.This
forme is the fascinationwithDoctorow's novels.Here we have a radical leftwing
novelistwho has seized the whole apparatus of nostalgia art, pasticheand post-
modernismin orderto workhimselfthroughtheminsteadof attempting to resusci-
tate some olderformof social realism,an alternativewhichwould in itselfbecome
anotherpastiche.Doctorow'sis notnecessarilytheonlypossiblepath,butI findit an
intriguingattempt"homeopathically"to undo postmodernism by the methodsof
postmodernism: to work at dissolvingthe pasticheby usingall the instruments of
pasticheitself,to reconquersomegenuinehistoricalsensebyusingtheinstruments of
what I have called substitutesforhistory.
In yourtermsthis mightbe anotherversionof third-worldism in the cultural
sense.We comeback to lookingforsomealternative place whichis neitherthepast of
the firstworld,the great momentof modernism,nor its presentwhich is that of
schizophrenictextuality.

But how is it possible, in a mode of culturalexpressionwhich, by definition,is

to say anythingabout deepstructures?
superficial, Afterall, theessenceofmarxismis
to say somethingabout what "reallyis."

There Doctorow is still my best example, for by turningthe past into something
which is obviouslya black simulacrumhe suddenlymakes us realizethatthisis the
onlyimageofthepast we have,in trutha projectionon thewallsofPlato'scave.This,
if you like, is negativedialectics,or negativetheology,an insistenceon the very
flatnessand depthlessnessofthethingwhichmakeswhat isn'tthereveryvivid.That
is not negligible.It is not thereinvention
of some sense ofthepast whereone would
fantasizeabout a healthierage of deeperhistoricalsense: it is the use of thesevery
limitedinstruments to show theirlimits.And it is not ironic.

to get somewhereelse? If you

But how does one use thatperceptionof difference
resortto homology,you'vebasicallydone thesame thingthatyou criticizein Reds
but not in Doctorow.

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding withFredric
Conversation Jameson 45

The problemof homologies(and the unsatisfactory nature of these parallels or

analogiesbetweenlevels)has been a constanttheoreticalconcernforme. Something
like homologydoes seem difficult to avoid when one attemptsto correlatedistinct
semi-autonomous fields.I've playedwithalternativeconcepts:Sartre'snotionof the
analagon and Peirce'sconceptoftheinterpretant. Bothofthesestresstheoperationof
readinganalogies off the allegoricalobject, ratherthan discoveringthemontologi-
cally,as "realities"in the world.And each seemsin additionto contributea little
towardsclarifying theprocessI've called cognitivemapping,theinvention ofwaysof
using one object and one to
reality get a mental of
grasp something else which one
cannotrepresent or imagine.As an emblemofthisprocessI mightofferthepictureof
those hypersterilizedlaboratorychambersinto which enormousglovesand instru-
mentsprotrude,manipulatedby the scientistfromtheoutside.The normalbody is
doing one thing,but the resultsare takingplace in anotherspace altogetherand
accordingto otherdimensions,otherparameters.It mustbe a bewildering setoftasks
to exercise,as farfromour normalbodilyoperationsas thedeductiveor abductive
appropriation ofthebanana is forthelaboratorymonkey. Butthat,ifitwerepossible,
wouldgiveyouan idea ofthenew kindsofrepresentational processesdemandedhere.

The personal"style"so typicalof modernismhas accordingto you becomea mere

code in postmodernism.

This is anotherfeaturedevelopedprimarilyby poststructuralism, namely,theeclipse

oftheold personalsubjectand ego. Modernism was on
predicated theachievement of
some uniquepersonalstylewhichcould be parlayedout to thesubjectofgenius,the
charismaticsubject,thesupersubjectifyou like.Ifthatsubjecthas disappeared,the
styleslinkedto it are no longerpossible. A certainformof depersonalizationthus
seemsimplicitin all of this: even when modernismitselfis pastiched,it is only an
imitationof style,not a style.
Still,I alwaysinsiston a thirdpossibilitybeyondtheold bourgeoisego and the
schizophrenicsubjectof our organizationsocietytoday: a collectivesubject,decen-
teredbut not schizophrenic.It emergesin certainformsof storytelling that can be
foundin third-world literature, in gossip and rumorsand
in testimonialliterature,
whichis neitherpersonalin themodernist
thingsofthiskind.It is a storytelling sense,
nordepersonalizedin thepathologicalsenseoftheschizophrenic text.It is decentered
sincethestoriesyoutellthereas an individualsubjectdon'tbelongto you; you don't
controlthemthe way the mastersubject of modernismwould. But you don't just
sufferthemin theschizophrenic isolationof thefirst-worldsubjectoftoday.None of
thisis to reinventstylein theoldersense.

thevery
context,you called the brush-stroke
Some yearsago, in a whollydifferent

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46 Anders
Stephanson

signof themoderngenius;pointingspecifically to de Kooning'smega-brushstroke

as
the last gasp of some individualizingart. Yet the next morningneo-expressionism
broughtback thismega brushstroke witha vengeance.Wouldyou thensay thatthis
was pastiche,not thesurvivingelementof some oldermodernism?

Some of it is merelya pasticheof modernistsubjectivity.

Certain of thesepainters,Immendorffor instance,were on the otherhand quite

storiesto tell.
explicitlypoliticalwithinteresting

A lot ofitis Europeanor fromthesemi-periphery oftheAmericancore (e.g. Canada).

It would seem,forinstance,that neo-expressionism flourishedparticularlyin Italy
and Germany,thetwo westerncountrieswhichexperiencedthehistorical"break" of
fascism.One could argue with Habermas here who sees the German versionof
neo-expressionism We,on theotherhand,couldperhapsuse itin other
as reactionary.
ways, not classing it as a morbid attemptto reinventa subjectivity
which in the
Germantraditionis taintedanyway.

And now we see the returnof minimalism,blank surfacesand "neo-geo" forms

lookingratherlike 60s and early70s to me. The cannibalizationof styleshas appar-
entlybeen "revvedup," conceivablyendingin some furious,vertiginous act of biting
its own tail.
You suggest an interestingconnection between Tafuri's rigorous anti-
utopianism-hisalmost Adorniannegativedialecticsof architecture-andVenturi's
celebrationof Las Vegas: the system,for both, is essentiallya massivelyall-
encompassingone whichcannotbe changed.The difference is thatTafuristoically
refusesit, while Venturiinventsways of "relaxing"withinit.

For Tafuri,Venturiis himselfpart of an oppositionwhichis ratherthatof Mies to

Venturi.One solutionis thatof absoluteMallarmeanpurityand silence;theotheris
theabandonmentofthatfinalattemptat negativepurityand thefallingback intothe
world.The problemwithVenturi'sarchitecture or his "solution"-characteristicofa
lotofpoststructuralisms today-is theappeal to irony, whichis a modernistsolution.
He wantsto use thelanguageofthevernacularofLas Vegas,but,beingengagedin art
he also has to havesomekindofminimaldistanceto it.All ofthisart,
and aesthetics,
as Tafurisays, is predicatedon distanceand distanceis always a failure:since it
distancesitselffromwhat it wantsto change,it can't changeit.

he claims
This remindsme of yourcriticismof Lyotard'sconceptofpostmodernism:
to have eliminatedthemasternarrativesbut thensmugglesthemback in again.

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 47

His mostfamousstatement on postmodernism is thatit shouldprepareforthereturn

of thegreatmodernisms.Now does thatmean thereturnof thegreatmasternarra-
tives?Is therenot some nostalgiaat work here?On the otherhand, insofaras the
refusalof narrativesis viewed as the place of the perpetualpresent,of anarchist
science to use Feyerabend'sterm(the randombreakingof paradigmsand so on),
we're in fullpostmodernism.

So themasternarrativesin thatsense are not dead.

All one has to do is to look at thereemergence

ofreligiousparadigms,whetherit is
Iran, or liberationtheology, or Americanfundamentalism. There are all kinds of
masternarrativesin thisworldwhichis presumablybeyondnarrative.

The appropriationof modernismin the UnitedStates,whenit comes,is quite differ-

ent fromthe European predecessors.Though in itselfa depoliticizedart, postwar
modernismhereis neverthelessemployedin veryinstrumental ways.

The politicalelementsof "originalmodernism"in its historicalemergencewereleft

out in thisprocessof transplantation so thatthevariousmodernisms have been read
as subjectivizingand inward-turning.Otherfeaturesvanishedtoo. The wholeutopian
and aesthetico-politicalelementin modernarchitecture,Le Corbusierforexample,is
no longervisiblewhen we are talkingabout greatmonumentsand conventionsim-
itated in the schools. At the same timeone mustsay that this modernismwas no
longerbeingproduced: therewas not a livingmodernismthatcould have been en-
couragedin a different way.

You mentionsomewhereHabermas's defenseof theidea of a possible highmodern-

ism again and point out thatthisseems to be a defenseagainsta politicalreaction
whichin WestGermanyis stillreallyanti-modernist. In thiscountrythecase is in fact
the opposite, is it not? The Hilton Kramershere are obviously not defending
radicalism.Defense of postmodernism-onethinksof Tom Wolfe-canon theother
hand also be associated withrightwingpolitics.

The modernismHilton Kramerwantsto go back to is thesubjectivizing modernism

of the50s, theAmericanreadingof modernismwhichhas been sullied,lostitspurity
and so mustbe recovered.However,Habermas'smodernism(I hesitateto call it the
genuinearticle)is seen in thecontextof 1910 and is therefore
somethingverydiffer-
ent. Modernismelsewheredied a naturaldeath and is thusno longeravailable,but
modernismin Germanywas of course cut shortby Nazism and thereis thus an

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48 AndersStephanson

characterto that projectwhich I presumesomeone like Habermas can

unfulfilled
attempt take up again. But thatoptionis not viable forus.
to

The coupurein the"dominant"occurs,as yououtlineit,in thelateSOs or early60s.

Artbecomescompletelyenmeshedin thepoliticaleconomyof itsown sphere,which
in turnbecomespartof a greatereconomicsystem.Emblematicamong thepictorial
artistshereis Warhol,whomyou contrastwithvan Gogh in theinitialdelineationof
modernismlpostmodernism. Warholis perhapsalmosttoo obviousa case. How does
a contemporary of his like Rauschenbergfitin?

Rauschenbergis transitional,comingin at thetail end of abstractexpressionismbut

now in themostrecentstuffdevelopinga whole panoplyofwaysof doingpostmod-
ernism.His newworkare all collagesurfaceswiththephotographicimages,ofwhich
thereare, symptomatically, both modernistand postmodernistones in the same
work.The otherthingabout himis thathe worksa lotin third-world countrieswhere
a lot of thesephotographsare from.
In dealingwithpostmodernism, one can isolatepeople who made somepioneer-
ing contributions,but questionsabout how greattheseare-questions that
aesthetic
can legitimatelybe posed whenyou'redealingwithmodernism-makelittlesense.I
don'tknowhow greatRauschenberg is, butI saw a wonderful showofhisin China, a
glitteringsetofthingswhichoffered all kindsofpostmodernist experiences.Butwhen
they'reover,they'reover.The textualobject is not,in otherwords,a workof art,a
"masterwork"like the modernistmonumentwas. The appreciationof it no longer
requirestheattachmentof some permanentevaluationto theworkas it would with
themodernist and in thatsenseit is moreofwhatI sometimescall
paintersor writers,
a disposabletext.You go intoa Rauschenbergshowand experiencea processdone in
veryexpertand inventive ways; and when you leave it,it's over.

What was thereactionof theChineseaudience?

Fascination,puzzlement.I triedto explainto myChinese studentsabout postmod-

ernism,but fora generalChineseaudienceit would simplyjust be "westernart." To
understandit youhaveto understandit in our historicalcontext:it isn'tjustmodern
art in generalbut a specificmomentof it.

How are thetraditionalwaysof apprehending art changingwithall thegreatsocial

transformationsnow goingon in China? Is therean attemptto rejuvenatemodernist
to replacetraditionwithwesternsubjectivity?
notionsof creativity,

It is notbeingreplacedin thatway.Thereis a lot oftranslationofwesternbestsellers

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 49

but also ofhighculture;translationsof The Soundand theFury,AliceWalker'sThe

Color Purple, but also lots of ArthurHaileys. Maybe I can explain it in termsof
theory.The Chinese are now interestedin two kindsof theory:westerntheoryand
traditionalChinesetheory.It is feltthatbothoftheseare leversthatcan getthemout
of the kindof essentiallySovietculturaltheorytheyweretrainedon in theSOs. As
Deng You-mei,one of themostinteresting Chinesewriters,said to me: "We are not
muchinterested in westernmodernismas such.We are boredbynovelsthatdon'ttell
stories."In otherwords,theelaboratesymbolismyoufindinJamesJoyceor Virginia
Woolfdoesn'tdo anythingforthem.Rightafterthefallof theGang of Four,it was
importantto recoup some of what had been forgotten, but when I got thereand
thoughtI was bringing someenlightenment about Kafka,theyinformedme thatthey
had beeninterested in thisat theend ofthe70s butnotanymore.Deng You-meisaid:
"What you have to realizeis thatforus realismis also western.Our realismscome
out ofthewesterntraditions;certainly thedominantrealismofthe50s was theSoviet
one. We thinkthereis something different
frombothmodernism and realismand that
is traditionalChinese storytelling."
This is the thirdworld'sinputinto the whole poststructuralist debate on rep-
resentationwhich is looselyassimilatedto realismoverhere:if it is representation
and realism,it's bad, and youwantto breakit up withthedecenteredsubjectand so
on. ButtheseChinesestringsofepisodicnarrativesfalloutsidethisframework. They
are an exampleof goingback to thesortof storytelling whichone findsboth in the
thirdworld's discoveryof its own way of tellingstoriesand in a certainformof
postmodernism. So one has to rethinkthisquestionof realismand representation in
the Chinese context.I took a tour throughsome famousgrottoswith stalactites.
Imaginethe bourgeoispublic thathates modernart and herein the same way you
have a guidewitha littlelightprojectorwho proclaims:"Look at theserocks.There
is an old man,threechildren,there'sthegoddess,etc."Andyouthink:thisis themost
rudimentary formof what we denounceas representation in thewest,a public that
thinksin theseterms.But China developed,alongsidethispopular realisticor rep-
resentational perception, kindofspatialperceptionin theevolutionof
a verydifferent
thewrittencharacters.It is possible,therefore,thatan oppositionalculturein China
mighttaketheformofa revivalofcertainkindsofpopularwaysofseeingthings,ways
whichwould not necessarilyseem the same to us.

Whatabout allegoryhere?You have referred

to allegoryin thethird-world
novelas
well as withregardto postmodernism.

That was one attemptto theorizea difference

in third-worldculturefromourown. In
non-hegemonic in
situations, situationsof economic or cultural there
subalternity,
to thenationalsituationthatis alwayspresentand alwaysfelt
tendsto be a reference

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50 AndersStephanson

in a way thatit cannotbe in thedominantcultureofthesuperstate.But thistypeof

analysisis notintendedas a programforartto theeffectthatwe shouldnow beginto
writeallegories.

The Chinesecave mentionedbeforecannot be describedas one of hyperspace.

Nor does it reallybetokenany radical culturaldifference. This is exactlywhat the

Americantouristwould do with the caves in Louisville,Kentucky.Whetherit is a
revolutionary peasantrylookingat theseor an Americantouristis notrelevantto that
conception.If, as Bourdieu has explored,people have no institutionalreason to
justifythe aestheticoperationto themselves, namelyby seeingthat it is somehow
good and a sign ofsocial distinction to have a little
artistictraining,thentheyhaveto
have anotherreasonfordoingit,and thatreasonends up in seeinglikenesses.Seeing
likenessesin thisbasicallymimeticsenseis not inherently a signof thepeople or the
populareither,but it is certainlyan interesting indexoftherelationship ofcultureto
people forwhom culture is not a sociallysignifying property or attribute.
In postmodernism on theotherhand, everyonehas learnedto consumeculture
through televisionand other mass media,so youno longerneeda rationale.You look
at advertisingbillboards,you look at collagesofthingsbecause it is therein external
reality.The whole matterofhow youjustifyto yourself thetimeofconsumingculture
disappears:you are no longer even aware of consumingit. Everything is culture,the
cultureof thecommodity. That's a verysignificant featureofpostmodernism, which
accountsforthe disappearancefromit of thetraditionaltheories,justifications and
rationalizationsofwhat we used to call aesthetics(and ofconceptsof highculture).

Postmodernart may in some sense be disposable textsbut its monetaryvalue is of

courseanythingbut disposableand transient.Warhol,it shouldbe underlined,does
understood,an originator.
notappearin themodelas, traditionally Yourobjectis the
not theevaluationof contemporary
systemic, artists.

In tryingto theorizethe systematic,I was usingcertainof thesethingsas allegories.

Fromthisangleit makesno sensetryingto look forindividualtrends,and individual
artistsare onlyinterestingifone findssome momentwherethesystemas a whole,or
some limitof it, is beingtouched.Evaluationdoes come in since one can imaginea
muchless interesting postmodernistexhibitionand one would thenhaveto say that
thatpainteris not as good as Rauschenberg.But thisis not thesame kindof use of
aestheticaxiologicalevaluationthatpeople feltthemselvesable to do whentheywere
handling modernism,making relative assessments Proust against Mann for
of
example.

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 Postmodernism-A
Regarding Conversation
withFredric
Jameson 51

All thegreatmodernistsinventedmodernismin theirown fashion.It is likewise

clear thatno one singlepostmodernist can giveus postmodernism sinceit is a system
involving a whole of
range things. Warhol is emblematic of one featureofpostmod-
ernismand thesame goes forPaik. Theyallow youto analyzeand specifysomething
partial,and in that sense theiractivitiesare surelyoriginal:theyhave identifieda
whole rangeof thingsto do and thenmovedin to colonizethisnew space. However,
this is not originalin the world-historicalsense of the greatmodernistcreator.If a
singleartistactuallyembodied all of thesethings,Laurie Andersonforexample,she
would no doubt be transcendingpostmodernism.But where Wagner, in the
Gesamtkunstwerk, mayhave done somethinglike thatin a keymomentof modern-
ism, Laurie Anderson's Gesamtkunstwerk does notdo thatfora non-systematizable
system, a non-totalizablesystem.

This leavesno greatspace forcriticismofindividualworks.Whatis thetaskonce one

has relatedthepart to the whole?

If theyare no longerworks,in otherwords.This is particularly trueforvideo,which

one usuallysees in batches.You haveput thefinger on thefundamental methodologi-
cal problemof the criticismof postmodernism. For to talk about any singleone of
thesepostmodernist textsis to reifyit,to turnitintotheworkofartit no longeris, to
endow it with a permanenceand monumentality thatit is its vocationto dispel. A
criticsupposed to analyze individualtexts is thus faced with almost insuperable
problems:themomentyou analyzea singlepiece ofvideo artyou do it violence,you
removesomeof itsprovisionality and anonymity and turnit intoa masterpieceor at
least a privilegedtextagain. It's mucheasierto deal withit in termsoftrends:here'sa
new trend(describedas suchand such) and here'sanother.Butthewhole languageof
trendsis the dialecticof modernism.

We are returning
hereto theproblemof evaluation.

The Cubans,who havea different system,pointout thatour senseofvalue,in a good

as well as bad sense,is givento us by theart market.One possibleoppositeof this
would be a situation-I'm expandingon theirargument-whereonly a few styles
would be permitted. Butin a countrylikeCuba, devoidof an artmarketbut exceed-
inglypluralisticculturally,where you will findeverything fromsocial realismto
pop-artto abstractexpressionism, thereis no mechanismwhichcan say thatthisis
moreadvancedthanthat.One beginsto sensethenthattheartmarkethas an almost
religious-ontologicalfunctionforus. We don't have to face thisradical pluralityof
stylesof"anythinggoes" becausesomebodyis alwaysaroundto tellus thatthisthing

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52 AndersStephanson

is a littlenewerthanthatone. Or morevaluable,sinceI thinknow our value system

dependson thattransmission of the marketmechanism.

So how do theCubans evaluate?

It is a realproblem:theydon'tknow.Theyconfront thedeathofvalue (in Nietzsche's

version, thedeath of God) in a much more intensewaythanwe do. We stillhavethese
marveloustheologicalmechanismsby whichwe pickthingsout and sortthem.They
have a moreinteresting problemof what the value of art would be in a situationof
completefreedom,in the Nietzscheansense: freedom,that is, to do anythingyou
want. Then value entersa crisisalso of the Nietzscheantype.This is not the case
wherethereis stilla market,or whereonlya fewstylesare permitted and anyonewho
pushesagainst theparadigm can be identified.
Then,too, you knowwhere
certainly
you stand in terms of value.

You say somewherethat the dialecticalimaginationto which Marcuse refershas

atrophied.Yetat thesame timeyou say thata constitutive featureof mass cultureis
thatit satisfiesa deep utopianimpulsein theconsumer.If theimaginationhas been
atrophied,theimpulsehas not?

Marcuse,ironically, was thegreattheoristoftheautonomyofculture.The problemis

that he revertsin a muchsimplermannerto Adorno'smodernism, to its autonomy.
ButAdorno'sgreataesthetics-theaestheticsyouwritewhenit is impossibleto write
aesthetics-involvestime and death and history:experienceis historicaland con-
demnedto deathin a sense.Marcuse's conceptfinallysimplifiedthatcomplexityout
ofAdorno,takingup an oldermodernistmodelwhichis notnow helpful.His notion
ofthe utopianimpulseis a differentmatter.The objectionthereis thathe fallsback
on a positionwheretheautonomyof artstillpermitsa kindof fullexpressionofthe
utopianimpulse.

Adorno'snegativedialecticsis criticizedin youraccountforallowingno resistanceto

theoverallsystem.Nothing,seemingly, here
is to be done. Youpointto thesimilarities
with the poststructuralist tendencyto see the systemas completeand completely
unchangeablein its systematicity; and I suppose one could indeedsay that about
Foucault et al at certaintimes.The resultis pessimism,and it mattersless thatthe
firstmodelis dialecticalwhilethelatteris one ofheterogeneityand contingency.Yeta
F.
quick readingof Jameson leavesone with a residue
distinct ofpessimism as well.

The wholepointabout theloss in postmodernism ofthesenseof thefutureis thatit

also involvesa sensethatnothingwill changeand thereis no hope. Facileoptimismis
on the otherhand not helpfuleither.

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 Conversation
Postmodernism-A
Regarding withFredric
Jameson 53

In "'goingthrough"poststructuralism and postmodernismand preservingits mo-

veryhardand negative,quite rightly
mentof truth,youare intermittently emphasiz-
ing thepoliticallyunsavouryeffects.

There one can make a distinction.There is a difference betweenthe productionof

ideologies about this realityand the reality They necessarilydemand two
itself.
different
responses. I am not to
willing engage this matterofpessimismand optimism
about postmodernism since we are actuallyreferring thereto capitalismitself:one
mustknow the worstand thensee what can be done. I am much morepolemical
aboutpostmodernist theories.Theorieswhicheitherexaltthisor deal withitin moral
ways are not productiveand thatI thinkone can say somethingabout.

The reconquestof a sense of place here,the attainmentof a new cartography, is

primarilya call directedto theleft We
itself. are not to
referring any greatpolitical
practicebutabout arguingwiththe1500 people who happento be deeplyinfluenced
by Deleuze and Guattari.For a large proportionof intellectualsof self-professed
radicalpersuasionwouldno doubtdescribethemselves as heavilyinfluencedbypost-
structuralist
ideologies.

That's whyit'sworthwhile to geta systemic sensewhereall thesethingscomefromso

thatwe can see whatour influences are and whatto do about them.The proliferation
oftheoreticaldiscourseswas healthybecause it led to some awarenessoftheirpoliti-
cal consequences.In momentsof economiccrisisor intervention abroad, people can
determine moreclearlywhat anygiventheorydoes or allows one to do. It is a matter
of theoreticaland historicalself-knowledge, and what I am engagedin is in facta
strugglewithintheoryas muchas anythingelse. IfI weremakingvideosI would talk
about thisin a different
way.

In thatrespect,yoursis a systematicprojectof building"totalizing"models,some-

thingwhich,to understatethecase, has been fairlyunpopularamong the western
in thelast decade. Are people now perhapsmorereceptiveto "model-
intelligentsia
building"?

They are more receptiveto the historicalfeaturesof it, to the idea of thinking
about it.Theyare notnecessarilymorereceptiveto themarxistversionof
historically
this historicalinquirybut perhapstheyare willingto entertainit on some super-
market-pluralist basis.

immersionin thepresent,the
thepostmodernist
The historicaldimensioncounteracts

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54 AndersStephanson

project.In thatsense itgoes outsidethepostmodern

or nonhistorical
dehistoricizing
paradigm.

That is essentiallythe rhetoricaltrickor solutionthat I was attempting:to see

whetherby systematizing somethingwhich is resolutelyunhistorical,one couldn't
forcea historicalwayofthinking at leastabout that.And thereare some signsthatit
is possibleto go aroundit, to outflankit.

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