Stay cool (after school)

Publié le 17 août 2015 par Jess

In the 1930s someone described the sound of jazz as ‘cool’. In doing so, they reinvented the word. I am forever indebted to that person – cool is my preferred means of wrapping up discussions, finishing text conversations and being vague about my opinions.

I have decided that 'postmodern’ must be the most convenient term coined since then, as it sometimes gets used in a similar, go-to way. I’ve heard people use it when they want to sound intelligent, for example, or as a safe bet when they don t know how to talk about contemporary art.

“Oh I love John Smith’s new landscape series,” says one person.
“Oh yes, it’s very postmodern,” says another person.
“No, it’s not!” says no one ever, unless they want to lose their friends.

And in a twisted, postmodern sort of way it’s legitimate. If, in postmodernity, definitions are unfixed, then that means we can use the word postmodern however we personally feel it should be used, right?

Postmodern is not always a reliable weapon, though, when it comes to vocabulary. I discovered this with an essay I once wrote. I said something was postmodern and the examiner asked “what do you mean?” I wasn’t prepared for that because, honestly, no one without half an alphabet after their name would ask such a question and risk looking like an ignorant imbecile. I didnt know what I meant by it. I still don’t really know.

Postmodern is, however, the perfect shroud when you want to cloak an insult as a complement, or when you need to defend something that’s awkwardly tasteless. Maybe this is why undergrads are so big on the term. Just think of some of the stuff that design students come out with. Call it postmodern and suddenly that octopus-like coat, that would be physically impossible to walk in because of all the tentacles, is catapulted far above mere mortals into a realm of intellectualism that common coat-wearing people just cant grasp.

Dont get we wrong – Im open-minded and fully supportive of experimenting creatively and exploring ideas. I have to be don’t I? I don’t have any choice about it because, ironically, postmodernism upholds open-mindedness in such high stead, that holding unwaveringly to closed opinions can be seen as unintelligent, offensive, and anti-social.

I was recently part of a conversation in which a guy was relating a political conversation he’d had with his flatmate.

“It was terrible,” he said, “he just kept disagreeing with everything I said.” “Hmm yeah,” said someone else, “you think you’re pretty open-minded and then you talk politics and find that actually your not.”

Striving to be open-minded these days is like what ‘performing ones duty’ was before two world wars knocked it off the values chart. It’s a wonderful quality, but like most of our ideals its a knot that eventually ties itself up, because striving after open-mindedness means not allowing for closed-mindedness. And when open-mindedness doesn’t allow for something, its not that open anymore.

Fortunately though, postmodernism accommodates the paradox of being, and not being, open-minded. It means we don’t have to be one or the other, but can adhere to either as we deem appropriate for our personal selves. Another plastic gold star for postmodernism!

All that being said though, postmodernism, like romanticism, like modernism, like all the isms that ever were, will eventually pass. We’ll move away from it, well react to it, we’ll readapt bits of it and turn to another set of values and another go-to word for indicating that there’s an intelligent opinion buried somewhere in our brains.

As for me, I think I’ll stick with the word cool. It might not sound so smart, but I won’t have to go changing it anytime soon.