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TagPostmodernism

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Infinite letters background, original 3d illustration.

Postmodernism’s Steady Deconstruction of Reality

How can we find truth when nothing is reliable?

Sometimes, you just have to try using college professors’ ideas in the real world. One such idea is “postmodernism.” Applied to communications, postmodernism teaches that whenever we read a written text, we should not try to discover what the writer intended. Instead of looking for an objective “meaning,” we should experience what the text means to us personally. The idea goes further, urging us to start by disbelieving the text and doubting our interpretations of it, too. People with the postmodern “deconstructionist” view say, “every text deconstructs” itself, and “every text has contradictions.” Deconstruction means “uncovering the question behind the answers already provided in the text.” Standing upon the ideas of the deconstructionist guru, Jacques Derrida, and his followers, one Read More ›

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Landscape illustration with rocket taking off, vaporwave style. Generative AI

Developing a Penchant for Pynchon

The bizarre novel on the impact of tech on society turns 50 this month

50 years ago this month, writer Thomas Pynchon published the 1973 National Book Award Winner Gravity’s Rainbow, a 700-page novel/biopic on the absurdity and technocratic madness of modern life. While I haven’t personally read the book, I now plan to this year after reading an entertaining memorial review of the book over at Wired. Pynchon was famous for being un-famous—that is, for evading the limelight while making an indelible mark on the unfolding postmodern literary landscape. Along with tomes like Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Pynchon’s book often seems devoid of a storyline with its cacophony of events, characters, and nebulous sub-plots. An Almanac of its Time But that might be kind of the point, according to this review Read More ›