Literary classics, post-modernism

[Tabouli]

Mahoney:
> much of literary canon comes from bygone eras and is written in a style that 
seems, to the modern mind, dry/boring/indecipherable/etc.  But even 
pulp fiction of those days would probably seem so, because while they 
might deal with more exciting or less deep or whatever subject 
matter, they will still follow certain stylistic, linquistic, historical & topical 
standards relating to the era in which they were written (...)(and moreover)
 not all literature termed 'classical'/canon is boring.  <

Yeah, I know.

In fact, in other contexts I've argued stridently for judging artistic works by the standards of their time rather than the standards of the present day (or, worse still, editing them to *fit* the standards of the present day).  I mean, on one hand I cringe to read books written last century which speak of the Primitive Non-White Races and so forth (ew), but on another hand I find them a fascinating illustration of the time in which they were written, and wouldn't have a bar of the revisionist types who'd rather blot or edit such comments out and pretend they never happened.  Let's think about the comments and their context instead, eh?

On the boredom front, I *have* been known to read some of The Classics, and enjoyed a reasonable number of them.  I find some classic authors good storytellers, and some not, same as with allegedly trashy literature.  What I object to is less the Classics themselves, but the snobbery and limited views of the highbrow literary elitists.  Literary tastes are, as you said, heavily subjective.  However, I don't think the elitists really believe this.  I get the impression that they think Genuine Literature is, by definition, *objectively* superior.  I suspect their "tastes" often have at least as much to do with status and image as they do with actual storytelling.  I also suspect them of dismissing the great bulk of "non-literary" works, not because they have read a sample and judged them inferior, but because they want to maintain a feeling of supreme isolation, where even their bookshelves need not be sullied by works favoured by the Great Unwashed.

Yik.

Pippin:
>The classical standard is in the process of being replaced, at the 
university level, by Postmodernist Deconstructionism, which 
seems to measure everything according to its usefulness in 
illuminating the power struggle between the WCEM's and 
everybody else. So the classics can still be studied, but only to 
reveal what the WCEM used to think about everybody else, and 
also for possible subversive elements introduced by 
non-WCEM's. Excellence is therefore of no critical concern and 
awards are just a power grab anyway.<
 
My knowledge of the post-structuralism has been gleaned from David Lodge novels and psychotherapy lectures (post-modern therapy!), so I'm wary here, but I thought it was about discarding the notion of objectivity and instead exploring both what shapes our subjective reality (gender, class, religion, culture, etc.) and how we construct our subjective reality through language.  A movement which lends itself to being appropriated by the WCEM vs Other power struggle advocates, but not necessarily limited to it.

My own approach to cross-cultural training is arguably post-structuralist (as defined above).  A lot of what I initially try to do is what could be called "de-centring"... showing people that their reality and standards are culturally defined, rather than objective, universal truths (then illustrating what happens when different sets of cultural assumptions collide, and giving them strategies for dealing with the collisions).  As I am training in a basically WCE country I do spend a lot of time on WCE assumptions, but I see my role as increasing understanding and providing practical advice rather than focussing on the power struggle.  The sort of people who come to such sessions *know* about the power struggle to the nth degree, and probably (a) are sick of hearing predictable rhetoric about it, and (b) already have strong and probably conflicting opinions on it, which, if given an avenue, can easily make a session descend into a real-life "struggle" with the trainer in the firing line!  (I've seen it happen, and more than once).

Rule Number One: Cross-cultural training is potentially extremely threatening... Do Not Alienate Your Audience!

Which brings me to Pippin's maternal musings about self-image and black and whiteness, but I'll put that in a separate post...

Tabouli.


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