Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 08:07:45 EST From: "H-German Ed. Norm Goda" Reply to: H-NET List on German History To: Multiple recipients of list H-GERMAN Subject: postmodernism There are two messages in this posting -ed. ******************************* Submitted by: David Schoenbaum Thanks to Peter Fritzsche, at least from this reader, for [his] thoughtful piece. By habit, generation and reflex, I am of the cohort that tends to say "I say it's postmodernity, and I say the hell with it." On the other hand, I have never believed for a moment that the historian is a kind of cosmic court reporter, let alone - as that jury in Los Angeles has just confirmed so memorably - that "the facts speak for themselves." What puts so many of us off about postmodernity, I believe, is not so much that the premises are implausible, as that so much of the practice - sorry, praxis - tends to be both arrogant and obscurantist. Every time the postmodernists point, e.g., to Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida et al., my own impulse is accordingly to point to Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." Were their case more often made as Fritzsche made it this morning, i.e., with civility, decent prose, and even self-irony, the tone, quality and direction of this exchange might be rather different. David Schoenbaum University of Iowa (dschoen@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu) ********************************* Submitted by: Edward Weintraut WEINTRAUT_EJ@Mercer.PeachNet.EDU I have followed the discussion on postmodernism with great interest, and would like to second enthusiastically the contribution made by Peter Fritzsche. I too had an epiphany a few years back while reading the works of Haydn White, Richard Rorty, and Pierre Bourdieu, and I have come to the same conclusions--if not insights--as Fritzsch. Before I try to give this discussion of postmodernism a contemporary German focus, I feel the need to comment on the term "postmodernism" itself. Although I would consider myself fairly well read in critical theory, I have great difficulty defining what the term means. In fact, I would suggest that the term is an empty signifier: in contemporary parlance it seems to play the same role as the word "Liberal" in the discourse of demagogues like Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich. The terms "Postmodernism" and "Liberalism" seem to have become linguistic scapegoats for all that is wrong with contemporary American culture, society, an politics. In such discourse, the so-called "postmoderns" and the "liberals" are all too often the unidentifiable "they" who are lousing things up for the rest of "us." In my own writing and teaching I prefer not to use any variant of the term "postmodern," because it is too emotionally and ideologically charged, and because it denotes that the recent writings of the critical left can be lumped together. If we continue to drop variants of the term "postmodern" in our own discussion, then I'm afraid we're setting up a straw man that's all to easily knocked down. Let's do ourselves a favor and name the names of contemporary critical theorists (White, Rorty, Foucault, Lyontard, etc) and debate the merits and limitations of their arguments as they apply to issues raised in this discussion group. Let's not continue to use the term "postmodern" uncritically. Perhaps because I am a Germanist by profession and not a historian--although the disciplinary boundaries between these two fields are quite porous--I am more most interested in the way that we use language to construct reality for ourselves, i.e. the way we use language to represent facts, or what is purported to be a fact, to ourselves. Inquiries of this nature tend to open up the Pandora's box of Facticity and Objectivity. They also demand that the historian NOT ONLY be acutely aware of the consequences of the language with which s/he will describe or redescribe people and events, BUT ALSO be honest enough to reveal (at least on a conscious level) the biases or interests that inform her/his judgment. Now for my (probably) provocative commentary: Earlier this week the fifth anniversary of German reunification was celebrated. It seems to be a matter of FACT that Germany was reunited in October 1990, and, IN FACT, this very statement can be read in news reports, textbooks, encyclopedias. It is not difficult to imagine that this statement will be "canonized" and be replicated in all manner of texts to be produced in the near--and perhaps distant--future. Aside from the linguistic FACT that the statement is flawed (the very term "re-united" suggests that there was some German entity prior to separation to which one has returned, and there simply is/was no such critter!), this statement is factual only to the extent that it denotes a geo-political entity that emerged in 1990 with clearly defined and hopefully inviolable borders. The statement does not in any way account for the economic, social, cultural, and psychological divisiveness that afflicts the people that inhabit Germany. It is no secret that the Berliner Mauer has for many Germans been internalized: Die Mauer im Kopf. In FACT, many Germans whom I know on both sides of the former geo-political border have trouble with the term "reunification." They would much rather prefer to describe the events of 1990 as "unification," or "annexation," "merger," "buy ouy," or "sell out." There is no doubt that nation-wide elections were held in Germany in October 1990, the results of which brought about a geo-political entity that brought together (in a Hegelian sense?) two states and two peoples (at LEAST two peoples,if we consider traditional regional forms of patriotism) that had been separated for over forty years. The elections are a FACT and indeed an objectively verifiable, undeniable event. Problems arise when we have to decide how we will represent this event. Facticity becomes compromised once we try to account for this fact in language. When my students, friends, or colleagues, who take little cognizance of German affairs, hear or read or say the statement "Germany was reunited in October 1990," they generally assume that everything is just fine in Germany among the Germans. They are often incredulous when I describe the problems that have attended the aftermath of that monumental euphoric event of November 1989. The statement, without considerable explanation, is simply not factual. I submit that we can only do justice to the event of October 1995 and its subsequent ramifications by avoiding statements like the one above and redescribing it in carefully chosen language (perhaps, very tenuously: The political division of Germany was overcome in the elections of Octber 1995). As German scholars we are responsible for re-presenting the facts of conmteporary Germany and constructing its history for this and future generations. Unless we are willing to take the initiative in finding a language that describes the events of 1989/1990 in terms other than "reunification" or "unification," we leave ourselves open to the accusation that Claude Levi-Strauss levelled at theoretically uncritical scholars: we will be imposing a fraudulent outline on the present. I would like to challenge all members of this discussion group to find a more appropriate way to describe the event of October 1990 in a single sentence that could find its way into our mass media and enhance understanding and awareness of conmteporary Germany. - Edward Weintraut weintraut_ej@mercer.peachnet.edu .