post modernism and cultural baggage

i am revising what i know, so that i can put my thoughts in context. if you already know the following, skip it.

before the first world war in 1914, things made sense in the world- religion, the equation between powerful and powerless as it manifested in humans through the equation of god and mortals. post world war II, people questioned everything around them- religion and the raison d'etre of human existence. the reasons are as follows:

• industrial revolution in the 20th century and hence the urbanization
• the Charles Darwin theory (Origin Of Species)
• Freud and Jung's psychoanalysis (the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious, like wise- the ego, the superego and the id. man's unconscious is supervised by an unknown force)
• Scientific progression (men could fly and carriages were without horses)
• the most important- mass massacre, dirty politics and the paraphernalia of the world wars. from that stemmed modernism.

the word 'modernism' coined by Bernard Bergonzi in 1971 and Ezra Pound said 'Make It New'. because of world wars, the countries all over the world became closer and aware of each other. nothing was absolute- like god and the belief systems attached with it, everything was questionable and relative (like truth- there is no absolute truth but one and that is death- everything else is influenced by a person's circumstantial, socio-economic and political context).

the quest of finding 'who are we?' gave birth to study of anthropology. before that it never existed because God had created humans. the study of anthropology dug out the concept of myths. the modern literature makes ample use of local and global myths in their works- 'The Potrait Of Artist As A Young Man'. all these elements triggered the irrationality of human beings and their behaviour. people were grappling with the knowledge flood. after 1930's came post modernism- existentialism and nihilism.

Friedrick Nietsczhe's philosophy comes first in minds of those who think existentialism. 'Man is Superman'. he rejected the christian morality and the doctrine of the power of god. if religion taught us that god created man then Nietzche taught us that man created god because society has to have ethics.

therefore, in modern age roughly beginning in USA and Europe in 1900 culminated in post modernism till roughly around 1950's. Science, Anthropology, Philosophy and Psychology developed.

well, if you are wondering the India has not featured in any of this intellectual movements then, you will also notice that she got her independence in 1947. which means when the world was struggling with "who are we?", we were making "Us". we had problems in making our country and finding our indiviuality which we lost in those 150 years of colonization. this cultural baggage of enslavement is harming us still where we become the passive consumers of many things in society. it is harmful because injustice becomes rampant and we are immobilised. we carry enormous fear of authority and are afraid of questioning.

thank you- Mrs Snober Satarawala- my M.A teacher (Wadia College- Pune), from whose notes i religiously wrote the blog

learning problems

our elders endlessly tell us that we dont live the life they led in their youth. how bored and cliched that sounded. i grew up listening to that and much more. now the whole pattern ranging from, 'go out- play, climb trees, read newspapers, listen to elders, eat right etc', is fitting itself together in my life at 23. these were all parables, which back then we did not understand, 'why do they (the elders) repeat the same endlessly?' now i realize that the repetition was to tell me something i would realize much later in my life. many educated youth are exposed to passivity from childhood. we get everything in cut and dried manner. love, education, friends, media, jobs... the list goes on... before it becomes boring, i want to clarify that we have become passive consumers of everything around us. this passivity is the result of post modernism and our cultural baggage of being colonized. these explainations will follow in the next blog

back after 2 months

Money, career, satisfaction, choices, relationships, direction, winning, losing, right, wrong, good, bad, healthy, harmful, thought, action, intention, open, shut, back, forth, day, night, light, dark, men, women, India, America, do, don’t, here, there, I, you, me, we, they, us, have, don’t have, will, can, should, ought, because, if, reflect, retrospect, make, break, now, then, later, further, backward, past, present, future, gain, loss, alone, crowd, change, stagnant, repetitive, original, old, new, average, brilliant, horrible, never, always, be, don’t be, cold, hot, warm, cool, in, out, mom, dad, he, she.

MESSIAH.

I am a messiah.
I wake up at noon,
Eat, watch TV, hangout.
I discuss novels, ideas, theories, idealism.
I think I am a messiah.
I have a boyfriend, he pampers me.
I hate my family.
I study at my pace, talk about educational loans, expensive studies and in the same breath of global warming, poverty, third world countries.
I think I am their messiah.
It’s all ‘I’, I sound like Indian poets whose poems I like because I understand.
Weary, tired, bored, disturbed but with a missionary zeal, I go on.
Nothing makes sense and still everything does,
We bang into the invisible doors of life.
this is the poem i wrote in june last year. in the light of terror attacks, the after math, new year, recession, its important for me to reflect on many things. its been 2 months since i last wrote any blog. 60 days... and so much since. this is called living in speed, i think. i would like to start from my learning in literature and move on contemporary media issues... it will follow in the next blog