MerryChristmas!, Jameson

Fredric Jameson's, "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism", is a compilation of several theorists we have previously discussed. He describes architecture as the aesthetic populism. This brings to mind Jenck's theologies behind architecture. Jameson states,"the arrival and inauguration of a whole new type of society, most famously baptized 'post-industrial society', but often also designated consumer society, media society, information society, electronic society, or 'high tech, and the like." Through all of these associations, Jameson is touching on the idea that our society is a "cult of the new" or something always being developed or improved in order to make our lives easier. Unlike Jameson, I cannot possibly see this era ending, but merely improving. If we follow the same ideology in regards to our society as we do our era, then the postmodern era we are in will always go on, but continuously improve. Like we have said in class, we are obsessed with this notion of something being instant or fast. But how much faster can we go? James says that, "...anxiety and alientation are no longer appropriate in the world of the postmodern." This is because the postmodern era and technology have enabled us to become global citizens. Through globalization, we will always be connected to others.
Jameson also said that we are at a point where postmodernism cannot be shifted into something else and that we can only look into the past in order to reinvent it. He says, "the producers of culture now have nowhere to turn but to the past: the imitation of dead styles, speech through all the masks and voices stored up in the imaginary museum of a now global culture...the past is itself modified..." Again, Jameson is touching on globalization. The postmodern era has reached the end and can only be improved further by new technological advancements. New ideas are no longer new, but recreations of the past. Nothing is authentic anymore.Jameson says that as a result of this globalization, we will become one culture. "To focus the problem in this way is of course immediately to raise the more genuine issue of the fate of culture generally, and of the function of culture specifically, as one social level or instance, in the postmodern era." This quote stands out to be because I have heard that eventually, one day we will all become one race, with one set of beliefs or values and everyone will be the same. Obviously, this idea of having a single culture has a long way to go, but it is intriguing to think about the possibility of this occurring in our future.