Trapnest, Jameson

“… every position on postmodernism in culuture – whether apologia or stigmatization – is also at one and the same time, and necessarily, an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today.” - Jameson (484)

I chose to begin with this quote because I feel it outlines the beginning of Jameson’s argument in the piece, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” Jameson references previous theorists and theories of culture, and how they relate to postmodernism. He begins by looking at the realm of artwork, classifying how our interpretations of, and the way we handle and relate to artwork signify dominant cultural themes.

“… the frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods.” (485)

Or other interpretations like:

“Unless that situation – which has vanished into the past – is somehow mentally restored, the painting will remain an inert object, a reified end-product, and be unable to be grasped as a symbolic act in its own right…”

Both of these are showing how cultural industries become transformed into tangible products for a market and mass consumption. This connection is important to Jameson’s overall argument because it supports that there is a connection between culture and economy.

Jameson seems to be arguing throughout this piece against traditional notions of postmodernism as seen through these other theorists. Yet he seemed to argue many similar things as the previous theorists that had come before him. He mentions the breakdown of signifiers in one instance, which is an obvious reference to DeSaussure and his theories of signs and signifiers. His criticism of this is that it narrows down our understanding of objects and what they can be, items “lose their capacity to extend beyond itself.”

While I am uncertain, I will admit, overall about Jameson’s work I feel it proposes an interesting debate, since all other theorists since Marx have believed that since postmodernism was set into motion it was like a switch that began and cannot be stopped and modernism fails to explain it properly.