Modernist Lifestyle Patterns and Sources

The past several months have been very illuminating in understanding the properties of modernism (including its gratifications, pressures, and vices), and understanding my need to have distance from it due to my pre-modernism ideals. I have understood first hand the ways in which modernism as a way of life causes participants to support a system in unity and with all knowable efficiency even though its appearance is largely alien, but also ironically (though not causally) in which such a pursuit causes a regular need for gratification through equally-as detached sources. Before this experience, I had little empathy for people who seemed to be in endless pursuit of clean and packaged sources of gratification. In my past, I had heard statements indicating that such a pursuit of gratification was caused by modernism. Reflecting now, I do not think that is the case.

When considering what kinds of alien gratifications that are pursued, I think the nature of desire comes more to light. For the majority of society, indicated by the prevalence of this type of consumer good, all gratifications have their primary asset as sensual enjoyment. Cognitive or logical constructs (which are themselves modernistic) are a lesser priority. Since these sources are sensual, I think people pursue them because they’re trying to detach themselves wholly from a lifestyle that does not comprise of what feels natural to them. Childhood and upbringing for most is a particularly sensual experience, and it becomes the strongest familiarity (at least until later age). Entering into the adult world and being thrust forcibly into an industrial system opposed to the personal causes an eventual and inevitable mild level of rejection by those whose experience up to that point was primarily personal. The choice then for sources of alien gratification, sources which ask nothing of the taker, is ironic due to the nature of the item being alien (likely even created by modernism), but is caused by a need to re-acquaintance with what is natural and familiar. The reason people take this action changes slightly over. Those new to modernism choose sources of gratification out of rejection (hardly a choice really at all). Those who have lived longer choose these sources out of a need to detach from the modernistic system and attach to another; in the process adding to the irony.

Upon reflecting upon my reflections, I’m not all that sure what is written here is much beyond what I can be expected to understand. Coming from an intellectual background which promotes the idea that humans add practices and beliefs unnecessarily to their lifestyle (a non-denominational Evangelical perspective), it seems only natural to conclude that most people spend their lives in constant readjustment back to what makes them core; what is natural and true about them.

A good question therefore to ask of myself is whether there are new lifestyles within these modernistic systems that humans can adopt. Is it truly possible that mankind can evolve such that he is defined by something other than a core that for most people is derived from their childhood experiences?

Moon and Institutionalization

Last night I decided to watch Moon. I'm posting about this because in the course of doing so, the film began to seem oddly similar to a contemporary computer game, Portal. When I played Portal, I never understood why so many thought it was something of a revolutionary game. Moon changed this because even though I noted the similarities, somehow the film portrayed the notion that there was symbolism to be had more clearly.

Seeing the symbols in Moon revealed those in Portal, and through processing the possible meanings brought to light perhaps why I had missed the ideas in the first place. Four essential ideas exist in each:

• Humans are born into a world where protocol has defined the environment.
  
• Centralized control exists, which imposes upon inhabitants duties or tests.
  
• Nonhuman entities exist to facilitate duties and are given empathetic qualities.
  
• Escape from this world is only possible due to an oversight in the protocol.

The first idea, that protocol has defined the environment, is evident from the aesthetics and location of both works. Stark white in definition, paneled, and buffed, both worlds give the impression that nothing beyond what one can see exists. The location also plays into this idea, by either being located on the moon during a communication blackout, or in a compound artificially lit that begins a plastic cell, from which travel is controlled by an external computer. The second idea, of centralized control through duties or tests, is easily recognizable, but significant in that it reinforces the impression of the highly controlled world. The existence of nonhuman entities in each bearing empathetic qualities is one of the most striking similarities. In Moon, this is represented by GERTY, who exists to keep the station's occupant on their task. In Portal, I believe this is represented by the Companion Cube, with which the player completes tests. The empathetic quality in each is from their similar aesthetic qualities: GERTY has a face reflecting its current emotion, and the Companion Cube has a pink heart printed on each of its sides. The third idea, concerning escape, occurs in Moon only because the clone resuscitation process is tied to when the system thinks the previous clone has died. Somehow the system in error believes this, and so the new clone ends up retrieving the first, who is not dead, eventually allowing for the clones to realize that they are clones thereby cause a break in the system. In Portal, this more or less exists due to the software in the centralized computer allowing the player to leave their cell even though the world the player is released into needs maintenance.

After seeing these ideas in both works, it isn't hard to see the reasons why Portal was popular and perceived to be innovative. I'm willing to make the wager that people enjoyed the game because it aligned with experience in secondary education. From people trying to understand Generation Y, there has been much talk about how Y's life has been defined more than previous generations by institutionalized practices. This impression comes from the increased prominence of standardized testing, over-medication, over-scheduled lives, and growing up digital. If correct, my own lack of understanding makes sense. My life up to college was rural; I went to a school having on average less than 80 people per class; an anomaly compared to my peers in college. From understanding Moon more, I'd say that the film is important culturally, and hopefully further excursions into art which discusses these ideas will round my understanding of why segments of Generation Y hold these ideas.

Interpreting "Modernism"

Although this realization is rather elementary, recently the answer to a question often asked: "what is modernism, doesn't that just mean, current?", become obvious. This realization came mostly from some readings which eloquently defined the idea. "Modern," meaning "now" or "current" isn't a reference to our time or to a period; doing so is the primarily incorrect way of approaching the term. Rather, since this is a philosophic term, one needs to interpret just the word in how it defines a philosophical outlook. Thereby, the idea becomes more obvious: modernism is the philosophy of the present, the ideal of living in a timeless current or "now" of non-linear experience.

Given this method of interpretation, the term postmodern becomes more clear in its definition and, given more understanding of the philosophy, a humorous label. The term meaning that, first, postmodernism is a reaction to modernism, but that it is historic, or backwards looking. Where modernism defined itself by its timeless objectification of reality, postmodernism defines itself from a more linear experiential stance, where less in life can be quantified, universalized, and objectified.

Last Night's Insomnia

I'm a postmodernist working through a modernist lifestyle. No contradictions seem apparent while doing modernist work and I'm pragmatically superior to my peers for my modernistic disciplines and focus while I work. The answer to this lies in truly understanding postmodernism as seeing life full of a multitude of philosophies that can be all embraced effectively, choosing one or the other merely based on the context appropriate. Extension, and perhaps less trustworthy, is the idea that according to the postmodernist, these philosophic systems generated not out of universalized natural law which is a modernist idea, but from a context. For example, information systems are an inherently modernistic practice and thereby cause modernistic philosophic systems to by used by those who engage in said practice.

The Environment and Natural Contentions

Given the assumption that life has within it, some degree of struggle or fight, there is a relation between environment and type of struggle which man encounters. For three simple environments, of desert, jungle, and agrarian plain, there exists respectively the struggle of man against the forces of nature, man itself, and the mind.

The first, being the desert, is perhaps the most interesting because the environment is itself the opponent that man finds itself against. In a desert, resources are so scarce and other creatures, human or otherwise, so few, that in order to survive, man must chiefly concern himself with the elements; how they behave, what they demand, etc. This pits man against a foe who is highly abstract, and has little to no empathetic qualities that humanity can call commonality with, and thereby is highly alienated from this experience. What comes forth to survive is a perspective "incapable of reflection", but instead of "suspense and watchfulness", because clues to surviving are so unapparent and inaccessible (The Plains of Patagonia, Hudson).

The jungle provides such comparatively abundant resources that survival is often against man itself. Equivocal environments to an actual tropical jungle, is that of the city; similar principles can be derived. Although resources are numerous in the jungle, so is life. Because of this, there is life such that it lives by fighting other life. Man therefore, must orientate himself around human, animal, insect, and plant kind, in order to survive, both feeding off of as well as defending against these groups. As such, man’s skills become strong in external expressions: social behaviors, physical strength, political renown, etc.

In the agrarian plain, man struggles against the mind. The environment allows human life to exist more easily than the desert, but less than in the jungle. Less population density detracts the importance of human interaction. Greater allowances to grow give less pressure on having a perspective of "suspense and watchfulness", and thereby more of an ease of what the plain will bring to fruition. Having no opponents other than what the land gives him with relatively little struggle, and having little reason to compete, man’s reality is relatively fixed. Thereby, the struggles which do emerge are those of the mind and inward life.

A Sense of Placelessness: Modernistic and Postmodernistic Alienation

Recently, I have been reading through a book on globalization, and an aspect of the author's analysis of cultural globalization stood out to me largely because it seemed very similar to modernistic alienation, a concept I often think about. Yet, it seems that since this is in the setting of a more globalized world, that the alienation is akin to postmodernism. Additionally, one can look at this aspect and draw out the common principles shared by both modernistic alienation and this supposed, postmodernistic alienation.

The contemporary experience of living and acting across cultural borders means both the loss of traditional meanings and the creation of new symbolic expressions. Reconstructed feelings of belonging coexist in uneasy tension with a sense of placelessness. [...] it appears that the old structures of modernity are slowly giving way to a new 'postmodern' framework characterized by a less stable sense of identity and knowledge.

Manfred Steger

According to what I've learned so far, modernistic alienation had its roots in the industrial revolution, which resulted in alienation largely in workers becoming more alienated towards what they produced and what they used to produce it due to the dehumanization by the mechanization process involved. Additionally, the traditional family structure was changed by an increased disconnect between a family's father due to a greater displacement by industrial jobs that kept him farther and longer from the home.

The proposed postmodern alienation seems tied to today's information society, where people are more alienated towards information in general. Examples of problems birthed from this can be seen in the struggles of knowing what is true without acquiescing to relativism, a greater simplification in appearances of daily life due as a response to a sense of information overload, the prominence of diversity dialog in television shows such as The Office. So, it seems that modernistic and postmodernistic alienation differs greatest in the aspect of information and material. Of course, this is not to say that postmodernism is against materialism, for that can be one of the ways to experience information as well as to conveniently simplify its presentation.

Considering the details of each kind of alienation, it seems that each have commonality in the sense of placelessness, that the author mentions. In modernistic alienation, this likely was produced out of having no way to distinguish one place to another due to the increase in material homogeneity of products. Placelessness for modernity could also be seen in how the individualistic / emotional tendencies, that in the workplace established a sense of place, were repressed in men due to the use of Scientific Management. For the postmodern, placelessness is produced by the challenge of distinguishing one informational / cultural sphere from another as being that which one chooses to identify with. Since identity in the Western mindset is tied to ideas, when one is faced with a multitude of seemingly endless right choices, one is unable to provide distinction by choosing one because they all seem largely valid. Hence, postmodern man can cognitively choose to agree with the cultures he experiences in travels (on foot or through the Internet), but cannot, on an emotional level, identify with any of them.

Models for Keeping Purpose with Intellectual Openness

Now that the Christmas season is over, I can write again, since I haven't written anything since around Thanksgiving. Amidst all of that unordered time that makes it exceptionally challenging to maintain consistency in, and perhaps before then, I have been thinking about how one maintains one's bearings; how one remembers the purposes they are striving towards. These purposes for me are usually encapsulated in a concept or idea that is multilayered and complicated. Since purposes are held within these, how does go about remembering all that is held within? And so, a debate I often come to, and have come to considerably more because of the holiday season, is how to keep aware of these; how not to lose oneself in all the other concepts and ideas floating around that can also be made part of the purposes one is pursuing.

The problem one is avoiding by keeping aware, I feel, for idea-minded people, can be one of the most difficult problems to avoid. Many cases have been voiced of people, who when exposed to too many ideas and too much information, turn to apathy due to an inability to keep track of everything that has been thrust at them. The apathy in turn causes them to determine life as more meaningless than they thought (a form of intellectual nihilism) and this then breeds improper acceptance of all ideas and all emotions.

In my time of considering how to manage this; how to keep one's mind on the purposes one has while being intellectually open, a few models have presented themselves. These can be called in short the following: the Symbolic Encapsulation, a method involving periodic revisit of each purpose's details in the full, a method involving people who remind, interactively, of these purposes, and a careful use of over-information techniques to make thoughts bend toward each purpose without necessarily conscious awareness.

Symbolic Encapsulation, as it is written, is a way to present information such that it references to greater things and thus, upon remembering or seeing the symbol, one remembers the reference to such greater things. Personally, I have not investigated this method much, so I will not comment on how it might be used here. My reasons for avoiding it are likely because there are sufficient examples of people who lose themselves in symbols rather than what the symbol was made to accomplish; a reference to the greater thing, and so in such a state, they derive more greater things from the symbol than the symbol was made to hold. Symbolic stories or symbolic objects are by definition limited conveyors of information; they exist only as referential devices that help objectify in a limited manner, the whole. Another reason for avoiding Symbolic Encapsulation is that it tends to make one more materially dependent, which may just be by bias, I admit. This method, again, I have not pursued due to its potential problems, but it may prove to be a good way of remaining in one's purposes while keeping intellectual openness.

Periodically revisiting the details and layers of one's purposes is a method that I have given some time to. But before delving into my experience and thoughts, one should understand in more detail what this method is. Essentially, one periodically goes back to remembering and thoroughly considering all of the facets that make up the concept. I have tended to do this by revisiting over time large sets of writings which make up the concept's details. In the process of this, one compares one's current life with the purposes outlined in the concepts. It is easy after that point, then to map out one's progress, make potential changes to re-align to the purpose, or to even change the purpose some amount to accommodate new factors (though this is different than really what we're talking about; retention of ideas). From my experience with this method, it has proved to be more time consuming than the Symbolic Encapsulation method, but better as a way to remain free of those symbolic entanglements noted. Another disadvantage aside from requiring more time, is that this method can constrict one to thinking too fixedly through the number of details presented. The Symbolic Encapsulation method does seem more freeing, but only because of potential ambiguity in remembering the correct details that the symbol is referring to. Another potential disadvantage is that this method can make one unable to plan well or utilize memory well; they find themselves getting off course / forgetting so often that they spend far too much time referring back to the details to re-adjust / re-fresh.

Interactively reminding oneself through human relationships is another model that is used, typically by more social intellectuals, it seems. A few periods in my past, experimenting has been done with this, and they seemed largely effectively, but perhaps only due to my personal attachments to anything socially stimulating. Any conservative intellectual will note that this method is dangerous for two reasons that seem apparent to me: dependency on humans that may not hold integrity to the concepts one is relying upon them to remind them of, and that one can too harshly limit the intellectual sharing these people can do outside of the bounds one has set up in order to foster being reminded of one's purposes interactively. Another potential disadvantage is that the humans used to remind oneself of these concepts may become in themselves symbols of the concepts, relating this potential effect to what can occur when using Symbolic Encapsulation.

Over-information was referred to as a catalyst to Nihilism. This is true for many, but not necessarily related by cause. A few times, I have tried to use this model, but have found some difficulty, and so my understanding of it is limited. The way this is typically done, is that exposure to detailed information is highly controlled but used in abundance. The hope in this methodology is to keep one on track in purposes and capable of modification by what seems to be nearly embedding the details into the subconscious; creating a sort of memory that exists out of emotional-pattern retrieval. I realize that my description is quite ambiguous, but I have little understanding of why the model is utilized, though it is apparent that people are using it. Examples, if not aware, seem to exist in what can be seen among college students; the children of the Information Age who seem to be constantly wired to their Internet and music feeds.

In considering what I have personally used in the past, the following list shows what I have used most to what I have used least:
1. Periodic detail revisit
2. Interactive reminding through human relationships
3. Over-information carefully controlled
4. Symbolic Encapsulation

In considering what I have used recently, the following list shows what I have used most recently to what I have used least recently:
1. Periodic detail revisit
2. Over-information carefully controlled
3. Symbolic Encapsulation
4. Interactive reminding through human relationships