-------
In mythology, there is an image of a serpent that is constantly swallowing its own tail. The ouroboros has represented the cyclical nature of life and the extension of it into infinity. The problem, of course, is that in order to live forever, the snake is also constantly dying. In many ways, the process of progress as a society is the story of prevailing thought being pulled inside out as paradigms change and the world with them. This is increasingly clear as the world of thought is propelled forward into Modernity.
Beginning in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, the turn of the world into a place that could accept what became “modern” was not without struggle or process. As set forth in Karl’s Modern and Modernism, a stage was set for progress out of the Industrialized West with its fascination with industry into something more. The past began to be blotted out in an attempt to “emerge from the darkness…to awake after a long sleep” during which the world had changed dramatically (Karl 9). With the past, supposedly, go the undesirable pieces of that social structure the “moderns” wish to replace. This is not without resistance, of course, and never is a battle fought against no one. As challenges to the status quo were being made, earliest exemplified by Bacon in Novum Organum, they were often seen to crate havoc and recantations of accepted norms (Karl 10). A battle of superiority ensued between those who felt the need to defend the Ancients and those who wanted to create opportunity for the Moderns. In fact, critics began to suggest that progress, such as Bacon’s in scientific understanding, was indeed due to a true progression of the human condition. The thought went that people and their understandings of the world were complied over time and constantly in a state of positive evolution toward better. However, it would be difficult for a contemporary physicist, when pressed, to choose between the importance and relevance of either Newton’s or Einstein’s contributions to the field. And yet, these two men, separated by centuries and locale, offered clashing paradigms, neither of which is totally usable today. “What occurred was neither a decline nor a raising of standards, but simply a change demanded by the adoption of a new paradigm” (Kuhn 13).
Paradigmatic adoption comes at a cost: one worldview for another. In the cases of Einstein and Newton, each is applied for different circumstances to this day, and according to his or her specific field, a scientist may use one or the other more frequently. So, from whence do these new paradigms come? A leading edge must emerge in order to create the way for those who will come behind. The term avant-garde has been adapted out of military connotations and co-opted into this very position. “As the cutting edge of modern, the avant-garde establishes the point at which Modern must enter its new phase in order to keep up with itself. The avant-garde points toward the future, and as soon as it is absorbed into the present, it ceases to be itself… It is, in fact, always contingent, in danger, endangering itself” (Karl 13) Not only does the avant-garde exist on the edge of invalidity (once the edge is no longer the edge, it becomes irrelevant as a front-runner), but it also sees a great deal of internal pollution.
Self-reflexivity is a part of the process of change in modernity. Giddens gives the example of a researcher conducting a study on suicide. He notes that a sociologist studying suicide statistics would interview coroners about their experiences. Coroners would give their opinions based on theories that had been shaped previously by other sociologists, most notably Durkheim (Giddens 42). Therefore, a sociologist is being told a trickled down social theory by way of a scientist. This would, of course, produce another study, which the next generation would read, and the pattern would repeat itself.
The repetition of patterns, like the ouroboros swallowing its tail, is a cycle. One is often able to see from the outside the way that such a cycle would create tensions, cognitive dissonance, and defeatism. However, it is out of such cycles that strides are made, forward or otherwise, into what becomes the newest thing. Out of such movements came modernity. One is puzzled if the ouroboros would never become hungry eating only its own flesh, but it would seem that perhaps something more is picked up along the way. As the avant-garde is gobbled up by its modern descendents, perhaps it slips away and creates again and instead of being consumed, it grows somewhere else. Cannibalism might be avoided by outgrowing your own mouth, if only for the moment.
---------
Happy Hump Day.
T
No comments:
Post a Comment