speaking of modern, post-modern, along with avant-garde, and such terms… some very abstract musings:
I am wondering if there is a connection between the concept of being ‘avant garde’ or ‘modern’ with a basic concept of being: where confronting the unknown is a test of the embodied self (the full set of abilities to deal with the unknown). Certain kinds of people can deal with the unknown better than others. Fear is a definite factor, but so is basic psychic ability.
Of course there are many facets of the unknown, but it can be defined as the sensual/sensory apprehension of any previously un-experienced energy flow. For example, in a materialist/physical sense, someone with a strong body constitution is better able to confront the unknown (unpredictable enemy, new viral infection, can move further in order to ‘find’ the unknown more easily).
Those who confront the unknown are the primary source of information for those who do not. (In a hunting/gathering society, it was the hunters (of meat and of other substances) who determined the gross fate of the tribe as a collective. Those who could range beyond the known territory to ascertain the possibilities.
Those who avoid the unknown, who seek pre-defined (overtly socially defined) situations because of fear of the unknown rely on those who are able and willing to seek it out.
So, perhaps it is easy to slip into the paradigm that ‘early adoption’ is a sign of suitability for survival and strength of being. But technology is fundamentally NOT an unknown territory. It is a territory that presents us with sets of highly sophisticated/complicated socially pre-defined situations. So, early adoption might even be seen as a weakness for more and more overtly socialized and defined (read: safe) living conditions rather than any risk-taking behavior. Versus dealing with life in a more ad hoc and open(indeterminate) way. A dialectic example popped into mind — that of the ‘canned’ weather of weather.com (and the ‘weather channel’ on US cable) versus the person who watches un-aided the local 180-degree sky for signs. What are the degrees of unknown in those two situations, and how does technology confront, (de)contextualize, reduce, amplify, modulate, or change survivability…
It is true that there are those who seize technological tools in order to ‘safely’ find or confront the unknown, to create previously unknown manifestations with energy from that chaotic unknown. I would label those people as avant garde. This is a fundamentally different activity than simply using the technology to traverse the pre-ordained territories, to participate as one-of-many (as we do here). People who are functioning this way would be ‘conservative.’ It takes an extra splurge of energy to be ‘liberal.’ Along with the real risk of being seen by others as being too strange (too unknown, unpredictable) to fit into their scheme of life, and thus the person too far ahead of the avant garde is seen to be, in retrospect, as ‘being ahead of their time’ — that is, existing in a space where they are inscrutable to the surrounding conservative others… and seen to be traversing spaces that are feared by the others…
(these labels NOT connected to contemporary political usage, but more in their root meanings).
SO, modern, as a label is an attempt to position something in a strong, robust, lively, place, but it is basically only a weak socialized action which has no real substance, like post-modern which, sheesh, still relies on the SAME word, and seems to know nothing of the unknown anymore than it’s predecessor.
(I don’t use these Cartesian descriptors Lightly here, for the locative audience, but only because there isn’t such good metaphoric language forms to circumscribe the space of discourse…)
This is a stretch of imagining, but I thought I’d send it out, especially on account of some of the off-list discussions I’ve been having lately…!
The revolution will not be televised! (that is, momentary life cannot be re-created or re-produced…)