I'm frustrated by discussing elaborate, infinitely textured problems, and then returning to the same time-worn solution. It seems there's a disparity between the sophisticatedly theorized obstacles to action and identity, and the weakly, repetitiously theorized means of acting and creating identity.

I generally try to understand post-modernism by comparing it to its predecessor, modernism. Since I am an English major, most of my understanding of modernism comes from the ideologies espoused by creative texts, rather than theory or philosophy directly. Bearing that in mind, I have an open question to pose, which is that there seems to be an odd consistency and continuity of coping strategies between the modern and postmodern--the problem against which one is coping may have altered and deepened and fragmented in the postmodern moment, but resistance takes a common form: that of the individual setting his/her lands in order, to borrow a phrase from TS Eliot's The Waste Land.

Let me explain more. The Waste Land, published in 1922, can be read as a series of circumstances dealing with the dislocating effects of the modern era (machinization/fordism, the wanton destruction of the first world war, the new speed and power of modern technology). Eliot renders the dehumanization and alienation felt before these forces poetically, brilliantly, etc., (and also as a rupture with the past ... but that's another can o' worms), and generally does a great job of invoking the kind of inability-to-locate-the-self-in-relation-to-outside-forces/confusion of identity in his narrative structure. So: his coping strategy, his way out of the mess made by modernity, is probably best expressed by line 425: "Shall I at least set my lands in order?" The process of taking stock and creating order begins with the individual.

Commonalities with the pm theory we've read largely end here--Eliot proposes that it's possible to protect cultural continuity in the face of the violence done by modernity, and he does this by quoting and alluding to all sorts of global texts (greek, sanskrit, italian, olde english) in his poetry, as if he can gather the collected knowledge of the world and collate it so as to reveal the possibility of salvation/truth/authentic cultural identity. In the text itself, the path to a kind of truth is one that must be taken by an individual--Eliot just insinuates that every individual will take it the same way, regardless of race/class/gender, which is where he really falls afoul of pm. That and the way he appropriates whole cultures in pursuit of his mission, but I digress.

Our ability to act and re-act to a milieu that is incomprehensibly larger than us, starts, to paraphrase Eliot, Harvey, Jameson (?), and Brian McKnight, Back at One, with the individual. Pm theorists don't seem to have bettered this, despite articulating the problems we face ever more acutely. In fact, they mostly complicate and attenuate even further the ability create order in the microcosm of the individual's sphere of influence.

Different eras and problems, similar strategies. Can someone shoot holes in this for me? Are we too westernly-dependent upon the individual as a source of action? What would alternatives look like? Is there a better, theoretically-solvent way of effecting political change than tossing a brick through a window and hoping that someone emulates you? Are we really in this alone, as pm theorists might imply, or do possibilities for consensus, and thus, political action/social change, exist?

Or maybe the answer is obvious--if the system doesn't give you order/is not ordered, you need to make it for yourself. I don't know. Again, I'm just frustrated by discussing elaborate, infinitely textured problems, and then returning to the same time-worn solution.