Watched the video (mistook you to be describing a video of DFW talking about simpsons, seinfeld, office etc.) & yeah definitely very close to what I was talking about (& the youtube comment you posted is right : re-pasting the old sitcom/ morality-tale narrative beats over ironic deconstruction of tropes is probably a little too quick and easy.)
I think if there is any "truth" to the ideas of post-modernism it might be this: We are always a creature one step removed from from primary existence. A fish swims, eats, hides, follows innate behaviors, it does not self-reflect. Even an ape or a dolphin probably doesn't go much past certain very basic communications and certain cultural learning. Humans are fully linguistic, cultural, generative, and iterative. It is hard to have a thought and then not have an analysis of that thought terms of other thoughts. It's hard to have a thought in isolation of its own self-analysis. The same goes for social things like values. It would be inauthentic not to self-analyze social and personal beliefs. But at the same token one disregards all sense of authenticity if one is fully and only ironic (which might be Wallace's complaint about post-modernism). — schopenhauer1
Yes, agree, self-reflexivity just simply is something we do. (To really scramble the coordinates: it might also be true that 'inauthenticity' is just something we do,
so that it would be inauthentic to be authentic, and vice versa )
Seinfeld is the ultimate post-modern sitcom. In a way we are living in a post-Seinfeld world. How does one take any social situation seriously really? I find it interesting with any form of satire or social criticism, that even after seeing the humor, when people go back to "living their lives" they don't actually take the lessons with them, and go back to living as if their life is not that super set of absurd circumstances as well, but a "real serious and dignified" narrative. A less obvious version of this are people who romantically think that things like "travel", "mountain climbing", "camping", and "sky diving" or (insert any modern form of trying to signal getting back to nature, going "extreme", or being an "travelling explorer") are truly some edifying thing.. None of the absurdities of shitting in a hole (whist camping without a bathroom facility around), uncomfortable sleeping, the very fact that most people are bringing all this modern equipment to be safe and comfortable in the "wilderness". You will probably lose something on that trip, get annoyed at your friend, etc. But yeah, might have some socially created "authentic" moments hanging out with friends in a different setting than a city place or someone's residence. Anyways, I digress.. but these trivialities matter in all of this...
I think some people actually do like travelling, mountain climbing, camping and skydiving, though I agree that many people fetishize these experiences. Being exposed to Seinfeld (or the culture that produces it) doesn't necessitate that you then see the world as totally absurd, contingent, and so forth. Seinfeld isn't
the truth of a culture, it's
one expression of one part of it.
But -- I take your point, which I think is essentially drawing attention to an archetypal progression:
(1)Whole->(2)Rupture
(or: [eden->exile])
From (2) Rupture there are a lot of options. For example:
(A)Return
(B)Reconstruct
(C)Toil & Curse
(D)Seek Vengeance
(E)Go Forward
(F) Toil & Joke
etc etc
For example: Ahab, in Moby Dick, is following a [1-2-D] progression where the rupture is linked to a determinate enemy against whom one can avenge oneself. (see also: Satan in
Paradise Lost)
Many leftist criticisms of conservatism are that they follow a [1-2-A] progression where A functions as a denial of the fact of 2, and leads to a kitschy dissociation from real conditions. I take this to be the lens through which you're viewing 'camping' and other scare-quoted activities - I think that is true of many who partake in them, though not all.
Following this:
In a way, my authentic attempts to get people to understand antinatalism can be seen as modernist.. in that it is taken so seriously, it is really believed. Suffering is to be something to be reckoned with, and the eye rolling resumes. "Stop being so serious!" would be the major response. The modernist inverse answer to my form of modernism would be "Technology, family, and shared values will triumph over your pessimism". And so we got two schools of thought.. life is a joke, don't take it seriously, or life has values that should be cherished so stop being so pessimistic..
I would say that there are
many 'authentic' ways to move in the 1-2-X progression and think it just plum isn't true that 1-2-C is the only one (
any of these can be either 'authentic' or 'inauthentic' including C.) I don't really think there is anything sad and absurd about the coder, at least not inherently, it depends a lot on what you're bringing with you. (There is something about certain (most?) 1-2-C proponents that suggests a deep preference for a 1-2-A progression + a certain defeatism. )