I wrote it elsewhere here, Catch-22 has a lot of postmodern literature signifiers: gallows humor, anti-hero in the story, unreliable narrative also related to uncertainty if protagonist is hero or antihero, absurdity represented by literal Catch-22, non-linear structure, breaking the fourth wall etc. I guess it was considered postmodern due to it being product of 1961 where it went against the grain, it was pre-Vietnam war.
Earlier you said that:
Post-modernist books are generally characterized by being "experimental" and defying the conventions of traditional novels–hence, non-linear storytelling, unreliable narrators, metatextual references, disregard for conventional plot and characterization, etc. But there are always ideas there, and I would argue most of those books do have a cohesive (if meandering and self-indulgent) narrative.
The first half is something you see in every new literally epoch. Modern literature was experimental compared to pre-modern one. People are now also fed-up with postmodern "experimentation" and want to try something else, they talk about post-postmodernism or metamodernism etc. If you go deeper, then no, breaking the 4th wall is not experimental, Shakespeare used it hundreds of years ago when characters addressed audience directly. Brooding antihero is your cookie cutter romantic trope, heck some people say that Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground have postmodern vibes. It is quite a postmodern self-parody, "there is nothing new only recycling of old" is quite self-aware.
I think that the best solution is not to be in awe with postmodernism and categorize it as any other literary epoch. It was product of its age, and it is characterized by usage of specific literary techniques - be it new or old. So yes, Catch-22 was postmodern literature and Notes From Underground was realist or seminal existentialist literature even if you think of it the other way around - is Yossarian not your typical existentialist hero and can there be something more realist than Hellers description of war in visceral detail? Sorry, the timeline does not agree with that.
georgioz
2d ago
Like several other commenters, I would not categorize either Slaughterhouse-Five or Catch-22 as post-modern. Satirical and cynical, certainly, but post-modernism is not just irony and counter-culturalism.
Catch-22 is listed as seminal postmodern book everywhere from wiki to various literally journals. It is a seminal book, so some critics say that it is still a little bit modern - e.g. Yossarian is not completely insane, but they still say it is a postmodern book. It would be like arguing that Hamlet is actually Medieval as opposed to seminal Renaissance/Early modern book. By the way this is quite a postmodern analysis from you.
I loved Catch-22 in high school just because it was actually funny. I was predisposed to it due to experience with socialism, so absurdity of beurocracy and hollow slogans was something I understood quite well mostly from stories but partially also from personal experience during my childhood. On top, it was part of the package of War Literature and to me it seemed more relatable to a teenager compared to pretending that I understand what happens to young boy on in All Quiet on The Western front.
Even now if I read the reasons why the book is postmodern, I do not really get it. Supposedly the signifiers of it as postmodern book is as follows: gallows humor, anti-hero in the story, unreliable narrative also related to uncertainty if protagonist is hero or antihero, absurdity represented by literal Catch-22, non-linear structure, breaking the fourth wall etc. If these are the signifiers of postmodern story then all the stories of my uncles and great uncles especially those during their conscription into Czechoslovak army during communism are postmodern as hell.
georgioz
4d ago
The Sailer line is "progressives don't believe in IQ but know they're smarter than conservatives". And progressives do in fact cite studies that say right wingers have lower IQ (and lower openness), the only time I've seen this allowed.
This is exactly my point, you cannot be racist towards racists. It was seen many times, like when activists called black ICE agent as nigger with hard r, or when they force a closeted conservative homosexual out of the closet with a glee, or when they are openly misogynistic etc.
Intellectuals are arguably the highest status people in progressive spaces, even if we think that the fields they love are not particularly rigorous or g-loaded.
I'd say that intelectuals in general were considered high status historically. I live in post Austrian Empire sphere, where not having masters degree as part of your official ID is seen as shocking and strange - you immediately gain status just by having that. Getting education, parroting correct opinions and then getting cushy government job - or at least something government adjacent is age old tradition for all systems.
And don't get me wrong. I think men get confined to a tighter box in terms of acceptable behavior than women, even as that box often comes with higher social standing. Sometimes, I feel really sad for boys that have to grow up in this mess. But also, how hard is it to just learn to be yourself without all the weird, gendered expectations? I'm really very baffled by it all.
Ah, the classic bait-and-switch.
- We have the freedom to explore the full gamut of human experience and become whoever we want. Just be yourself!
- Okay, I choose to be stoic, gun loving conservative who likes male role models.
- Oh, not that! You have to choose what I told you to choose.
georgioz
5d ago
In a world where moral status (or, as you will soon see, we could call it moral stature) is defined by a person's height, what might we expect? Well one thing is it would be very rude to point out that people have different heights.
As other pointed out, this is flawed. In today's world it is not intellect, but other signifiers that are seen by large part of society as moral as opposed to immoral. People do not consider it rude to tell to other people that they are sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-vaxxers, fascist and many other things despite their intellect. Talking about intelligence points toward your racism, and it does not matter if you are an academic or construction worker on his break.
You seem to be misunderstanding what I am comparing. I am not comparing common law and Roman law. I am comparing America to the rest of the world.
You were arguing for "jury trials", not that USA is best, but fair enough.
I'm just saying that America is better when it comes to being able to criticize whatever, whoever, and whenever you want,
I'm just saying that America is better when it comes to being able to criticize whatever, whoever, and whenever you want, especially when that criticism is directed towards the government, and especially when the government has unambiguously wronged you.
I think this may be the case, it seems that US system as with many systems with jury are uniquely tribal. Jury can be played emotionally and it of course favors citizen vs government as well as poor guy vs rich guy etc. I am not sure if this is justice, but whatever. However I would not be that sure when it comes to free speech. USA also has one thing going against it, which is very workaholic culture. I am EU guy and I worked with and for US corporations and there seems to be unique blending of corporate and private persona, which is not at all usual in Europe.
I participated on harassment training due to working with US colleagues, and the level of outright threats and requirements on the workforce down to details of what can constitute as harassment was shocking not only to me, but also to my colleagues - including our very own HR. BTW many of those things required could be outright illegal in my jurisdiction, like for instance complete ban on any jokes related to protected characteristics - this would be against Freedom of Speech in Germany. The most shocking thing for me was that manager is obliged to report all potentially illegal things happening - the US law turns every manager into little commie spy telling to HR what kind of jokes about age or gender were told - even between two friends in breakroom, otherwise he may be held liable if they "fail to act". In true US fashion many of the most shocking breaches of rights and freedoms were outsourced to private sector. You have a right to tell a joke, but be prepared to get sued and fired.
It definitely is a multiplier on altruism, plus this ship already sailed. EA calls this incest with public money as policy enterpreneurship. There are other projects that require cooperation and schmoozing with governments, be it AI safety or many medical programs. Heck even the famous malaria nets are distributed in cooperation with African governments. We cannot have simple things like a little schmoozing with local politicians preventing us from saving of millions of lives, can we?
georgioz
12d ago
Many effective altruists have also specifically been wary of political giving (like Scott's article Beware Systemic Change), especially when it takes the form of picking a side in a mainstream left-vs-right tug-of-war rather than finding niche "pulling the rope sideways" issues that are disproportionately important compared to how much the public cares about them. Yes the controversial issues also matter, but they believe those are generally not where you can most effectively spend a marginal dollar (or even a marginal 250 million dollars).
See, this is when the altruism is not effective. The issue is that politics controls vast amount of money. Soros and his organizations are famously very effective in leveraging their money to 10x or more: build basic system and organizations and then use public money to push your projects. Imagine it as having a think-tank that will help towns and villages across EU write projects that can tap into structural EU funds to improve temperature in chicken farm or any other pet EA project, pun intended. Imagine what you can do if you can actually influence politicians to provide subsidies for that, and include a specific fee for animal welfare in each meat purchase, something like renewable surcharge to electricity. All you need is to just make sure to promote some friendly technocrats who can influence some of the byzantine EU regulation creation process. Amazing ROI.
georgioz
12d ago
I know that in most of them, you would easily lose any case that anyone (and especially the government) brings against you for your speech. I never claimed that you couldn't sue the government in other countries. I just said that in most of them, you wouldn't be able to win if they sued you (or charged you) for speech.
This may be the case, however it is not specific to common vs roman law. You have common law countries like UK or Australia which are significantly easier to misuse. For instance in case of defamation the US has apparently strict standard of proof of malice where burden of proof is on plaintiff. In Australia the burden of proof is on defendant who must prove that what he said was true and they are much more tyrannical when it comes to government officials successfully suing private citizens despite having common law and jury system.
JNOV is a bit limited; in a criminal trial it can only be used to overturn a guilty verdict, and even then the prosecution can appeal it.
You maybe know, that appeal is an institution also in EU, with extra layer of EU courts, especially European Court of Human Rights. The problem of course is if the whole system is corrupt especially in some highly politicized context. So yeah, the appeals are good way to disrupt local incest where police, prosecutor, judge and even attorneys are in kahoots in some scheme of smalltown mafia. However sometimes this mafia system is too powerful and they basically get protection. For some examples in US just look at "learing center" fraud in Minnesota or well known system of let's say Eastern District of Texas, which is hotbed of what is basically patent troll homebase where they freely extort rest of the world probably in exchange to some kickbacks. Jury does not care if they decide on some shit related to distant corporations, they know that if they rule in favor of patent troll they will get money for school or something.
Or it's because most of those people have a really bad case and the plea deal is genuinely better than going to trial?
Okay, so US federal government probably employs some CIA precrime unit akin to Minority Report if only one out of 200 prosecuted people is actually innocent. Amazing investigative competence. And now some other bedtime story.
My point is that both systems have pros and cons and they are much more complex. There is not single "EU law" as there is not single common law - see the difference between US or Australia. As people say, shit is complicated.
georgioz
12d ago
Second, this verdict could have only happened in America, where there is a strong legal tradition of freedom of speech. If it had taken place in a European country like Germany, where calling the government "parasites" gets your house raided, he would have lost.
What do you actually know about countries based around roman law legal system? I have attorneys in my family and they routinely sue government for this or that overreach or damages or bad tax ruling etc.
Having a jury trial was also very important in this case, because the judge was almost blatantly biased in favor of the plaintiffs.
It can also be very important the other way such as with O.J. Simpson and many other cases.
Turns out, jury trials are there to protect the people from corrupt judges.
Again, judges have quite different powers also in other countries. Plus there is plenty that corrupt judge can do - for instance he could have used JNOV and to overturn jury. Which can in fact be then used as a defense from corrupt or biased jury - e.g. such as when jury full of some tribe makes mockery of justice.
The point is that though Americans may be stereotyped as being irrationally fearful of a tyrannical government, this fear is entirely justified, and this case is a good example of it and this case is a good example of it. Or at least a good example of how small town cops abuse their power, which seems to happen an awful lot in small towns across America.
Yeah, it seems so on paper. But despite that, staggering 99.6% of federal criminal cases end up in conviction, mostly because 97% of people rather plead guilty. In true Kafkaesque manner, the process is the punishment. Once people see what their tyrannical government prepared for them, they rather plead guilty even if innocent. So much freedom.
One of the direr likely consequences of the war in Ukraine that often gets sidelined in Western discourse is the Moscow-Constantinople split in Orthodoxy, which I understand to be historically unusual.
It depends. There are some schisms every century. The other major schisms in recent history are Old Calendarist Schism of 1923/1935 (permanent ones, then there was temporary Bulgarian Schism (1872–1945), then there was permanent Melkite–Orthodox Schism of 1724 etc. Even before the current schism there was a schism in 1996 between Moscow and Constantinople over Estonia for couple of months.
Orthodox have to some extent the same issue as protestants - it is not clear who holds the authority. Heck, it happens with Catholicism with popes and antipopes, only it is much worse inside orthodoxy. So can be orthodox which literally means correctbelief, except it is not clear which one of those correct beliefs is truly correct with all the schisms around. This is why it is so hard to mend The Great Schism - as soon as it is resolved e.g. with union of Brest, it just becomes a catholic rite (Ukrainian Catholic Church in that case) and there is internal schism within this mending.
I don't think this is necessarily the case. You may signal your sophistication by other means as well. For instance you can talk how you enjoyed Antigone or The Orphan of Zhao for classics and something actually readable by Roberto Bolaño - for instance By Night in Chile, which is just 150 pages as opposed to 2666 slog. You can pick any other "ethnic" author and you can be golden. I just randomly searched for some Indonesian author and apparently Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan seems to be a good read and also just 150 pages. You cannot get more sophisticated for cheaper, you just have to say that an actually readable story is an allegory for colonialism or that is shows the world through other ways of knowing or some such.
You can also show sophistication by reading something else and readable from famous authors. For instance I really liked Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell. It is not as edgy and plebeian as 1984 and it shows how you went deeper into famous authors.
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