Paratactic Juxtapositions: A Theoretical Framework For Understanding The Complex
Sense-Making In The Postmodern Woke West; How To Define The Undefinable
In Marshall McLuhan’s written introduction to the Bias of Communications, a book by Canadian political economist and early media theorist, Harold Innis - McLuhan compares Innis’ style of writing to the “paratactic procedure of juxtaposing without connectives” found in the “symbolism of art and poetry.”
This quality of writing famously makes the later works of Innis quite difficult reading. However, McLuhan recognized that Innis’ style, where “each sentence is a compressed monograph,” had a theoretical utility in framing the complex global conditions brought about by communications mass media.
The effects of media was the main topic of the majority of Marshall McLuhan’s work; the later works of Innis also see much of his scholarly focus dealing with the mechanisms and societal effects of communications media.
At some point, I will go deeper into Innis/McLuhan media theory, but for now, allow me to say that the work of both gentleman should not be considered postmodernism. Or, if you insist on lumping them into the postmodernist category, then I assert that much of their work and theories stands apart from others well known for their association with postmodernism. My assertion will be expanded later. For now, I only wish to focus on a narrow aspect of Harold Innis; his tendency to drop clouds of wisdom, in semi-palatable chunks, without the bother of gratuitous connective commentary. Just an aggregation of distilled, compressed, ordered and relevant information presented in a latticework of knowledge.
Taken as a whole, Paratactical Juxtapositions - a theoretical framework I’m mostly stealing from the ideas of Innis and McLuhan - can be conceived of as a cloud of characteristics, observations, material & historical facts, examples, etc., that serve the goal of building an understanding of something that is complex and not easy to define in the traditional way.
Parataxis, according to Wikipedia - “is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple sentences, without conjunctions or with the use of coordinating, but not with subordinating conjunctions. It contrasts with syntaxis and hypotaxis.”
A simpler definition that pops up on the first page of a google search - “designating or using a style in which sentences or elements within sentences are set down successively with little or no indication of their relationship.”
To try out this method of partacactical juxtaposition I’ve chosen postmodernism as the concept to (attempt to) define. You will notice the simplicity of this method, relying only on a single syntactical structure; the semicolon.
Please keep in mind that there is no finality to this exercise. I have purposefully left it incomplete. At some point the paratactical juxtaposition below will be expanded on and included in the chapter of the Woke West dealing with postmodernism. So feel free to come up with your own fragments (observations, facts, examples, etc.) and suggest them in the comment section.
I encountered a more advanced version of this technique in a book by Gad Saad called “The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense,” - which made it to my list of best books explaining the culture wars. Dr. Saad’s method is geared toward constructing a bullet-proof argument, whereas I see paratactical juxtapositions as similar, but geared toward explaining or defining difficult concepts.
Dr. Saad refers to his method as “an extraordinarily powerful epistemological tool,” and names it “nomological networks of cumulative evidence.” In his words,
“Your feelings cannot protect you from the truth. These networks provide key epistemological benefits in explaining scientific phenomena including explanatory coherence, theoretical integration, and consilience (unity of knowledge).”
As a counterpart to this post, it would be interesting to write another that uses a nomological network of cumulative evidence to construct an argument against postmodernism. Here again, please feel free to suggest a line of argument against postmodernism that could be inserted into Dr. Saad’s framework.
A humorous and simplified example, from Dr. Saad’s book, of a nomological network of cumulative evidence, where he invites you to - “Suppose that you wish to demonstrate that men’s universal preference for the hourglass figure was shaped by evolution,” - followed by the “unassailable body of evidence,” shown below in the application of his framework:
1) the hourglass figure has been associated with greater fertility and superior health; 2) across a broad range of cultures, online female escorts advertise the hourglass figure to prospective patrons; 3) online escorts who posses the hourglass figure command larger fees; 4) statues and figures spanning varied cultures across several millennia exhibit the desired hourglass figure; 5) Playboy centerfolds and Miss America winners throughout the 20th century posses the preferred hourglass figure; 6) men’s preference for the hourglass figure has been documented across diverse cultures and races using many methods including brain imaging and eye tracking ; 7) men who have never had the gift of sight are also drawn to the hourglass figure (using touch to establish the preference)
Paratactic Juxtaposition Applied to Postmodernism
In many ways postmodernism eludes definition. It is abstract and no two postmodernists agree on anything close to a standard meaning. The best we can do is create a mosaic image made clear by an aggregation of its fragments.
Postmodernism is difficult to define. The following series of paratactic juxtapositions attempts to:
A ruling tendency is indeterminate and immanent (indetermanence); Favors subjectivity over objectivity; Late-capitalism is a founding condition; Requires modes of regulation consistent with the post-fordist/Keynesian regime of flexible accumulation; Is bolstered by a deregulated and decentralized culture that emphasizes creativity and innovation; Requires the convergence of cultures and political economies brought about by globalization; Requires the “time & space compression” aspect of instantaneous communications and of increased efficiency in global transport networks; Is bolstered by the inter-connected communications environment of the social web (internet communications); Requires a general psychological shift to emotional irrationality consistent with an environment dominated by electronic/digital communications media (unlike the rationality and detachment of “typographic man” - where print is the dominant medium); Material and historical frameworks of analysis are replaced with relativist methods; “Cultures” are favored over the achievements of “civilizations”; Despondency and nihilism are defining elements; polylectic and polylogic pervade; Involves speculation necessarily; Disconfirms familiar forms; Favours collectivism over individualism; Arises from left-wing academic circles;
There is no syntax or ordering principles to this, not in the traditional sense of how language and ideas are constructed. However, a paratactical framework like the above, seems useful, but in the case of postmodernism, additional explanation involving the use of connectives is necessary.
Postmodernism’s defiant tendency to deconstruct, reject, project at random a stream-of-consciousness-type verbal twisting of standard forms and traditional boundaries, gives it an improvisational quality. More akin to a tangle of loosely related ideas forming curious web-like patterns, instead of solidly structured arguments, made with clear logic. Because of this, the usual ways we explain and conceive of things (liner, material, historical, empirical) by themselves, fall short.
An example of the musical expression of postmodernism is jazz. Not the kind you are thinking of - the kind that is intricate, demanding and musically explorative - in other words, unlistenable to most people. Postmodern criticism, speculation, and deconstruction are precariously perched on a thin and fragile tip forming a partially obscured precipice, one side of which is rarely visited. The lonely space reserved for inspiration and profundity is dwarfed by the mass of cacophonous nonsense and verbal convolution found on the other side. The whole business should be avoided as the best it has to offer can be summarized in an afternoon or two by a proficient teacher.
Critical theory is the blending of postmodernism with neo-Marxism aka Critical Marxism. The element of praxis makes it like an Americanized postmodernism seeking advocacy and action through its own abstractions. Postmodernism and critical theory are related concepts, one growing out of the other, both representing the departure from reason and the descent into myth that is the postmodern turn.
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Thanks for reading . As I mentioned in my 2022 updated post , I will not be publishing segments of the Woke West in a serial fashion. I am far too undisciplined for that. Please join me in my embrace of randomness. Or at the very least, don’t judge me too harshly.
Also, please read my essays on Woke Watch Canada! Most will be combined into the Woke West along with the essays found here on the Turn. My latest, The Corruption Of Canada’s Indigenous Victim Industry, discusses the postmodern turn and its relationship with corruption in Canada’s “Aboriginal Industry.”