By Franz Schurmann

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Prediction for Tuesday, March 16th,1999

Neo-Classicism Will Come In as Post-modernism Peters Out

• Introduction:
  

  This prediction is about "post-modernism," an intellectual movement that has swept over the higher educated classes of Europe and America during the past two or three decades. It's so popular that it is often referred to as "PoMo" --- like SoHo in Manhattan or SoMa in San Francisco where many who subscribe to PoMo live.

  My view is that post-modernism is like a nova in the heavens: it suddenly gives off great light but then fades away. Signs of post-modernism's fading are already evident.

  Intellect has to do with the mind, reason, abstractions --- not with feelings, faith or what's real. Intellectuals are mind-workers trained in institutions of higher learning. In modern societies these institutions have proliferated like mushrooms swarming up from rich earth after heavy rain. In the Western world the post-modernist population is pretty big.

  It is impossible to find a consensus definition as to what post-modernism is. The word means only that it, whatever it is, comes "after modernism." On the other hand it's easier to find among thinkers an approximate consensus as to what modernism is and an even greater consensus that post-modernists don't like it.

  It's a bit like our English expression "not-bad." Not-bad implies sort of good. But it also implies that those who say "something is not-bad" find it easier to define what's bad than what's good.

  Modernism points to the here-and-now world we in the developed countries live in --- specifically our society, culture and technology. A lot of post-modernists --- including the Unabomber --- think modern technology is the main generator of both modern society (the way people are organized) and culture (the way people live, work and think together). They see these three as bad but they regard the social, cultural and technological forms they themselves are evolving as not-bad.

  Why is modernism bad? David Harvey says: "Post-modernism typically harks back to that wing of thought, Nietzsche in particular, that emphasizes the deep chaos of modern life." Why is post-modernism not-bad? Susan Gablik says: "... [it] gives the impression everything is permitted. Meeting with no limitation, the artist is free to express himself in whatever way he wishes."(See: http://non.com/news.answers/postmodern-faq.html for references).

• Pre-Prediction:
  

  Cultural happenings are much harder to predict than political, technological or social events. The reason is that they are flows rather than things. You can pin down a thing but not a flow.

  Nevertheless you can see how flows change. I predict that post-modernism's waves are petering out and a new current is beginning.

  My prediction is based on the idea of the I and the We. The I is free, unbound and unbounded. The We is always bound to or bounded by other I's. Post-modernism is a belief system based on the unbounded I. My prediction is that a new cultural current is beginning in the Western world which joins the We to the I.

  I call that current neo-classicism. Classicism means using older forms in one's work. Neo, in this context, means adding new directions to the old forms. As post-modernists go farther and deeper they sense all boundaries melting away. The classicists seek the boundaries, in the process discovering the We and the I --- and how they are connected, We-and-I.

  Identity is an important word in the neo-classical current. It searches for who I am in relation to We's and I's. If one only recognizes I's, not We's, then the I becomes a singularity (a point where all order breaks down). But if one recognizes We's as well as I's then one discovers both self and group identity.

  In recent years identity politics has become a common term in America and Europe. Identity politics implies that people spend a lot of time every day acting out their I-and-We. They become nationalist or religious or fundamentalist or environmentalist or simply political party activists. The We's in their lives give them their identity and that sense of identity activates them. Identity and identity politics give people direction in their lives. Post-modernism doesn't.

  There are already are lots of neo-neoclassical currents. In contrast to post-modernism whose waves flowed at the top those of neo-classicism are flowing at lower depths.

  • The surge of religious belief and spirituality all over the world
  • Identity politics spreading and rising as Anglo-American democracy, mired in money and alienated from its grass-roots, declines
  • The new popularity of poetry and poets bounded by particular languages. (In France from 21 to 28 March some 1,200 poetry readings will be held all over the country)

  I believe the soil in which neo-classicisists are growing are the immigrants pouring into America and Europe, especially from the Third World. The immigrants come to cities and towns, not to villages. Frank Viviano writing in the San Francisco Chronicle has shown the big impact they are having on all of Western Europe. Recent Labor Department figures, based on 1990 census figures show that 33 to 35 percent of New York City's population is foreign born, mostly Third World (by 2000 the figure could be well above 40).

  Just about all the immigrants are defined by ethnicity, race or nationality. Most accept the modernist perspective. They have a direction and by and large it is to make money, educate their children and see their own kind advance as well.

  These values are classical but the directions the newcomers are moving in are different. Different because they are pursuing their classical goals under entirely different cultural circumstances: new languages, economies, cultures, people, dangers.

• Prediction:
  Some signs of new neo-classical cultural currents:
  1. Growth and spread of the ethnic media: newspapers, zines, TV, theater, poetry

  2. More neo-classical films --- like "Central Station" (Brazil), "The Eel" (Japanese), "Gods and Monsters" (British), "Children of God" (Iranian), "Emperor's Shadow" and "Emperor's Concubine" (China) in American and European mainline movie theaters

  3. Dialogues between Post-modernists and Neo-classicists, Pomos and Newcomers, Westernizers and radical Islamists

• Outcome:
  I will report the outcome of the prediction on January 4, 2000.

We live in an information age. To use world system sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein's terms, information systems are characterized by core and periphery. All information that is "mainstream" is core and therefore prominently visible and audible. All that is "minority" is at the periphery, shadowy and unheard.

In the 1960's the disgraced Chinese military leader Lin Biao advanced a world view that in the decades to come the world's villages would surround and eventually take the world's cities. By villages he meant metaphorically the Third World; by cities he meant the First and Second Worlds (the West and the now defunct Soviet Union).

Lin Biao's vision applies to the information world. The "cities" are the mainstream media and the "villages" are the ethnic. The villages are going to first surround and then come into the cities.

*****

Movie theaters all over the world, but especially in American and European cities and towns, are making a comeback. Young people, in particular, flock to the movies. I predict that Hollywood post-modern type films with a lot of violence and chaos will become less and less popular (lose money) and neo-classical movies will become more popular (make it financially).

*****

While there is a lot of dialoguing between modernist and post-modernist, there is little between both of these Western ideological camps and radical religious movements, especially Islamic, like the Iranian Khomeini revolution or the Afghan Taliban one. Each demonize the other. Their fundamental premises are irreconcilable.

But if new neo-classical currents arise in the West and modernizing --- and maybe even post-modernizing --- currents start working on the Islamic revolutionaries (as is now happening in Iran) then maybe dialogue will be possible.