Limborsky I.

PARADOXES OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

AND THE AMERICAN POSTMODERNISM

          At the end of the XX - beginning of the ХХІ century Enlightenment at all seen historical remoteness still is in the center of numerous sharp discussions which occur around such determining concepts in the history of human civilization as "antropologism", "humanism", “public and technical progress”, "Europe centrism", and in the field of the literature they have covered as well such phenomena as modernism and postmodernism. We feel in our daily life the results of Enlightenment activity which are connected to technical achievements of civilization, as conceptions of democracy, norms of erudition, forms of an intellectual reflection which have laid basis of scientific and moral-ethical values of the newest time. M. Foucalt wrote on this occasion, that Enlightenment “has determined, at least, in part, what we are today, our ideas and our acts” (1).

It is not strange, that these results have an effect also at a macropolitical level – the processes of today's world globalization take their beginning from the age of Enlightenment with its cosmopolitan ideals and global, concerning their radicalism, projects of rationalization of knowledge and practices down to corresponding technological and political changes. It’s interesting, that such phenomenon as modern multiculturalism which is considered by some researchers the successor of postmodernism, apparently, in many respects is also obliged to late educational, namely – Gerder’s concept of the nations and their cultural development. Here too it is necessary to recollect feminism as it was Enlightenment, which, stimulated for the first time an expressive impulse for the origin of a specific gender discourse which has been given birth by female "displeasure" concerning priority of intellectual "man's" values in public life (2).

          In modern literary criticism’s discourse the idea predominates according to which the postmodernism has arisen as the uttermost and radical antithesis to Enlightenment as negative reaction to it’s ratio centric ideals (3.) It has been much written that the postmodernism specifies full breakdown of cultural logic of the Western world and the western rationality, at least in that its kind which has developed in the days of Descartes. Not the last role in such estimation was played by "negative" concepts of Enlightenment, one of the most indicative – the book “Dialectic of Enlightenment” (“Dialektik der Aufklärung”, 1944) by T.Adorno and M.Horkheimer, which has accused it (in many respects, by the way, far not unreasonably) in transformation of the person during alienation into thoughtless "automatic device" and "mechanism" in extremely standardized and man-caused world of the XX cent. On a discourse level Enlightenment has formed, by Liotard, a specific "metanarration" which legitimized  “the own game” and has tried to subordinate to itself all other types of discourses and narrations, contradicting to Enlightenment picture of the world. The postmodernism has appeared as mistrust to such type of "metanarrations", as tendency to its "deconstruction", clearing from under authority of its stereotypes.

However similar estimations yet do not give the bases for the uttermost aversion of Enlightenment as a specific paradigmatics of culture, to an estimation of it only with "minus" as extremely "negative" in historical prospect of "the utopian project”. Today, as never earlier, apparently, there is a need to look more narrowly at the Enlightenment type of artistic thinking and, eventually, it is necessary to refuse resolutely from what M.Foucalt named “blackmail of Enlightenment”. Ties between these cultural phenomena - Enlightenment and postmodernism - are much more complex and dynamic than it may seem at the first sight. Yes, postmodernism, really, in many respects resists to Enlightenment and acts appreciably as its alternative: Enlightenment, as it is known, asserts historical optimism, centrism in various modifications (ratio-, europe-), presence of an ultimate goal, in the field of the art form - correctness of arrangement of parts inside the whole, harmony and corresponding proportions, and postmodernism to the opposite - mistrust to any centrism, a fragmentariness, uncompleteness, pastishe, absence of any hierarchy of values and in general postmodernism undermines from within the proof status of absolute values. Nevertheless, as a cultural epoch and a specific type of an art discourse Enlightenment not only historically preceded postmodernism, and appreciably directly prepared it, determined some creative vector lines of its development. Also the thing here is not only that “each epoch has its own postmodernism” (4), and that between Enlightenment and postmodernism there are immanent, latent internal ties which do not lie on the surface of these phenomena of culture.

          First of all they are united by the general intention - as specific phenomena of culture and literature they could appear only under certain conditions, namely - the certain tradition of culture should precede them. German philosopher P.Sloterdijk, for example, writes fairly that the presence of two important reasons was necessary for Enlightenment formation - malicious will of predecessors and mistakes of the past that is why in the tendency - “to introduce the best understanding through overcoming of consciousness” - it has been compelled to operate “behind of consciousness of the enemy” (5). Strategy of postmodernism coming into being, apparently, not so differs here from Enlightenment: the Enlightenment type of a rational-pragmatical reflection as the certain ideological complex which requires "reconsideration", "deconstruction", should act as the direct predecessor of  postmodernism.

          On the other hand, Enlightenment appeared a phenomenon far ambiguous and had no uniform art or ideological correlate, so to say, uniform ratio centric "core" that is why it implicitely contained in its germ those beginnings which approached it to postmodernism. “The universal model” of Enlightenment appeared to be full of shouting paradoxes which testified to internal discrepancy of this epoch. At this time we meet both the apology of reason and at the same time interest to occultism, pietism, origin of secret circles and Masonic lodges, we notice upholding the independent rights of the sovereign person and full depreciation of human life that has been shown by the events of  revolution in France. This time not only great thinkers, but also great sinners and adventurers - Cagliostro, Casanova, Saint-Germain. Eventually, it is Marquis de  Sad with his very specific concept of "the natural person” who sees sense of the existence in search of unlimited by anything external pleasures and asserts new absolute freedom, free from any ethical or moral instructions; the writer has lifted a lot of problems which excited also postmodernists, - in particular a problem of psychological mechanisms of the individual’s desire of authority, first of all totalitarian and violent. 

          And this ratio centrism of Enlightenment was very specific: it essentially differed from rationalism in its "purest" cartesian type. French literary critic P.Hazard fairly wrote that the Enlightenment literature has appeared during steady and even "aggressive" reconsideration of the previous rationalistic tradition of culture where everything was hierarchical and logically subordinated to each other - from a public life to corresponding forms of arts (classicism). The new outlook essentially did not accept rationalistic canons of predecessors and did not want to recognize the established authorities, demanded changes, travels, new inventions, and history at all was proclaimed "false". It was other rationalism and in general other representation about mind, which, according to the literary critic, already “was not counterbalanced by wisdom, and it was marked by boldness and criticism” (6).

          The indicative fact is that at all "Europe centrism" of  Enlightenment it appeared too far from the standard of this "centrism" which would be determined by one common for the European literatures art canon, one homogeneous model of cultural development. There is, for example, a specific paradigmatics of development of slavic literatures, in particular those from them which concern to literatures of so-called “nonclassical type” (Bulgarian, Slovene, Czech, Croatian, Ukrainian), which, by virtue of historical circumstances at that time were on periphery of cultural life of Europe and could not influence the forming of ratio centric Enlightenment European ideals. However, from such “marginal peripheries” opens interesting if it is possible to say so “postmodernist prospect”: as a rule, the voltairian rationalistic line of artistic thinking in these literatures has not received distribution, and instead of it the greater popularity and distribution has been received by Rousseau which has proclaimed mistrust to the "mind", which only tears the person off from nature and creates a civilization full of contradictions. The Ukrainian literature can be considered as one of indicative in this way where sensualistic rousseauistic  principles declare themselves from the second half of the ХVІІІ cent. (G.Skovoroda), and then during all the ХІХ cent. (I.Kotljarevsky, G.Kvitka-Osnovjanenko, G.Barvinok, P.Kulish). It is interesting, that in these literatures owing to their cultural originality we observe "postmodernist" synthesis of "fragments" of various styles different by the ideological-aesthetic contents - from baroque, classicism and rococo to preromanticism and romanticism, - which peacefully coexist not only in creative activity of one author, but in the limites of one work.

          Eventually, it also is a purely “artistic paradox”: with the determining rationalistic Enlightenment type of artistic thinking with its aiming at the semantically "transparent" word which becomes attached to reality and applies for the validity of the statement, some writers used means of "postmodernist techniques”: collage and montage (L.Stern: “Tristram Shandy ”), parody (G.Fielding: "Shamela"), grotesque, phantasmagoria, some features of entropy (J.Swift: “Gulliver’s Travels”). At the same time it is impossible to ignore that Enlightenment is also such an interesting phenomenon, as rococo, which consistently asserted a principle of "game" (so popular in postmodernism) as the only possible form of coexistence of the person with the world. It is indicative, that the "game" in the ХVІІІ is distributed in general to all levels of social being: by J.Huizinga words, “art of state government: the policy of cabinets, political intrigues and adventures - really never before were up to such degree a game” (7).

          Deep typological ties between Enlightenment and postmodernism, their extremely original interlacing at the level of single art forms, motives and images are shown by the American literature of the second half of the XX. Thus it is possible to allocate some levels and ways of reconsideration and assimilation of Enlightenment system of artistic values by postmodernist aesthetics and poetics.

1. Usage of separate art methods, ways and traditions of the Enlightenment literature by the postmodernist writers. Already the sources of “black humour” school (J.Barth, D.Barthelm, J.Donleavy, V.Burroughs) in the American literature can be seen not only in creative activity of such writers, as F.Rablais or M.Servantes, and in the works by Voltaire and D.Swift (J.Kerouac, for example, considered  Burroughs the second big satirist after the “Gulliver’s Travels” author). Some postmodernist writers  are declined to define their style as "rationalized" as did D.Barthelm, for example, though he uses it to reflect uniquitous "madness" of the world around us.

Postmodernists frequently emphasized about the ties with the literature of Enlightenment and first of all with some writers–enlighteners themselves. D.Barth, for example, admits, that his teachers together with J.Joyce and W.Faulkner were also "grandgrandfathers" - L.Stern and D.Diderot. Barth makes a start from traditions of Enlightenment education novel also in his work “The Sot-Weed Factor” though he creates here “the novel of humiliation, ridicules” ("Herabziehungsromane"). Now, the name of the novel actually repeats the name of  the work of American writer of the ХVІІІ cent. Cooke, who has derided the naive and ingenuous gawk arriving in New World in the poem “The Sot-Weed Factor”. Barth in the novel imitates also some "formal" attributes of education novel of the ХVІІІ cent.: the reference to the reader, the author's comment, deviations, detailed characteristics of characters, that as a whole pursues author's aim - to recreate the "spirit" of the remote epoch. Nevertheless American writer, experimenting with the artistic form, creates entirely completed postmodernist work in the center of which is ironical ridicule of high aspirations and impulses of the hero, the epic plan gradually turns into satirical, and history - into “all round metaphor”.

2. New rousseauism in postmodernist work. Aversion of civilization, its extremities, the world of "new technologies” which transform the person into the thoughtless mechanism are one of the important structure forming motives in the works of American postmodernists. This theme declares itself boldly in K.Vonnegut's novels “Player piano”, “The Sirens of Titan”, “Breakfast of Champions, or Good-bye, Blue Monday”). Heroes of last novel mentioned appear as mechanistic beings on the background of the urbanized and extremely technically equipped landscape. “Science failed to make a person happy”, – says K.Trout in one of the writer’s recent novels – “Timequake”. Though the writer sees the way out of such "mechanical" and absurd existence not in the savage forms of life for which Rousseau called, but in the play, irony and selfirony. The other foreshortening of this problem is investigated by D.Barth in the novel “The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor” which scene is laid at once in two time and spatial plans - the medieval East and in the USA at the middle of the XX cent. Barth in rousseauistic spirit opposes the American civilization  to the "exotic" and even to the "wild" eastern world. Not the last role in the choice of the writer of the East as the original standard of the "other", "unfamiliar" world was played by the book of fairy tales “One thousand and one night ” which became known, by the way, to the European reader just at the epoch of Enlightenment thanks to S.Galan’s translations. Close to the newrousseauism is also T.Pynchon in the “Gravity's Rainbow” where he describes the processes of destruction of the western civilization which has got in the uttermost dependence on a technocracy and has led to the alienation and leveling of the person, creating such version of the postmodernist novel, as entropy.

3. The artistic conflict “the person vs. system”. One of the most widespread conflicts in the American postmodernist literature between the person and system which subordinates the person to the certain external laws, forces him to submit to the "game rules" reminds a collision of the educational literature - between the person and society which does not understand the person and imposes to him beforehand erroneous moral reference points and stereotypes of behavior, which, as a rule, leads heroes to difficult vital tests or in general to tragic consequences (Voltaire: "Ingenuous", D.Diderot: "The Nun", G. Kvitka-Оsnоvjanenko: “Marysya”). K.Kesey expressively embodies a similar conflict in “One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest” where between determining "coordinates" - authoritative "rationality" of the Senior nurse and "madness" of heroes - exists extremely unsteady border of "rules" which everyone should follow. As the result the problem of self-identity of the person is transferred to an existential scheme: the deceit will be to force the person to consider available "rules" to be the true life. The doubt in correctness of such scale of values (MacMurfy) generates an aggressive counteraction in the system, the desire of absolute authority above freedom and consciousness of the person, who appears capable to oppose this system the free "game" principles.

Though, it is necessary  here to  notice also  the  other side  of this conflict:  as   M. Foucault has shown in his early work “Madness and unreasonableness” it was Enlightenment which, for the first time, with an extreme acuteness has put a problem of "madness", qualified it as illness, has tried to isolate all those who were not entered in the standard ratio. Therefore, by the sources of the collision, the K.Kesey’s novel  originates from Enlightenment theoretical conceptualization of madness as such a form of behavior which does not answer the conventional ideal of "common sense", is broken out of  borders of "ratio centrism" and consequently causes alarm in those who have remained “free” and speculates thus about the problems of the "correct" social organization.

4. Postmodernist “returning to reality” and Enlightenment. During the age of Enlightenment the new problem of a reality has been opened in fiction – in the conceptions of it the scientist approaches have started to dominate which allowed to see interrelation and interaction of public and natural mechanisms which determine inner world and behavior of the individual. In the Enlightenment artistic discourse the word prevails, which is directed “towards the being” (by  P.Ricoeur), there is an idea that the sign exists for the thing and is capable to reflect its essence. Therefore words "seize" the reality and keep an opportunity to create the finished closed sphere including actually the work of art, which claims for "correct" interpretation of the person and the world. Postmodernism, as well as Enlightenment, does not reject the reality, but in the works of postmodernists it appears in other foreshortening: the traditional for realism way of a straight "sign" representation changes new - the sign now sends not to the "subject", but to another sign, therefore direct correlation of a word and a subject is broken off.

Nevertheless the common dominant of both Enlightenment and postmodernism is still a desire to avoid  the "chaos", which results in erroneous interpretation of the reality (Enlightenment) or makes impossible the connection of structure and event (Postmodernism). D.DeLillo, for example, marking, that today there is no more history of literature as history of human characters, is declined to think: there are only signs significant in themselves which reflect a reality, but in any case not chaos or randomness. “Randomness is always hard to absorb”, - explains the writer his position (8).

In the novels of the writer we meet not simply with one homogeneous reality, but with the whole set of "realities" which exist with their own internal laws and get special "marking": the world of mathematics (“Rattner’s Star”), the world of terrorists ("Players"), different national "realities" - American ("Americana"), Russian (“Libra”), Near-Eastern ("The Names"), Chinese (“Мао 2”). 

         Today, apparently, there is no alternative: the positive or negative attitude to the Enlightenment way of artistic thinking, - it is necessary to overcome resolutely similar dichotomizing partition of today's estimations of Enlightenment. The discourse of postmodernism is not only "historically open" for any types of an artistic reflection (including Enlightenment-pragmatic which it frequently uses to struggle with rationalism with the help of the same rationalism), but it itself appears appreciably caused and determined by the Enlightenment ideology and system of artistic and aesthetic representations. Actually it also determines the complex nature of postmodernism, its ability for both the reconsideration of the approved models of artistic thinking, and for their assimilation within the limits of the system of own art values.

Notes

1.     Foucault M. Dits et ecrits. – Paris, 1994. – V.4. – P.562.

2.     Див.: Armstrong I., Blain V. Women’s Poetry in the Enlightenment: The Making of a Canon, 1730 – 1820. – Houndmills, Basingstoke, London, 1998.

3.     Див.: Postmodernism // The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. – Princeton, 1993. – P.792 – 793.

4.     Эко У. Имя розы. – М., 1989. – С.460.

5.     Слотердайк П. Критика цинічного розуму. – К., 2002. – С.31.

6.     Hazard P. Kryzys swidomosci europejskiej 1680 – 1715. – Warszawa, 1974. – S.22.

7.     Хейзинга Й. Homo ludens. В тени завтрашнего дня. – М., 1992. – С.210.

8.     Harris R.R. Talk with Don DeLillo // www. nytimes. com/books/01/02/04/ specials/delillo. html.