Postmodernism R.I.P.?

Art is how we make ourselves intelligible to ourselves. This is why critical debates about contemporary culture matter, not only to specialists. This is why we are fascinated by “-isms”, by new names for our age, by intellectuals who explain the present for posterity (or, at least, for the next five years or so). For most of these thinkers, postmodernism has lost its sparkle. Once widely hailed as the definitive and all-defining category, “post” no longer cuts any conceptual Gordian knots. Its evanescence reflects – fatally or perhaps cathartically – the flux of our fast-paced world. But what comes next? Conceptual openness is, of course, a good thing, but without shared cultural categories, how are we going to define the scope of future debates? (How are we going to prepare for the future?) The problem is well expressed in Raffaele Donnarumma’s Ipermodernità : Dove va la narrativa contemporanea (2014), a timely reflection on cultural historiography. Much of Donnarumma’s intelligent polemic is directed against a widespread but simplistic practice of critica militante as a wilful, often capricious labelling of the present. It is surprising, then, to see how much of Ipermodernità  is devoted to postmodernism: a category, which (also as a result of Donnarumma’s earlier efforts) appears obsolete to most critics. Donnarumma, in fact, begins with a distinction – first sketched by Fredric Jameson and developed by Romano Luperini – between postmodernità  (a historical period, here assumed, in general agreement with Remo Ceserani, to date back to the Fifties), postmodernismo (a specific cultural movement, defined by its inherent relationship to modernism); and postmoderno (the wider cultural context). He then makes two essential claims: we still live in a postmodern age (postmodernità) but the unspecific and overused notion of postmoderno has outlived its usefulness. In other words, Donnarumma rejects postmodernism in the arts, but embraces David Harvey’s account of postmodernity as an ongoing epoch in which advanced societies – particularly in the West – experience de-industrialization; globalization on an economic, social and ecological level; the rise of new media and communication technologies; the transformation of cognitive processes and aesthetic preferences. While Donnarumma’s understanding of postmodernity is nuanced and acute, his attacks on postmodernism echo a dated polemic. If we accept his contention that postmodernist theory exhausted its force in the Nineties, how are we going to assess the enduring relevance of works of art, which, inevitably, still reflect our cultural and socio-political conditions? We may of course describe them in different words, but there exists, at present, no consensus about terminology, and Donnarumma’s hypermodernity is only one of many contenders. Postmodernism, then, continues to be a necessary point of reference, even among those who wish to lay it to rest. Let us focus on what matters most: not the critical jargon of “post”, but the social conditions of late capitalism, which, many years ago, Jameson evoked as its base, and which continue to persist. Without postmodernist theory and art, how are we going to fare in this all-too-postmodern age? Or, as a friend once put it, what if postmodernists had been too optimistic, all along, about the lateness of “late” capitalism: who knows how long it will last?