SO WHAT

To reveal my identity would be to imply that the source of meaning can be found in the author. It would imply that an individual unified subject exists and can elucidate the world around us. Since we all know that authors have nothing to do with texts, I don't matter anyway and I might even be dead. Consider me a collective.

Every generation has its crisis. In the 1940's it was World War II--the senseless brutality of Nazism and the deaths of innocent millions; in the 60s, Vietnam, a trauma from which we have yet to completely recover. Today, however, we face a more cunning, fatal foe, a silent malaise that strikes our very souls. I am talking, of course, of the crisis of post-modernism.

The signs are everywhere. Black-clad, beret-wearing intellectuals walk the streets, muttering in French accents about meta-narratives and hermeneutics. Texts by Foucault have replaced the once ubiquitous Marx-Engels Reader as the staple on every academic reading list. One has merely to stroll through the ever-growing Literary Criticism sections in Cambridge bookstores to recognize the imminent danger that is threatening our society. The Day of Deconstruction is upon us.

Actually, the post-modernists tell us that the formless void has always already been upon us, it's just that we're only starting to notice it now. You see, no matter how hard you try, your description of reality will never be complete, nor even true with a capital T. And what you don't say is just as important as what you do say. As Jacques Derrida proclaimed gleefully last year, No matter what you say, I can undermine it!

In order to combat the semiotic nightmare that seeks to undermine rational discourse, we must all be educated in the ways of the new vraisemblable. And as the French Freudians remind us, the place to begin is in the nursery. What better way to ease the transition to post-Structuralism than to train your child in the methods of the new episteme? Goodbye Dr. Spock; Hello Yale School of Deconstruction.

As Junior plays with his building blocks, he can now learn the ABC's of post-modernism. A is for Aporia, B is for Barthes, C is for Chiasma. D, the most important letter in the alphabet of the nouveau ecriture, is for Dualism, Deconstruction, Dissemination, and of course, Derrida. And when Junior begins to put letters together to form a word (which we now call a logos), he has a whole new set of challenges ahead of him. For difference is now spelled differance, while the prefix 'meta' opens infinite new realms of meaning.

Punctuation, too, becomes a crucial consideration: instead of calling for mommy, the new-age child must learn to cry for his (M)other. And don't forget con-junctions. The intertextual Grammer Rock must now instruct children in the mysterious 'either/or and simultaneously neither/nor.' Never fear that traditional values need fall by the wayside: discipline is still important, as every mother who has ever washed out her child's mouth with soap for saying "dualism" or "positivism" in the house can tell you.

This new education, which gives Frere Jacques a whole new meaning, can help your child develop the capacities to become a fulfilled speaking subject, and prepare him to confront successfully the challenge offered by each of life's aporias. He'll learn to undermine the binary oppositions that separate work and play, mom and dad, fact and fiction. Of course, this creates problems when Junior lies to mom and swears he's telling the truth to dad.

Junior learns quickly that when his teacher marks him absent in homeroom, he can insist that it was actually the presence of absence and the absence of presence. If the teacher questions him further, he patiently explains that it all goes back to his fear of castration.

By the time he graduates from high school, Junior will be able to face the challenges of higher academia with Transcendental Signifier firmly in hand. He has learned enough French to translate Tel Quel (So What) and enough German to converse knowingly about Aufheben. His bluebooks instruct him to write only in the margins. As he looks ahead to college, the choice of the major is the next question: will it be Historicismn or Metaphysics? Panaestheticism, Diachronics or Sociolects? In his first romance, he can hope for jouissance.

But of course, even if Mom tries her hardest to raise the perfect post-modern child, it won't work. It can't work, by definition. You can't want your kid to be post-modern--that would be a goal, and no telos is allowed. Besides, even if Junior progresses just as we've described, it will be a linear progression, and post-modernism has already foretold the end of linear thought. But every ending is also a beginning...

The telos. For now.

The unidentified and perhaps nonexistent author would like to thank the following individuals for their seminal contributions to his thought: Jean-Francois Lyotard, Judith Barish, Maia Harris, Jennifer Mnookin and Joseph Penachio.

Dictionary

Aufheben: transcend, surpass.

Ex.: Move into the fast lane. Aufheben that slow Chevy!

Always already: to be inserted at random in any sentence.

Ex. The cat is always already on the mat.

Aporia: gap, crisis

Ex. When I broke up with Ann, it was an aporia.

Cartesian: absolutely evil.

Ex. That broccoli and cheese pasta was Cartesian.

Chiasma: intersection, crossroads.

Ex. I'll meet you at the chiasma of Dunster and Mt. Auburn.

Logos: word

Ex. What's the latest logos on the stock market prices?

Metaphysical: old-fashioned, bad

Ex. Those polyester pants are positively metaphysical.

Physis: nature

Ex. You can't fool Mother Physis.

Positivism: a bad method

Ex. You can't mean that. That would be positivism!

Telos: end, goal

Ex. I'm almost at the telos of this chapter.

Unheimlich: uncanny

Ex. That haunted house is really unheimlich.

A Post-modern Primer

This is Jacques.

Watch Jacques deconstruct the metaphysics of presence.

"Differ, Jacques, Defer."

Now you try.

Here is Jacques' house.

Is Jacques in or out?

He is on the threshold.

He is both outside and inside.

The outside contaminates the inside.

Jacques is always already at home.

Aren't you?

Here are Jacques' parents.

They are a duality.

Dualities are bad.

Deconstruct, Jacques, deconstruct.

This is Jacques' best friend.

His name is also Jacques.

Watch Jacques look in the mirror.

He has a transcendental signifier. Do you have one?