Realism, modernism, postmodernism and crealism - 2

 

 

by Momir Nikic

For a realist the world is solid, composed of more or less distinct realia (men, thi­ngs, relations, facts…) exposed to influence of cause-effect mechanisms. Social structure is constructed by “blocks” and “bricks” of social building. Their change is possible only as the substitution. Men are pure instruments of “natural” (unavoidable) processes of development comprehensible to reason and science.

For a modernist the world is liquid, in permanent motion. There are no firm and unchangeable borders of external or internal, of subject or object, of present or fu­ture, of time and space…Causal relations are substituted by accidents; social mi­lieu becomes more complex; monism, compactness and objective logics yield their place to pluralism, fragmentary and subjective measures. Outside world is com­posed of “permanent sensations” (J. S. Mill), of illusions vi­bra­ting lyrically (im­pre­ssionism) or dramatically (expressionism…). It is more problematic and disin­te­grated (split up to Kant’s sensorial phenomena and intellectual noumena), and could be re-integrated in subject itself.

The world of a postmodernist is nebula, gas, vapor, the smoke of something which does not exist anymore. Composed of phantom “facts and values”, it is, actually, a construct, the product of simulation. It is the “twilight zone” in which spaces (heterotopy of Foucault) and positions are completly confused. The reason is driven from the throne; there is no developmental of axiological hierarchy (prio­rities and value scale), consciousness (only in unconsciousness we are ide­ntical to oursel­ves). “The language is a home of Being” (Heidegger), but being illusion it­self it is incapable of expressing the world. Men, object, subject, past, present and future… are imprisoned in vacuum, chaos, dissolution, flux, dialysis…without any solid support, and nothing could be confirmed or disputed. The entire secret of the science of truth is – there is no truth. “The truth” is but a mask for strategies of “might” (in this point Foucault follows Nietzsche and “hegemony” of Gramsci). Perceptions and conclusions are unreliable. It is im­possible to take a neutral position. Every attempt of objective description, use of scientific methods, or any sort of verification is doomed to failure. We live in a pseudo-world transformed to hyper-reality by extremization of simulation and substitution of reality by models and codes. Life is, in its essence, the expression of total apathy, want of emotions, “allegory of death”.

For crealist the world is plasma, creation. He accepts it as men’s work, wha­tever its structure. “In the world” the man embodies his i/reality, i/rationality, i/logic…; his good and evil, sense and nonsense, his love and hatred, affinities and alienations, war and peace, crime and punishment, wisdom and madness… Under­standing all creative powers and weaknesses, advantages and disad­vantages, nece­ssities and freedoms, we show new, critical, actual hu­manism. For everything hap­pening in society nobody could be blamed but us. Ultimately, men are respon­sible for their lives. Striped to the bones, the man’s truth is anthropo­logically very simple: the basic drive and aim (as in all living nature) is survival. This is the main challenge for species and individuals. But man’s answer to that challenge is… Culture. As expression and base of sociality, humanity, culture is man’s cre­ation. On the other hand, culture has transformed the “creature of nature” in its creator. Little has remained of “earthly” or raw nature. Our “minds and hands” (tools) have touched almost everything on the Earth, re-creating or adapting it to our needs, inevitably assuming responsibility. Ob­ject influences subject more if it is more subjective (shaped by our creative resou­rces) and vice versa. Only in cre­ation exists real exteriorization of interiority (objectivization of subject) and inte­rio­rization of exteriority (subjectivization of object). But once created, our subje­ctive/objective world (i.e., culture, society, history…) are not less mysterious or easier to comprehend. On the contrary: the magic of otherness (cre­ations of other persons and generations), complot, complexity and extreme variety of mediate­ons make it more “puzzling” and “charming”. Dangers of deviations, aberrations, destructions and self-destru­ction are omnipresent. They are real provocations of bestiality. Not only action of Shadow but overt howl of the Beast in the man. Con­frontations of our potentials are the biggest source of our dramatic events and behaviors, tragedies, defeats and victories. “Ciphering and deciphering” of the world are not simply coding and decoding, but serious creative processes oriented toward the maintenance of our lives, increase of knowledge and crafts, enrichment of our culture and final change of the actual state we happen to be in. Crealist (albeit conscious of complexity and possible tragic aspects) always gives advantage to life, which is our creative chance. He creates for life and lives for creation. His “deity” is Eros (not post­modern Thanatos), not ordinary natural drive (of Freud, Jung), but meta­phor of permanent search, craving for physical and spiritual reproduction, total pro­cre­ation.