In a contribution to Confused of Calcutta, Dominic Sayers delivered a sort of "obituary" for postmodernism. Much as I sympathize with his position and enjoy his way of framing it ("we have had our playtime and it’s time to put the functional elements to the best and simplest use we can"), I would say that any announcement of the death of postmodernism is premature. Sayers wrote, "It seems to me that today you can represent yourself with humility, sincerity and openness without suffering for it." These are the words of someone with little (if any) exposure to Fox News and Bill Clinton's recent attempt to retaliate against their version of journalism.Personally, I find Fox News the latest phase in United States' history of sustaining itself on “fictions of convenience” that reaches back way before “postmodern” entered our vocabulary. I am not sure I can easily track down its origins; but the first example that had an impact on me was Malcolm Cowley’s description of the primary narrative of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! as “a long and violent story that he regards as the essence of the Deep South, which is not so much a mere region as it is … an incomplete and frustrated nation trying to relive its legendary past.” The operative word there is “legendary,” as in the most memorable line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (hardly a postmodern classic): “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” (J. Hillis Miller actually continued Cowley’s argument by demonstrating the key role of “fictions of convenience” in the secondary narrative of Absalom, Absalom!) So, while playtime may be over in Mr. Sayers' corner of the United Kingdom (which I would be the first to applaud), the games continue over here and the stakes keep getting higher, whether you are talking about policy-making in the public sector or the conduct of business in the private!
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