"The great event of this period, the great trauma, is this decline of strong referentials, these death pangs of the real and of the rational that open onto an age of simulation... It is into this void that the phantasms of a past history recede... to resurrect the period when at least there was history, at least there was violence (albeit fascist), when at least life and death were at stake... Therein objects shine in a sort of hyperresemblance that makes it so that fundamentally they no longer resemble anything, except the empty figure of resemblance, the empty form of representation. It is a question of life and death: these objects are no longer living or deadly."
In asking, "how far is too far?" we are limited by what he is talking about here, and it gets to what I think is one of the big problems with postmodernism, that because we are nearly refusing to define anything, how can we even begin to address what is what... And if we don't know what is what, or don't have the tools to say so, how can we say how far is too far, what "too far" is, and, arguably, whether or not we should care if this "line" is breeched? But it does seem to me that there is a leak in the hull, and if someone doesn't find it, eventually, the direction that we are going is certainly down. We need these "deadly" objects in order that we be able to say, "Don't go there! That shit will kill you!"
It seems to me that as the present economy collapses, we should be aware that something in that system is broken, and focus on what it is that we want to rebuild from the wreckage. Rather than allowing the momentum of technology and capitalism say where culture goes, culture needs to use the present state of the world as an opportunity to make a radical shift in the direction of civilization. I think we (specifically my generation, who now, more than ever, is enrolling in art school, thinking that there is another way of life than to study business, taking an interest in politics... although I don't think we are aware of the power we have, that it will be us running the planet, generating the money, in just a decade or so) could potentially transgress this old way. But we must be able to define "way." One idea (yes, mine, you thieves) is that it is culture's momentum that should decide where the curious energies of science, technology, and economics should be directed, and not the other way around. If those aspects of civilization were brought under culture's roof, housed in its ethics of humanism, then what kind of civilization would we be? I think that potentially this could decrease the discrepancy of Eastern and Western, and add a lot to what it now means to be a consciousness. Richer, Higher, in my opinion.
I guess this is pretty idealistic coming from my little mouth, but I'm trying to adapt Chesterton's idea of pessimism/optimism into my workings, so bear with me...
