Postmodernism, Civilization, and Creativity

J.M. here.
When you see a multiform culture that is in Being not Becoming, you see Postmodernism realized. It is the Modernist view of Civilization as Grand Narrative that colors our perceptions of what social existence implies. The Western Canon is a fairly recent invention, a Modernist attempt at Order out of Chaos and successful in the establishing of a baseline of reference in thought and communication, a baseline that must exist and which Postmodernism seeks to define by convergence across disciplines and by a community of personal myth.
However personal the demon of creativity, one ultimately plays to an audience. It is the nature of the thing that it be experienced. Writers write because they are driven to do so. They write to make to money. Ultimately and essentially, however, they write to be read. We write in shared symbols out of neccessity, not convention. I may reject the legitimacy of a Grand Narrative and embrace the timelessness of Being, but I cannot reject that Becoming is a state of existence in its own right. Post is not 'after', it is 'beyond' and must coexist with narratives of large and powerful extent however limited one considers them to be in a true existence.
Multiform culture includes Modernism and its Grand Narrative. It's an uneasy peace we keep in a complex world, philosophically and geopolitically.
Do well and be well.
'Chances', available on Amazon.com.

The New Industrial State

It does not exist. J.K. Galbraith did not dream of the conditions that exist in today's world when he penned that interesting volume. It is about centralization, economies of scale and regimentation of behavior and it informs modern liberalism to an unfortunate degree.

Today we are global, flexible and empowering of the individual. We are, in dialectical terms, in pursuit of the antithesis to the thesis stated by Galbraith. The world we live in today is a dynamic synthesis of those two exclusional conceptual frames of the nature of existence.
J.M. here. Basil has the day off, drinking his espresso, listening to Corelli and generally doing his impression of a carrot or some similiar vegetable. When writers shut down their conscious mind, they really shut it down. Creativity is so much an unconscious process that to write requires retreat. It is a solitary and anxious profession. Writers are, by nature, postmodernists. They do not appreciate regimentation. Basil likes the new synthesis.
It goes well with the world.
Do well and be well.