Reflections on post-modernism, post-post-modernism, and black (and all of our) lives mattering

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Due to technological limitations that I have not imposed on myself-- they are systemic-- I was unable to save this video to my computer's "downloads" folder. But in the continuum of protest against racism and police brutality, that has now reached my own town, Clarksdale, in the Mississippi Delta,

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Outrage-At-Police-Murders-by-William-P-Homans-Civil-Rights-Demonstrations_Espy_George-Floyd-Murder_Police-Brutality-200608-116.html

this action in Jackson, Mississippi needs being shown to all of you, not as a granule, a mere byte among the megabytes, but as another example of Mississippians' rightful solidarity with all the people from Atlanta to Seattle, from New York to Los Angeles, in the insistence that the militarization of America's numerous jurisdictions of law enforcement (locals, sheriffs, state police we know, but who has counted all the other state and federal authorities?) must end.

We the People do not need our leaders to be arming police with military equipment against US citizens. Even we who do not often protest in the streets do not want militarized platoons, companies, battalions-- brigades-- ordered to deploy against our fellow citizens.

I'm 71, and the majority of those in the streets would be my grandchildren. The millennials. Unenviably, they are the generation that has grown up completely under the aegis of the post-post-modern Computer Age, which, though enabling googleplexes of increased communication of raw information real or fake, has separated people one from the other.

They use the machine. How many times have you seen pictures of dozens of highschoolers or hipsters sitting around during school break, or in an outdoor bistro, ticky-ticking on their little electronic familiars, separated from each other though physically proximate? WE use and obey the machine. We are behaviorally modified.

Post-post-modern, I said. What's that mean, you ask?

Modernists, of which I am one, believe that there are expressions of human thought-- art, and its evaluation, politics, and its evaluation, to name two-- that have intrinsic human value, and ought to be maintained, not forgotten, but learned by succeeding generations over the continuity of human existence. I always point to William Shakespeare's works as an example of art for which this principle has been recognized by most of the human species.

And the correlative principle is that it takes training, and the will to be trained, to be a responsible evaluator that ought to be listened to seriously.

Some would counter that this is an elitist principle, but think about it: if you wanted to stop a virus from spreading through the world unchecked and killing millions, maybe 10s or 100s of millions, of people in the US and worldwide, would you not take the word of professionals who had studied the facets of diseases, epidemics and pandemics all their adult lives over the ignorant blithering of someone who suggested you could drink or inject chlorine bleach, or shine a bright light through the human body, to kill a coronavirus?

The person that blithered thus is a perfect example of the post-modern principle that each and every individual is qualified to be his or her own evaluator of this object or that, whether the objects are created in 3-D or written, and whether or not the individual has ever done any focused study of the phenomena he or she presumes to evaluate for significance or lasting value.

In a post-modern world, audial creations on which no real instrument was played, and on many of which no real human voice was used-- techno-- are as valid, as full of beauty and expression of humanity, as a Beethoven work, Beatles songs, Ravi Shankar ragas, or Mississippi country blues. You don't really have to study techno, there's no history to it, and you don't have to have spent decades learning your craft, either to make it or evaluate it.

Yet there is still enthusiasm both by the diminishing percentage of learned students, and the increasing percentage of unlearned yawpers, to evaluate the same expressions of art, social life, and especially political thought and action. People may disagree about what they like or deplore, but there is still pretty much an understanding that it is possible for a thing to have value lasting into the indeterminate future.

Post-post-modernism is the next anti-human-consciousness step: in a post-post-modern world, and a post-post-modern mind, NOTHING qualifies as having lasting significance or value. Only the present has any real importance. As Daniel Bell once said, we have come to "the end of history."

Some might see this as merely textbook existentialism: live for the moment, for tomorrow we die. However, the problem arises when a society, and a world, live like that, with no concern or though about the well-being of one's fellow beings (I'm not just talking about homo sapiens) for anyone who is not resigned to global extinction, or thinks that it wouldn't matter because we're universally insignificant, or irrationally believe in some theological text (FAITH is the irrational belief in the absolutely unprovable) that says it must happen.

In a post-post-modern world, just holler. Your incoherent hollering is no less significant than the words of those who plead and demand from the armed authorities understanding of the effects of 401 years of racism, the negative effects and worse potential of their militarization, and the underlying morphing of the police mission from "protect and serve" to "command and control."

I know that one of my mentors, Jean-Paul Sartre, an existentialist philosopher who fought in the French underground, the maquis, against the occupying Nazis, would say that living in the present, with no consideration of the greater meaning of one's life in the context of each individual's connectedness to others, and no intrinsic good will to them, was terminally selfish. After World War Two, Sartre famously said (I could say it in French, but I'll translate), "The only rational response to imminent defeat is resistance."

I don't know if Sartre was an atheist; his existential contemporary, Ernest Hemingway, certainly was. But at the conclusion of perhaps Hemingway's greatest book, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Jordan, the protagonist, knowing he is mortally wounded, struggles to keep his life force intact, to be sure he's ready to cover his comrades' retreat when the pursuing Fascistas come along.

Even a basic pessimist like Hemingway was perfectly conscious that a person's good will to their fellow men and women is more important than individual personal satisfaction. The overwelming majority of those Americans who have been in the streets since the murder of George Floyd are still conscious of this. Those who oppose them are paid to put such considerations aside.

The two officers who pushed Martin Gugino, and the crowd of riot-clad officers who shuffled by, not even looking at the elderly man on the pavement bleeding from his head (and then quit the SWAT unit en masse, though not the police force, to protest the firing of those who caused his severe head injury), unanimously, whether by policy or in solidarity with their fellows, put such considerations aside.

And the authorities who first lied about how Mr. Gugino's injuries had occurred, and then had to change their tune when videos showed the truth, are worse than the perpetrators, because they had to have considered that to lie about the incident was better than to immediately acknowledge that the officers had used excessive force.

Black Lives Matter. Let there be an end to militarization of police forces and militarized deployment against American citizens-- and anyone else, like the Australian press crew, that happens to get in the way.

Peace on earth, good will to men.

(Article changed on June 15, 2020 at 06:43)

(Article changed on June 15, 2020 at 07:02)

Authors Website: http://www.watermelonslim.com

Authors Bio:

My name is William Perkins Homans the third, but probably more people know me as the bluesman (and artist) Watermelon Slim.



I've been in the fight against war, fascism, injustice and inhumanity for 47 years. I was at MayDay, 1971, and at the moratorium March the week before. I was one of the leaders of the Great New Jersey Turnpike Stall on my birthday, April 25, 1971.



I bear the scar on my left shin from a neoNazi jackboot, when I was one of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War who bounced the NSWPP from Flamingo Park at the Republican National Convention of 1972. My father fought the Nazis in the North Atlantic and Anzio, and I met their spawn in Miami.



My formal education has been first-rate. I wouldn't trade my degrees for Harvard ones. I was raised in the finest private Catholic and Episcopal high schools.
I earned my BA in History and Journalism from the University of Oregon/Eugene. I was also captain of the U of O bowling team, 1984-1986. High game 299. Mentors: Dr. W. Gordon Rockett, Dr. Daniell Pope
1997-2000: Oklahoma State University. M.A., History, 2000, plus the school-teaching curriculum. Mentor: Dr. Ronald Petrin

I am a world survivalist. My politics transcends right and left, perforce. I watch for signs we may transcend in some yet-unknown fashion the vectors and indicators in my environmental and geopolitical analysis.
As Tiny Tim said, "God bless us, every one!"