Post Modern fencing

[r. tissu]

Any body think we are there yet?

[FriendlyMonkey]

If something was post modern it would be in the future, thus,
we'll never be there since we're always in the present.

http://www.hawking.org.uk/

-FM

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by FriendlyMonkey

If something was post modern it would be in the future, thus,
we'll never be there since we're always in the present.

http://www.hawking.org.uk/

-FM

Today was yesterday's tomorrow.

[r. tissu]

You guys aint post modernists. Go read some Pynchon and come back.

[Epee_Pox]

Doesn't "modern" mean current and either fashionable or cutting-edge, as opposed to old-fashioned?

And the prefix "post" means "after."

So unless you're referring to some unnecessarily twee artificial meaning thrown around the self-referential halls of graduate schools and nowhere else, you're asking whether fencing has become something that is after the current fashion or technology. That would necessarily require it to be in the future.

Fencing now is not in the future. So the answer is "no."

[scrapinpeg]

Sorry Eppe Pox, he's referring to the grad school phenomenon.

Postmodernism is an academic/artistic philosophy that is prevalent on most US campuses. It is the source of all the impenetrable jargon churned out by grad students. If you look up a definition of Postmodernism, you will find nothing in plain English. But all definitions boil down to it being an umbrella term covering a wide variety of things, such as deconstructionism.

The one thing that all things postmodern have in common is that they are a reaction to ordinary rational thought, rather than a self-contained way of thinking. In other words, it is defined primarily by what it is not rather than by what it is.

Perhaps the best explanation I can come up with is a mildly amusing event that happened not long ago. A physicist wrote a prank article about gravity, using the silly jargon of postmodernism. His thesis boiled down to something like "gravity doesn't exist, unless the individual thinks it does, and even then it only exists for that individual." He submitted it to a prestigious journal of postmodern thought. Which published it. When he explained that it was a joke, the academic community rebuked him, saying that he is just the author, it's not important what he thinks he meant. That's pretty much deconstructionism in a nutshell.

Anyway.

So what exactly is postmodernism? It is a way of thinking espoused by French thinkers during the years after WWII, which basically explains French society in those years in philosophical language. My French intellectual friends have told me how amused they are that a way of thought that was relevant to that narrow population and time has been adopted by the US academic community. The word they use to explain such US academics is "pretentious," but I won't go there.

Seriously, the focus of postmodernism is France after WWII. Everything that was normal and centered and constructed was gone. Their country had collapsed, been conquered, and collaborated with its conquerors, only to be liberated by longtime rival Britain and the US. Once the center of diplomacy and foreign affairs, they had lost all serious foreign influence and had to pull out of southeast asia and Algeria in shame. They were no longer the center of culture that once they had been. They had been "economically colonized" by US corporations. Decentralization indeed. Deconstruction for certain sure. Resistance to imposed authority, by all means.

France was no longer the center of the world, no longer the place where everything important happened and always would happen. Death of meta-narrative by all means.

French culture was displaced by American culture and the new international cultures. They've been fighting a losing battle against that ever since. And when third-world influences start being represented in international culture, they react with something akin to panic, resulting in racist or similar manifestations such as banning moslem girls from wearing head scarves to school. Wow, losing your cultural identity sure sounds like the "death of the real."

So anyway, that's what tissu is referring to. He wants to know if Fencing is postmodern, which is a shorthand way of asking whether Fencing no longer recognizes an authoritative uniform rightness, but has achieved fragmented subjectivity, so that what is "right" depends entirely on the time, place, and micro-culture of the participants at that particular time and place.

To answer tissu's question, I have to say "it depends." When my friends and I are practicing, we fence without a director and apply only such rules as we feel apply to us at that moment, not infrequently making up our own interpretations to fit the circumstances (such as the perennial "do-over.") Epee makes this easy.

However, there are certainly uniform rules imposed by the history and traditions of fencing (things that no postmodernist would recognize, as history is a mere fable that justifies current authorities and thus is irrelevant) as well as the rules promulgated by the fencing authorities (same objection). These uniform rules are at least attempted to be imposed and enforced by nearly all fencers. Therefore, in the general, Fencing cannot be said to be postmodern.

I hope this answers your question, tissu.

[r. tissu]

Ok it's like this. Fencing 1800's to about the 1950's, then modern fencing frrom th 50's to about 1989 and post modern fencing from 89 till present.

[scrapinpeg]

You gotta explain how that is "postmodern." It seems like nothing more than an evolution of rules and tactics, rather than anything resembling a postmoden philosophy.

[Esotamoc]

Post modernism means after modernism- as a social, cultural, political, aesthetic movement. Among other things, modernism proposed that the world is progressing in a linear fashion and that things are always getting better. The philosophers, cultural critics, artists writers,feminists, wankers etc associated to postmodernism, in some way negate or deconstruct modernist perspectives. History, gender roles, narratives, politics, culture are no longer certain or have fixed meanings(according to post modernism).Postmodernism heralds the death of the modernist Utopian dream.

Postmodern fencing? Since its first appearance in the Olympic games, fencing has progressed in terms of its athleticism, technology, techniques etc. Flicking in foil has been a natural part of that progression which has made it faster, more athletic and more like a modern sport. By trying to remove this action it seems like they are trying to bring foil back to an earlier form. This runs counter to the idea that the sport has been getting better as it seems that Roch and Co idealize an earlier form. this could be postmodern- then again it could just be regressive.




h

[Svidrigailov]

Originally Posted by scrapinpeg

French culture was displaced by American culture and the new international cultures. They've been fighting a losing battle against that ever since. And when third-world influences start being represented in international culture, they react with something akin to panic, resulting in racist or similar manifestations such as banning moslem girls from wearing head scarves to school. Wow, losing your cultural identity sure sounds like the "death of the real."

If it was me speaking, I'd hesitate to label a matter as complex as the banning of headscarves in france as simply "rascist." But, I don't want to make controversy. I will simply say that, in keeping with the spirit of Post Modernity in fencing, perhaps what the FIE should do is ban blonde girls from wearing knickers at competetions.

lets see some kevlar bikinis.

[KD5MDK]

This song is about the SCA, but it seemed appropriate...

http://www.whitetreeaz.com/joeb/songbk.htm#42