-
The Posteverything Generation
“后”一切的一代
I
never
expected
to
gain
any
new
insight
into
the
nature
of
my
generation,
or
the
changing
landscape of American colleges, in Lit
Theory. Lit Theory is supposed to be the class
where you
sit at the back of the room
with every other jaded sophomore wearing skinny
jeans, thick-framed
glasses, an ironic
tee-shirt and over-sized retro headphones, just
waiting for lecture to be over so
you
can light up a Turkish Gold and walk to lunch
while listening to Wilco. That’s pretty
much
the
way
I
spent
the
course,
too:
through
structuralism,
formalism,
gender
theory,
and
post-colonialism, I was
far too busy shuffling through my Ipod to see what
the patriarchal world
order
of
capitalist
oppression
had
to
do
with
Ethan
Frome.
But
when
we
began
to
study
postmodernism,
something
struck
a
chord with
me
and
made
me
sit
up
and
look
anew
at
the
seemingly blasé
college-aged
literati of which I was so self-consciously one. <
/p>
我从来没有指望通过上文学理论课来了解我们这一代人的特征，或美国大学不断变化的景<
/p>
象。
这门课实际是这样的，你和其他面
容疲惫的大二学生一起坐在房间后面，他们身穿紧
身牛仔裤和印有俏皮话的
T
恤，戴着黑框眼镜和超大的复古耳机，等课堂的结束后，你就
会情绪高涨地在去吃午餐的路上边走边听威尔克的音乐。
< br>我差不多就是这样上课的：一边
听什么结构主义、形式主义、性别理论和后殖民主
义的话题，一边用我的
iPod
搜好听的音
乐，
也没时间去理会伊坦·弗洛美提出的资本主义压迫下
的父权社会是什么样的。但当我
们开始研究后现代主义时，
一些
观念引起了我的共鸣，
让我提起精神，
重新审视这个看似冷
漠的大学生活。
According
to my textbook, the problem wi
th
defining postmodernism is that it’s impossible.
The
difficulty
is
that
it
is
so...post.
It
defines
itself
so
negatively
against
what
came
before
it
–
naturalism, romanticism and the wild
revolution of modernism
–
that it’s sometimes hard to see
what
it
actually
is.
It
denies
that
anything
can
be
explained
neatly
or
even
at
all.
It
is
parodic,
detached, strange, and sometimes
menacing to traditionalists who do not understand
it. Although it
arose
in
the
post-war west
(the
term was
coined
in
1949),
the
generation
that
has witnessed
its
ascendance
has
yet
to come
up with
an
explanation
of what
postmodern
attitudes
mean
for
the
future of culture or society. The
subject intrigued me because, in a class otherwise
consumed by
dead-letter theories,
postmodernism remained an open book, tempting to
the young and curious.
But
it
also
intrigued
me
because
the
question
of
what
postmodernism
–
what
a
movement
so
post-everything, so
reticent to define itself
–
is spoke to a larger question about the political
and
popular culture of today, of the
other jaded sophomores sitting around me who had
grown up in a
postmodern world.
根据我的课本，从定义的角度来说，后现代主义是很难定义的。我们所面临的困难是它
< br>太···
“后”了。它的定义消极地否定了先于它的自然主义、浪漫主义和疯狂的
现主义革
命
---
因此有时很难看清它
到底指什么。它否认任何事物都可以很好地或甚至是完全解释出
来。它是模仿性的、分离
的、陌生的，并且有时会威胁到根本不理解它的传统主义者。虽然
它出现在战后的西方国
家，
但迄今为止还没有一个合理的解释，
后现代主义态度对国家
和社
会的未来到底意味什么。
这个话题引起了我的好奇心，
因为在充斥着空文理论的阶级下，
后
现代主
义是一本打开的书，
引诱着年轻人和充满好奇心的人。
但我对它
感兴趣还因为这个关
于后现代主的问题
---
“后”一切运动如此紧谨慎地界定自己，如今却面临着更大的有关政
治和流行文
化的问题，而它所说的似乎正是我身边这些不顾一屑的朋友们。
In
many
ways,
as
a
college-aged
generation,
we
are
also
extremely
post:
post-Cold
War,
post-industrial, post-baby boom,
post-
9/11...at one point in his famous
essay, “Postmodernism, or
the
Cultural
Logic
of
Late
Capitalism,”
literary
critic
Frederic
Jameson
even
calls
us
“post
-
literate.”
We are a generati
on that is riding on
the tail-end of a century of war and revolution
that toppled civilizations, overturned
repressive social orders, and left us with more
privilege and
opportunity than any
other society in history. Ours could be an era to
accomplish anything.
作为一个大学生，我们也生活在一个非常
“后”的时代：后冷战时代、后工业、后婴儿潮时
期、后
9.1
1
时代···文学评论家詹姆逊在他一篇著名的文章中提到了“后现代主义
,
或晚
期资本主义的文化逻辑”，他甚至叫我们为“
后文化人”。我们这一代人生活在世纪战争的
末端和推翻文明的革命时期，
专制的社会制度被推翻了，
这使得我们比其他任何社会历史时
期的人都有更多的特权和机会。我们这一时代能够成为实现任何目标的时代。
And
yet
do
we
take
to
the streets
and
the
airwaves
an
d
say
“here we
are,
and
this
is what we
demand”? Do
we plant our flag of youthful rebellion on the
mall in Washington and say “we are
not
leaving until we see change! It would seem we do
the opposite. We go to war without so much
as questioning the rationale, we sign
away our civil
liberties, we say
nothing when the Supreme
Court uses
Brown v. Board of Education to outlaw
desegregation, and we sit back to watch the
carnage on the evening news.
然而，我们会走上街头，在电视广播中说“我们在这儿，这就是我们想要的”吗？我们会把
年轻的叛逆之旗挂在华盛顿商区，
并说
“我们不会离开，<
/p>
直到看到改变！
我们的特权让我们
更为广
泛地接受教育，
而教育和观念扩大了我们的视野，
我们想要一个
更好的世界，
因为这
是我们的权利”？似乎我们在做一些相反的
事。我们在没有质疑合理性的情况下参与战争，
我们签订不平等条约放弃公民自由，当最
高法院使用布朗法案时时我们没作任何反应。
On
campus,
we
sign
petitions,
join
organizations,
put
our
names
on
mailing
lists,
make
small-money
contributions, volunte
er a spare hour
to tutor, and sport an entire wardrobe’s worth
of
Live
Strong
bracelets
advertising
our
moderately
priced
opposition
to
everything
from
breast
cancer to global warming. But what do
we really stand for? Like a true postmodern
generation we
refuse to weave together
an overarching narrative to our own political
consciousness, to present a
cast
of
inspirational
or
revolutionary
characters
on
our
public
stage,
or
to
define
a
specific