I don't know if I'm the only one, but reading Jameson makes me feel like I'm stoned, or at least he was stoned. Reading his breakdown of The Scream painting felt like I was listening to someone coming out of an acid trip at an art gallery. I'm not trying to take away from the brilliance of his perspective, the way in which he breaks down the different planes of reality is mind-boggling. I bet Jameson could make any piece of art sound as layered and packed with trauma as he did with The Scream. I also love the way Jameson describes the problems that arise when we use periodizing hypotheses. The generalization of a time period takes away from the experience any individual may have had during that time. It takes away from the very features of society that may have made it the way it was. For example, when we think of our grandparents who are getting to or are past 100. In our minds, we generalize their entire life experience, what defines them is that they lived through the great depression and maybe fought in WWII, that's about it. We've taken someone who has lived through an entire century of change and summed their lives up to a drop in stock prices and killing nazis. When we use this concept of periodizing we cut ourselves short, we cut everyone short. Yeah, your grandpa fought in WWII, but because you've generalized his being, you never learned he protested the war in Vietnam. Yeah, grandma lived off breadcrumbs throughout her childhood, but because you've generalized her experience, you never learned how badass of a businesswoman she was before she had your mom. Do you see what I mean? So much experience is just lost because we love for history to be linear. Why do we love for history to be linear? Because it's easier to shape a narrative than it is to explain every single perspective. Anyways, let me know if I'm not making any sense.
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