Reality Isn't What It Used to Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-To-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World

To Anderson, postmodernism is more than punk rock, Julio Cortazar's stories, deconstruction and John Le Carre's spy novels, though they all manifest its rationale. The post-modernist outlook acknowledges that society is ``a social construct of reality,'' he claims, adding that ``post-modernism is globalism''--the emergence of a global culture transcending class, race and nation-state. Within this framework, Anderson ( The Upstart Spring: Esalen and the American Awakening ) discusses a vast range of phenomena: totalitarianism, made-for-television movies, ``pseudoevents'' like the invasion of Grenada, neo-paganism, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses , camp, New Criticism, Eastern mysticism, etc. He looks into constructivist psychotherapy, in which the therapist acts as editor of the patient's versions of reality. This heady discourse demonstrates that post-modernism, more than a cliche, can serve as an analytical tool in mapping a world still being born. (Aug.)