John Donne was wrong. The world is not "a simple place" and, almost as if they had set out to demonstrate precisely how complex life can be, a host of academics continues to funnel vast amounts of energy into such disciplines as semiotics, structuralism, deconstruction and epistemology. Even this was not adequate, however, and in the last quarter century we have seen the burgeoning of post-Freudian psychoanalysis, post-Saussurian linguistics and post-Piagetian structuralism. New intellectual movements (some might call them fads) have appeared with such frequency that Serge Moscovici of New York's New School observed that "we may rely on new disciplines to blossom with far greater regularity than the bowel movements of our most respected professors".

Entering these games has been difficult. Most of the papers and books written about these subjects were so loaded with jargon and simple language made intentionally complex, that few people understood what was going on. In fact, some people said that many of the ideas raised in some of these papers had more in common to Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky than to the kind of clear thinking that we expect of our intellectuals. Even today, for example, there are those who are not quite sure whether Claude Levi-Strauss' structural kinship systems make any sense at all or if they were simply a game that Levi Strauss chose to undertake for his own pleasure.

Of the attempts to deal with and understand the underlying subtexts of our lives, none has been more succesful than postmodernism and for more than twenty years now, intellectuals have consided postmo (as they affectionately call it) one of the hottest pastimes in town. Although postmodernism is basically an intellectual endeavor, it is one with a difference. Because it relies on no special or complex language and because there are practically no rules to the game, it can be played by nearly anyone.

Even though the concept of postmodernism was born in the halls of academe, the academicians had inadvertently invented a game that was open to everyone. It is actually possible to discuss postmodernism without even having heard of or read Jorgen Habermas, Roland Barthes or Jacques Derrida. It might have been useful to have read some of the novels (but heaven-forbid, not the linguistic works) of Umberto Eco, but so open to the public was the game that even intellectual idiot savants and cocktail party psychopaths can become champions. After all, this is a game where neither the rules nor the magnitude are especially well defined.

A few years ago, at an epicenter located somewhere between Paris' Brasserie Lipp, the American halls of ivy and Frankfurt's Restaurant Gerber, a set of rules started to evolve and lines began to be drawn that delineated the issues. Depending on where one stood, however, postmodernism could be interpreted as a neo-conservative tool, a feminist dialogue, a leftist counter-reaction to the elitism of modernism or, at its most fundamental level, a superb topic of small talk to fill idle hours at cafes, conferences and cocktail parties. In fact, postmodernism had become the intellectual con-game par excellence.

One of the great charms of the game is devising lists of things that are or are not postmo. Princeton's Gerald Graff, Berkeley's Todd Gitlin, and author Tom Wolfe have devoted countless hours to constructing such lists. Not everybody agreed on who or what belonged in the category, but the lists became everything. So many people were making lists that even some of the lists have been elevated to the ranks of postmodern. It's all rather chaotic, but it really is great fun.

Those just getting into the postmo game may appreciate the working definition derived by Todd Gitlin writing in the New York Times Book Review. To Gitlin, the postmodern, whether in literature or the arts, is "indifferent to consistency and continuity. It self-consciously splices genres, attitudes and styles and it relishes the blurring or juxtaposition of forms (fiction-non-fiction), stances (straight-ironic), moods (violent-comic), and cultural levels (high-low)".

Gitlin agrees with Umberto Eco that the postmodern scorns originality and "fancies copies, repetition, and the recombination of often used themes". Perhaps most important of all, it views and reports the world with neither approval nor criticism but with a neutral face, with a sense of knowingness that blends feeling and commitment into irony.

Working within these own rules, we can begin to construct our own list. Tom Wolfe is postmo in both his lifestyle and all that he writes. The books of Jorges Luis Borges, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida and William Burroughs are all postmo. Philip Roth's Counterlife is postmo but Portnoy's Complaint is not. E.L. Doctorow's Book of Daniel is postmodern, but his earlier works are not. Although Umberto Eco's theoretical writings about postmodernism aredefinitely not postmo, his novels (The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum) are. All of Peter Greenway's films (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and her Lover; The Belly of the Architect; Drowning by Numbers etc.) are postmodern but only one or two of Woody Allen's films fall into this class.

The questions and possibilities are unlimited. Was Shakespeare postmodern? What about Frank Capra? And what of Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, Apulieus' Golden Ass. Can there be such a thing as a postmodern cookbook? Is there a postmodern body politic?

All of which is fine save for one thing. Unlike the Lord, who remembered to populate the planet even with snails and tsetse flies, some of those who have entered into the posmo game are not perfect. By investing so much of their ego energies into their lists and formulations about just what is and what is not postmo, they have lost track of the most important aspect of all. They have forgotten that its just a game.

© Daniel Rogov