Abstract:
Postmodernism privileges figures of negativity, figures defined under such terms as alterity, absence, aporia and the Other. The ostensible function of these tropes is the disruption of logocentrism through the introduction of the indeterminate. However, by
arguing that the 'metaphysics of presence' is all that exists in social communication,
alterity can be reinterpreted as a metanarrative trope whose language and function repeat attributes previously defined by theology. Much postmodern fiction, with its
indeterminate style, acts like a negative theology by systematically negating other
thematic presences in the text in order to present alterity itself as a dominant with final
jurisdiction over all areas of language and being. Because of its dominance, this
alterity comes to exercise conceptual powers akin to the metaphysical expressions of
the divine: ineffability, infinity, omnipotence, atemporality, ethical force. The
religious and mystical references that often crowd postmodern fiction, therefore,
support alterity's shift from the aporetic to the transcendent. By examining
metaphysical alterity in postmodern treatments of character, death, allegory and
history, I argue that postmodern literature is a limited theological discourse that
questions postmodern pluralism and populism. The reified negative has such a
privilege in postmodernism that it creates an aporetic politics that is only capable of
representing otherness rather than others. I suggest that this is a 'natural' philosophy
for late-capitalism in that it refuses broad social praxis in favour of a value-free
market and anti-foundational argument. I set aside Salman Rushdie as someone whose
fiction manages to use metaphysics and fragmentation in a non-transcendental
manner. Rushdie locates meaning in the dialogue between the metaphysical and the
material, rather than an abstracted absence and presence, and thus he is able to portray
metanarratives without transcendence or dogmatism. As such, Rushdie shows that
postmodernism's insistence on alterity fafls to engage meaningfully with social
conditions.
