Geoffrey Jellicoe, Jordan Peterson, God and post-Postmodernism

Published: Oct. 17, 2020, 9:32 a.m.

No surprise if half of you hate Jordan Peterson and the other half love him. That's how it goes. But I guess we all love Geoffrey Jellicoe.

The theme of the podcast is that just as Modernism and Postmodernism were cultural trends with a powerful influence on 20th century design, whatever comes after them (which was called post-postmodernism in the title of my 1996 book on City as landscape) is sure to be a big influence on twenty-first century design including, of course, landscape architecture and landscape urbanism. Geoffrey Jellicoe was, I believe, 'postmodern' (rather than 'modern') but only in the sense Bernard Iddings Bell used the term (ie for an approach which rested on science and belief). He was not 'postmodern' in the current sense of 'skepticism, irony, or rejection toward what it describes as the grand narratives and ideologies associated with modernism'. 

I hope the subject isn't too dense for a 25 minute podcast. You might find the Youtube version easier (because it's illustrated) and if you want the notes and bibliographic references they can be found in this blogpost.

The list of alternative names for the emerging cultural trend include  altermodernism, cosmodernism, digimodernism, metamodernism, performatism, post-digital, post-humanism, aftermodernism and the new sincerity. In place of cynical postmodern irony, they stress 'faith, trust, dialogue, performance, and truth'. Does Jordan Peterson have these characteristics? Yes. 

People referred to in the podcast include: Jordan B Peterson, John Ruskin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Dawkins, Jeffrey Nealon, Alison Gibbons,  Robin van den Akker, Timotheus Vermeulen,   Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, Roland Barthes, Ninian Smart, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, Carl Gustav Jung, Mircea Eliade, Sir James George Frazer, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vladimir Propp,  and Canon Bernard Iddings Bell.  

The ideas mentioned in the video include: Modernism, Postmodernism, Post-Postmodernism, Metamodernism, Arts and Crafts Style, Abstract Style, Post-Abstract Style,  God, Religion, Faith, Belief Style, Renaissance, Baroque, The Ten Commandments, Structuralism, Myth, Symbolism, Narrative, Collective Unconscious, Genius Loci, Maps of Meaning, Landscape Urbanism, Landscape Architecture, Garden Design.

Tom