Postmodern suspicion and Matt Nathanson’s “Heartbreak World”

October 1st, 2007 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |

A while back I picked up Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat’s Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire, a book about hearing Colossians with a new set of (postmodern) ears. In the first chapter, the authors describe and define globalization and postmodernity to lay the foundation for the argument of the rest of the book.

Jean-François Lyotard, a famous French philosopher wrote, “Simplifying in the extreme, I define postmodernity as incredulity toward all metanarratives.” Walsh and Keesmaat call this a “hermeneutic of suspicion”:

This quintessentially Generation X lament is permeated by a deep sense of betrayal. Someone has told them a story, spun them a line, about the good life, and it has proved to be a lie… The world is decidedly malignant and dangerous. The best that one can expect in this world of betrayal is to simply get a piece of the game; but even this cannot be guaranteed.¹

To frame their argument, the authors use lyrics from the popular Smashing Pumkins song Bullet with Butterfly Wings. It is very effective, and after quoting it a second time, they say

We feel most passionately when we have a sense of newness to our life, projects to complete, dreams to fulfill. If there is nothing left to do, then there is nothing left to feel either.²

Although the song was released in 1995, we would be mistaken to believe that this “hermeneutic of suspicion” has vacated from our cultural conscience. The song “Heartbreak World” from Matt Nathanson’s newly-released album Some Mad Hope is a musically beautiful and lyrically poetic articulation of postmodern suspicion. Here are the lyrics:

let’s all pack up and move this year
we’ll slip the liars and disappear
we’ll leave memories for auctioneers
and those just standing still

they’ll miss the taste of wanting you
call out your name, like i still do
but they haven’t said a word that’s true
and they only hold you down

in this heartbreak world of “just imagine”
with it’s tired talk of better days
in this heartbreak world, where nothing matters
come on let’s make this dream that’s barely half awake come true

let’s move out of Los Angeles
and just drive until the summer gives
and forget the lives we used to live
’cause we’re gone

If I ever write a book (or another article) that discusses postmodernity, I’m pretty sure I’ll use these lyrics. Nathanson describes the postmodern hermeneutic of suspicion much better than I ever could myself.

This begs the question: In what other pieces of pop culture do you see this suspicion popping up?

1. Walsh, Brian and Sylvia C. Keesmaat. Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004. 22. ↩
2. Ibid., 23. ↩