Ground Down: A Philosophical Foundation
Foundation is one of the key tenets of yoga that spans nearly every style and can be applied to most (if not all) practices on and off the mat. In the physical practice of yoga - the asana - foundation often refers to building poses from the ground up. Many teachers speak to foundation by cuing the physical grounding down of the body into the earth- pressing down into all four corners of both feet in standing poses or spreading the fingers wide in hand- or arm-balances. In these ways, your body is rooted to the earth, and becomes the foundation on which to build and progress through to full expression of advanced poses.
Importantly, however, foundation can also refer to your understanding of the ground you stand upon, and a dedication to fully grasping that ground (to the extent that it can be grasped) prior to any attempt to build. I find this step to be a vital one, and one that must be done prior to any practice, physical or philosophical. You’d never build a house on an unstable foundation, but hopefully you’d also never build a foundation on unstable or unknown ground.
The same can be said in the philosophical practice of yoga - the inquiry - which touches all parts of our lives, on and off the mat, and is essential to all physical and philosophical practices. Before we can ground down into a solid foundation, we must first commit to a deep understanding of the earth below it. We must become acquainted with and nourish that ground so that we can build our foundation. It is only with a strong foundation on stable ground that we can find full expression of our bodies and our ideas.
This is, of course, easier said than done, particularly in the philosophical practice of yoga and life. While the physical practice demands we ask questions like what is it made of and is it level, the philosophical practice demands we ask questions like who am I and what do I believe? Even I, a self-proclaimed philosopher, do not know (may never know) all of the answers to these questions.
It seems strange, in the year 2023, to call someone a philosopher, let alone to claim the title. I’ve thrown around and chewed on some other terms I could use to describe myself - social theorist, body/embodiment theorist, body scholar, or even just writer, artist, or yogi. Each of these terms describes a small part of what I do, but to claim any one feels disingenuous. I’ve been writing for well over a decade, but I’ve never been trained in the art of writing (although I do believe anyone who writes is a writer, just as anyone who runs is a runner). I’ve been trained in the visual arts, but my training was technical rather than creative or political. Though I’ve studied and developed theory, and certainly trained to be a scholar, I refused then and now to wax poetic about social behavior in the abstract, particularly in this world which demands radical action. And, of course, I practice yoga, but for me, this is more a lifestyle than a line of work.
The title philosopher may sound elitist, but it is what I am. I am a theorist, a scholar, a writer, an artist, and a yogi, and it is my philosophical perspective as a postmodern feminist that shapes my theorizing, my scholarship, my writing, my art, and my yoga. My training is in thinking, contemplating, analyzing, and articulating. I am a theorist of theory, a scholar of scholarship, a writer concerned with writing, an artist wrestling with the social and political power of art, and a yogi practicing yoga. I am a philosopher, and postmodern feminism is my foundation - or rather, the ground below the foundation I’ve built and will continue to build.
But what is postmodernism anyway? Just as I’ve struggled to articulate with language my own profession, writers and thinkers have struggled to find the language to nail down its essence. Our vocabulary is simply ill-equipped to capture the amorphous and dynamic network of ideas that constitutes postmodernism - the insect escapes the amber with each attempt. Maybe this is the best place to start and the first step toward understanding the ground below the foundation. Before you can build your foundation on postmodernism, you must accept that you will never fully understand that ground. There, I said it. You - nor I - will ever fully grasp the premises and implications of postmodern theory. This is maybe the only absolute that exists with regard to postmodernism, and it is a hard pill to swallow, particularly for those of us washed in the blood of modernism.
To be a modernist is to believe in an objective reality, a singular truth that is discoverable (and worthy of discovery) through technological innovation. For decades now, we have lived in a post-modernist world. Even second-wave feminism, despite its flaws, understood that experience and social position shape definitions of “progress;” even tech bros in Silicon Valley (though I’ve heard Austin is the new Mountain View) understand that progress is not linear, but rather an upward spiral of advancement and set-back. But the key word there is “upward” - modernist thinking is characterized by the belief in an upward trajectory of discovery and an emphasis on “progress.” Progress, here, is defined as that which makes human life “better.”
Many, though, have asked, and continue to ask, “better for who?” This question has been tackled head-on by feminists over the last century (I hate to umbrella all feminists under this title, but for the sake of succinctness, I’ll leave that chest unpacked for the time being). Much progress (here I am, using the language of modernism) has been made toward revealing the underlying bias in traditional modernist theory - namely that “better” has often meant “better for wealthy white men.” I’m not often in the business of generalizing about “men,” either, but here, it is unfortunately just the truth (or, to use the language of postmodernism, a truth, though one with ample, tangible evidence to support it).
Again, for many decades now, we’ve lived in a post-modernist world, but this is not the same thing as living in a postmodern world. I know, I’m being overbearing. But the distinction is important, even if it seems (read: is) pretentious. Post-modernist refers to a social framework that has succeeded modernism. Here, the prefix post- means following and also necessarily as a result of. A post-modernist society has emerged after modernism, as a direct result of progressive thinking which has revealed its cracks. Importantly, though, post-modernist society subsumes modernism, meaning it contains modernism. Post-modernist society is still characterized by the same premises as modernism - namely that the purpose of human life is the pursuit of “progress,” even if we now recognize many definitions of what progress is or can be.
Postmodern society, on the other hand, rejects outright the premise that the pursuit of progress is the purpose of human life. In fact, postmodernism suggests that there is no essential, singular purpose to human life. Read that again. Postmodernism does not subsume modernism (nor, here, does the prefix post- have anything, really, to do with time). It destroys it. It is a true paradigm shift, in that it suggests the cracks in modernism cannot be filled. The ground below the foundation has shifted, as it was never stable to begin with. This is not a gut renovation. The whole structure must come down.
Many misunderstand this to mean that nothing means anything. This is not the case. Rather, postmodernism holds that nothing is inherently anything. It is only through social construction that anything means anything. It does not deny the physical realities of this world - the flesh and blood of our bodies - it only denies that those bodies are inherently good, bad, ugly, beautiful, worthy, or unworthy. It does not deny that the chair you sit in exists, it only suggests that the chair and its meanings - its affordances - are created by humans through social interaction, agreement, and practice.
Though there is much more to say about what postmodernism means for “reality, “truth,” and the relationships between knowledge, power, and discourse, that is a topic for another day. For now, I will leave you with this: Many of my students have found postmodernism to be pessimistic, even nihilistic. Many reject the notion that there is no inherent moral or ethical code with which to pass judgment on humans and their behavior - after all, what does that mean for those of us striving toward progress, or with faith in a higher power? I always give them this answer: The belief that nothing is inherently anything, does not mean that everything is inherently nothing. Rather, it means that nothing is inherently not anything. Put simply, the possibilities of what can be, are as great as the possibilities of what are not.
Imagine those possibilities. I’m willing to build on that ground.
