2024 Round Up

the best of Cracks in PoMo this year

Jan 01, 2025

This year, we’ve reached new heights, bringing in more contributors and subscribers, and churning out more content and events than ever before. More importantly, we’ve reached greater clarity about our mission, which we attempted to spell out in the intro to vol. ii of the zine.

The many happenings of this year have strengthened our conviction that the discourse is really f*cked—in part because of inordinate elite control over it, but also because of its being excessive politicized, as well as people thinking in horrifyingly simplistic [algorithmic] terms and resolving to only talk to other like-minded people. We seem to naively ignore the extent to which such atomization and social division—perhaps the gravest of all the dangers we are faced with—nullifies our agency and renders us vulnerable to further control and manipulation…and to being miserable all the time.

Cracks in PoMo has found much consolation and revelry in putting out content and hosting events that aimed to:

give voice to narratives that favor the “particular” and “concrete” over the abstract or global, celebrating the value of roots and that which is “given”
give precedence to matters of aesthetics and ontology (culture and faith) over the purely political
look at controversial issues through (1) an unconventional lens that holds space for nuance and complexity, while trying to highlight the elements within these issues that reflect the most fundamental human needs and questions, and (b) a playful lens that makes people chuckle a little and take themselves less seriously
(most importantly) bring people of a variety of backgrounds and ideological persuasions together, to hear each other’s ideas and just talk about life together. Even if we walked away not fully understanding or agreeing with each other, this disposition toward encountering others is already a powerful means to reclaim our agency, and it serves as a buffer against the threat of social division.

Ultimately, we’ve found that making the discourse more weird allows us to step back, to detach from our “agendas” and see it all—and each other—more clearly.

Allow us to break character for a moment and state in complete sincerity (and cringeness) that we’ve been amazed by how our content and events have allowed us to witness so many “cracks” in the discourse. We’ve met some incredible people, had some surprising experiences, and discovered numerous fascinating insights.

As those who were present at our talk at the Catholic Worker a few weeks ago heard, we are in no way naive about how “useless” the work of content creation really is.

Brennan Vickery

reminded us that writing think-pieces and putting out podcasts and silly memes is not going to change the world. We’d argue that the world will be changed not so much by a noble agenda or project of our own making, but by people with a clearer and fuller outlook toward life.

And so, we hope that our little drop in the ocean of the discourse will plant the seed of something novel, of a different way of looking at things…and that it will (in some mysterious way) take root and generate something of genuine value.

Cracks in Postmodernity

2024 Round Up

the best of Cracks in PoMo this year

A big thank you to all of our contributors and supporters! Here’s to cracking our way through another year!

Pop culture/media

Sex/gender

Political/social thought

Education

Urban/ethnic stuff

Religion

(we need more people to write for us on religion…)

Podcast interviews

Event proceedings (photos + recordings)

Lastly, we dropped another zine! Check it out in its entirety!

…and check out clippings from Stephen’s writings in other pubs.

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