We are living in an age where the concept of definitive knowledge, long prescribed to us by the academic community, has ceased to exist. We exist in an age where knowledge is defined by that which can be downloaded and digitized. Relativity has replaced reason. Ambiguity has replaced absolute truths. We no longer create a truth based on personal conviction; instead, we now construct our truth from what we are told by the "experts".

Experts tell us how to think. Unfortunately, in the Post Modern world, these so-called experts are knowledgeable only in that they have embraced the writings of other experts. It has become a world of thinking where ideas are disregarded as unimportant or ignorant if they are not substantiated by the research of other experts. And thus, the Post Modern scholar builds his wealth of knowledge and ideas from the ideas of those experts before him, who have gleaned their knowledge from the experts before them.

Creative thought is abandoned as old ideas are merely recycled and transformed by new scholars and new experts. As people embrace this new way of "thinking", our society transmutes into a world of pat answers and dumbed-down responses. This leaves the cynical person in a state of confusion and frustration. The cynic is no longer sure of who or what we are or why we exist in our present situation because the cynic refuses to buy into the theories of experts, and in doing so, unwittingly becomes the Post Modern Cynic. This cynic questions whether Post Modernism is a legitimate movement or if it exists merely because the experts say it does. On one hand, the Cynic wants to believe the authority and buy into the "fact" that it is a legitimate literary movement, but on the other hand, he has a nagging doubt that Post Modernism is nothing more than a rehashing of the old ideas.

In Don DeLillo's White Noise, the character named Heinrich is the embodiment of the Post Modern Cynic. Heinrich is the person who cannot escape the influence of the experts, and yet, when confronted, finds it impossible to stay silent and let the experts tell only half the truth.

He is a misunderstood character. He is withdrawn, moody, and viewed as slightly unbalanced by family and friends. His father, Jack, describes his son's demeanor as "disturbingly compliant. I have a sense that his ready yielding to our wishes and demands is a private weapon of reproach" . Jack and Heinrich's stepmother, Babette, cannot understand Heinrich, partly because he is so unwilling to buy into what he is told and partly because he is so ready to create his own truth from his gathered information. Heinrich is controlled on one hand by empirical truth and on the other by his own operational truth, and if either conflicts with what the experts say, he will side on the side of his own operational truth.

There are times when the Cynic wants to accept what the experts are telling him. But, like many Post Modernist philosophers, the Cynic believes that truth is too relative to be relied on. Heinrich says, "What good is truth? My truth means nothing". For Heinrich, truth is relative. What is truth to me might not be truth to you, and the Cynic seems to believe that a person can choose when and if that truth applies personally.

"It's going to rain tonight," says Heinrich. "It's raining now," Jack replies. "The radio said tonight," retorts Heinrich.

This dialogue stems from a conversation in which Heinrich tries to convince Jack that a person can never be sure of anything. This frustrates Jack. They can both see that it is clearly raining. Why cannot Heinrich just accept the fact that it is raining and, more importantly, admit that it is? They could both step outside of the car and be soaking wet, and still Heinrich would argue that one could not be sure. "Our senses are wrong a lot more often than they're right," says Heinrich to Jack.

Heinrich is struggling with an issue that many characters in the Post Modern world struggle with. Who has the truth? If the truth can be mangled and twisted to fit every person's recollection of any given event, then who is more right, and is it still considered a truth? Why are the experts more right? What makes their account better than anybody else's? Because they have read more? Who decides which writers or historians are correct? It becomes a question of relativity that alienates Heinrich from his family just as it has alienated many students who question the validity of any literary movement.

For the rest of the Gladney family, as for most scholars, the answers to these questions are much more black and white. Consider the dark massive cloud that appears suddenly in the Gladney's sky. The experts refer to it merely as a feathery plume; therefore, it must be a harmless feathery plume. The Gladney family and neighbors accept what is told to them and continue on with life. Living like that is very easy. If one never questions, then one will never be confused, frustrated, or alienated. He or she will accept the norm, fit the norm, and become the norm. "Is this true? Why did I say it? What does it mean?".

Nevermind. It is often too taxing to think about. It cannot be proven one way or the other, so just accept that it is true and move on. This is the way to succeed in the Post Modern world.

Does the Post Modern Cynic criticize the movement because it has left him behind? "Why did you name Heinrich, Heinrich?" Steffie asks Jack. "I thought it was a forceful name, a strong name. It has a kind of authority," he replies.

Heinrich accepts nothing and questions everything, but in his own time still evolves into what his father intended him to be; Heinrich becomes the expert, the authority.

An Airborne Toxic Event has shaken the town. People have evacuated at the command of the officials who have upgraded the event from "a feathery plume with minor side effects" to an Airborne Toxic Event where exposure can result in death. Each time the gravity of the situation is raised, the people accept the news as they are told. The experts allow just enough information out to let the people know that it is a serious event, but the people are never actually informed that the toxic cloud can kill them.

The experts know full disclosure would cause widespread panic, and that is what they are hoping to avoid. Heinrich, however, is well aware of the problems that Nyodene-D has been known to create, at least in rats. At first he tries to inform his father and the rest of the family, but they are more willing to believe what the radio is saying, probably because the radio has happier, less dangerous reports. Heinrich is never taken seriously by his family. Even when Jack passes a large crowd of people listening raptly to an informer of the dangers of the toxic waste and he sees that it is Heinrich who is the center of attention, he still does not give Heinrich any credit. It takes a SIMUVAC official with computer output to finally convince Jack that the "feathery plume" he was exposed to will eventually kill him.

Why does Jack consider the SIMUVAC man an expert? Because for Jack, empirical evidence is truth and the SIMUVAC official supposedly has access to this knowledge and is willing to share it with Jack. Until speaking with the SIMUVAC man, Jack feels fine, but when the data proves that he is going to die from his two-minute exposure, he is suddenly overwhelmed with "symptoms".

Two interesting things are happening here. First, Jack is proving the dependence that people have on empirical truth and those with ready access to data. And secondly, Heinrich is demonstrating how people are seldom discriminating in whom they deem the "expert." Would the large crowd of people be giving Heinrich the same attention and respect if they knew that the sum of his knowledge was from a movie shown in school?

The Post Modern Cynic wonders which of the two, the SIMUVAC man or Heinrich, has the greater grasp of the reality of the situation. Can the SIMUVAC man be trusted? Is he telling the crowd all he really knows about the situation? Who decides which is the expert and on what criterion is he chosen?

In a Post Modern world, anybody can step forward and proclaim himself or herself the expert, because if truth is relative, then who is to say that one truth is better than the other is. This can be just as dangerous an attitude as that of the student who digests everything from a professor in class without pause, swallowing pieces of information without chewing or tasting them. Heinrich's followers are representative of people who never check credentials. They are the ones who believe that anybody can be an expert. They buy into the theory that because truth is relative, all are experts in their own way.

Post Modernism is complicated because it perpetuates this type of thinking. Anything goes, everything is left up to personal interpretation. In Jack's case, this theory is deadly. He refuses to believe his own son and instead believes the radio announcements; he is not as careful about being exposed to the toxic cloud as he would have been if he had been better informed on the dangers of exposure. Now he has been exposed for two minutes and will die from it in 30 years.

So where does this leave the Cynics in today's society? Half of the world is telling them to accept things the way they are because we are not in control of what happens to us. The other half of the world is crying foul. They claim that it is not that we are not in control; it is just that we cannot be sure of anything because everything we have always been so sure of is now relative. The experts we have relied on for so long are being exposed as charlatans. Religion is being questioned. The fundamental structures that have shaped our society are being challenged. Enlightenment is scoffed at as an attempt to escape what has become a hopeless reality. Romanticism is replaced by cynicism. There is no good, there is no bad, and there is no hope of finding either. All we are doing is existing.

Thus, the Cynic must create his or her own version of truth in order to survive. He is not content with merely existing. There is a realization that nobody can be trusted, so everything must be internalized. The Post Modern Cynic lives in a world of loneliness and dissatisfaction, not sure if he actually exists or if he exists merely because somebody says he does. It is a time when people are not sure if there is a past, present or future. The days when the future was looked to with hope have been replaced by a Post Modern feeling of doom, predicting only death. It only makes sense, in light of all the doom and gloom, that characters like Heinrich are going to create their own worlds of existence.

Jack and Babette have been swallowed whole by the concept of death. They have bought into the theories of experts and of doing what they are told. They are miserable, but they are miserable in the company of others. Heinrich has refused to follow the same path. He is misunderstood, perhaps, but he is content in knowing what he is by his own definition.

In DeLillo's White Noise, any actual truth or knowledge is lost in a sea of ambiguity and relativity. Post Modern literature is an exposé of this struggle to adapt to a world where all concrete knowledge has been replaced with uncertainty. The Post Modern Cynic is the tool within the literary movement who is used to symbolize the indecisiveness of the average person in today's society. Like the characters in Post Modern literature, the average person in this society struggles with the feelings of hopelessness, insignificance, relativity, and the inability to trust knowledge. The only way to truly understand the plight of this person is through the experiences of the Post Modern Cynic.

Works Cited:

DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.