Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a term usually used to describe a type of intellectual thought that is often considered a critique of (or reaction to) modernism. The term is extremely controversial in that many scholars, intellectuals, and historians have failed to agree on what it is, and whether it exists. Nevertheless, most agree that postmodern ideas have had a major impact on philosophy, art, critical theory, literature, architecture, interpretation of history, and culture since the late 20th century. The term defies easy definition, but generally comprises the following core ideals:
*A continual skepticism towards the ideas and ideals of Modernism, especially the ideas of progress, objectivity, reason, certainty & personal identity, and grand narrative in general (see Counter-Enlightenment)
*The belief that all communication is shaped by cultural bias, myth, metaphor, and political content.
(see Cultural relativism)
*The assertion that meaning and experience can only be created by the individual, and cannot be made objective by an author or narrator.
(see Existentialism)
*Parody, satire, self-reference, and wit.
(see no hugging, no learning)
*Acceptance of a mass media dominated society in which there is no originality, but only copies of what has been done before.
(see late capitalism)
*Globalization, a culturally pluralistic and profoundly interconnected global society lacking any single dominant center of political power, communication, or intellectual production. Instead, the world is moving towards decentralization in all types of global processes.

Framework of Discussion

Post-modernism is most commonly held to be a movement or condition supplanting modernism, and countering basic assumptions held to be part of modernism, including ideas of rationality and objectivity held to be rooted in The Enlightenment and in positivist and realist movements from the late 19th century - as well as an extension of liberating trends in the modern period. However a large number of thinkers and writers hold that it is simply a period or variety of modernism, or a reactionary movement against the modern project and is not, therefore, properly a separate period or idea.

Adherents of post-modernism argue that it caused by a particular condition of economic and social being, including what is described as "Late Capitalism" and the omnipresence of broadcast media. It is argued that post-modernity, a condition of society, inevitably creates responses which are described as post-modern. The argument runs that economic and technological conditions of our age have given rise to a media-dominated society in which there are only inter-referential representations and copies of each other, with no real originality. For these scholars, the postmodern emphasis on the lack of any stable or objective source for communication is often a profound historical development.

This point of view points to Globalization, brought on by innovations in communication, manufacturing and transportation, as one force which has driven the decentralized modern life, creating a culturally pluralistic and profoundly interconnected global society lacking any single dominant center of political power, communication, or intellectual production.They argue that it is based on a rejection of false imposed unities of meta-narrative and hegemony, breaking of traditional frames of genre, structure and stylistic unity, and the overthrowing of catagories which are the result of logocentrism and other forms of artificially imposed order. They value the collage of elements, the play and juxtaposition of ideas from different contexts, and the deconstruction of symbols into the basic dynamics of power and place from which those symbols gain meaning as signifiers. In this it is related to post-structuralism in philosophy, minimalism in the arts and music, the emergence of pop, and the rise of mass media.

Scholars who accept the division of post-modernism as a distinct period believe that society has collectively eschewed modern ideals and instead adopted ideas which are rooted in the reaction to the restrictions and limitations of those ideas, and the present is, therefore a new historical period. While the characteristics of postmodern life are sometimes difficult to grasp, most postmodern scholars point to very concrete and visible technological and economic changes that have brought about the new types of thinking.

Critics of the idea reject that it represents liberation, but instead a failure of creativity, and the supplanting of organization with syncreticism and bricolage. They argue that post-modernity is obscurantist, overly dense, and makes strong assertions about the sciences which are demonstrably false.

There are often strong poltical overtones to this debate, with conservative commentators often being the harshest critics of post-modernism. There is a great deal of disagreement on whether or not these technological and cultural changes represent a new historical period, or merely an extension of the modern one. Complicating matters further, others have argued that even the postmodern era has already ended, with some commentators asserting culture has entered a post-postmodern period.

Andy Warhol's Famous ‘'Campbell's Soup Can'' 1968 screen print.

Descriptions of postmodernism

*"Postmodernism is incredulity towards metanarratives." Jean-Francois Lyotard [1]
*"There is nothing outside the text." Jacques Derrida
*"A generation raised on channel-surfing has lost the capacity for linear thinking and analytical reasoning." Chuck Colson [2]
*"Postmodernist fiction is defined by its temporal disorder, its disregard of linear narrative, its mingling of fictional forms and its experiments with language." - Barry Lewis, Kazuo Ishiguro
*"Weird for the sake of [being] weird." - Moe Szyslak, of The Simpsons [3]
*"It's the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism," Al Gore [4]

Connotations

Postmodernism connotes the idea that knowledge has become commodified. With the "computerisation of society" and the dominance of a mass-media, knowledge becomes fluid. The true seat of power then is wherever the knowledge is being controlled. The state becomes less powerful as more agents can wield or control this knowledge. The state itself is subject to that which it controls--the state's actions are reported and effectively taught to the masses through them and so they have the definitive decision on what goes in, and therefore what the masses are taught.

Wikipedia, with its open, potentially limitless forum, is an example of the postmodernist fluidity of knowledge. This then brings problems of control, legitimisation and verification.

The role, proper usage, and meaning of postmodernism remain matters of intense debate and vary widely with context.

The term

As with many other divisions, the use of the term is subject to the lumpers and splitters problem. There are those who use very small and exact definitions of postmodernism, often for theories perceived as relativist, nihilist, counter-Enlightenment or antimodern. Others believe the world has changed so profoundly that the term applies to nearly everything, and use postmodernism in a broad cultural sense. People who believe postmodernism is really just an aspect of the modern period may instead use terms such as "late modernism".

The term does not apply to post-anything aside from following modern thought. The term post-modern can be viewed as an intentional contradiction, which reflects the spirit of irony or silliness which it is sometimes known for.

The development of postmodernism

From modernism

Modernity, is defined as a period or condition loosely identified with the Industrial Revolution, or the Enlightenment. One "project" of modernity is said to have been the fostering of progress, which was thought to be achievable by incorporating principles of rationality and hierarchy into aspects of public and artistic life. (see also post-industrial, Information Age).
Although useful distinctions can be drawn between the modernist and postmodernist eras, this does not erase the many continuities present between them. One of the most significant differences between modernism and postmodernism is the concern for universality or totality. While modernist artists aimed to capture universality or totality in some sense, postmodernists have rejected these ambitions as "metanarratives."
This usage is ascribed to the philosophers Jean-François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard. Lyotard understood modernity as a cultural condition characterized by constant change in the pursuit of progress, and postmodernity to represent the culmination of this process, where constant change has become a status quo and the notion of progress, obsolete. Following Ludwig Wittgenstein's critique of the possibility of absolute and total knowledge, Lyotard also further argued that the various "master-narratives" of progress, such as positivist science, Marxism, and Structuralism, were defunct as a method of achieving progress.Writers such as John Ralston Saul among others have argued that postmodernism represents an accumulated disillusionment with the promises of the Enlightenment project and its progress of science, so central to modern thinking.

Notable philosophical contributors

Thinkers in the mid and late 19th century and early 20th century, like Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, through their dismantling of objectivity, and emphasis on skepticism (especially concerning social morals and norms), laid the groundwork for the intellectual movement in the 20th century called existentialism. Writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Samuel Beckett, drew heavily from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and other previous thinkers, and brought about a new sense of subjectivity, and forlornness, which greatly influenced contemporaneous thinkers, writers, and artists. Karl Barth's important fideist approach to theology and lifestyle, brought an irreverence for reason, and the rise of subjectivity. Post-colonialism after World War Two contributed to the idea that one cannot have an objectively superior lifestyle or belief. This idea was taken further by the anti-foundationalist philosophers: Heidegger, then Ludwig Wittgenstein, then Derrida, who re-examined the fundamentals of knowledge; they argue that rationality was neither as sure nor as clear as modernists or rationalists assert. Psychologists also assert a cognitive bias, which points at the human bias of truth.

Features of postmodern culture begin to arise in the 1920s with the emergence of the Dada art movement. Both World Wars (perhaps even the concept of a World War), contributed to postmodernism; it is with the end of the Second World War that recognizably post-modernist attitudes begin to emerge. Some identify the burgeoning anti-establishment movements of the 1960s as an early trend toward postmodernism. The theory gained some of its strongest ground early on in French academia. In 1979 Jean-François Lyotard wrote a short but influential work The Postmodern Condition : a report on knowledge. Also, Richard Rorty wrote Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979). Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes are also strongly influential in 1970s postmodern theory.

Marxist critics argue that postmodernism is symptomatic of "late capitalism" and the decline of institutions, particularly the nation-state. The literary critic Fredric Jameson and the geographer David Harvey have also identified post-modernity with "late capitalism" or "flexible accumulation". This situation, called finance capitalism, is characterized by a high degree of mobility of labor and capital, and what Harvey called "time and space compression." They suggest that this coincides with the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system which they believe defined the economic order following the Second World War. (See also Consumerism, Critical theory) Other thinkers assert that post-modernity is the natural reaction to mass broadcasting and a society conditioned to mass production and mass politics.

The movement has had diverse political ramifications: its anti-ideological ideas appear conducive to, and strongly associated with, the feminist movement, racial equality movements, gay rights movements, most forms of late 20th centuryanarchism, even the peace movement and various hybrids of these in the current anti-globalization movement. Unsurprisingly, none of these institutions entirely embraces all aspects of the postmodern movement in its most concentrated definition, but reflect, or in true postmodern style, borrow from some of its core ideas.

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