Alan Kirby says postmodernism is dead and buried. In its place comes a new paradigm of authority and knowledge formed under the pressure of new technologies and contemporary social forces.
http://philosophynow.org/issues/58/The_ ... And_Beyond
The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
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Philosophy Now
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Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
I don't believe postmodernism is dead, just like postindustrialism isn't dead. Postmodern and postindustrial are synonymous. They both evoke a past era.
Postmodernism has not only changed the sensibilities and lifestyles of society on the whole but also between the sexes. The Atlantic magazine recently did an article on "The End Of Men: How Women Are Taking Control - Of Everything". As the article points out, The Great Recession in the US has caused more unemployment among men because the traditional jobs they hold in construction and manufacturing have been the hardest hit. Also, the economy is changing from a basically industrial one to a service one in which women are favored. For the first time more women are employed than men. Also, more women are graduating from universities and more parents are choosing to have girls, even in societies that once favored boys. This situation has upended the modern world which was more industrial, patriarchal and controlled by men. With these changes women are bring a new perspective to the world, something postmodernism is all about.
In His book “Consilience” Edward O. Wilson writes, “Postmodernism is the ultimate polar antithesis of the Enlightenment”. It was The Enlightenment that gave us modernism and the idea that there is truth and progress in human endeavor. Enlightenment thinkers believed that science would advance the world. And it has. However, an element of postmodernism particular to academia, generally resentful of the powers that be, preached antiscience, that science is arbitrary, depending on who is in control. The Enlightenment also gave us democracy, which begs the question, is postmodernism antidemocratic?
Not exactly, but Fredrick Nietzsche (1844-1900), considered one of the first postmodernists, disliked modernity because it espoused democracy. He saw democracy as empowering the masses, something he despised because he felt that mass culture would smother individual achievement. Individual exceptionalism wouldn't survive in a sea of mass equality, he believed. However, Nietzsche must have been thinking of the illiberal version of democracy offered by Marxism rather than the liberal democracy of today's open societies where individual exceptionalism flourishes.
It is in academia that postmodernism has been most polemic and problematic, teaching things like science is an ideology and not necessarily ‘science‘ but only one truth among many. In other words, there are other ways of knowing about nature and the universe. In this respect postmodernism did a disservice by effecting people's ability to comprehend reality.
It is said that postmodernism is dead because those who most promulgated it are dead, like Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Perhaps in academia it is but not in the real world or in retailing, as The Economist magazine pointed out in its article "Post-modernism is the new black", the new cool. The Economist used the London department store Selfridges as an example. In the early 1990s Selfridges was near collapse, following the fate of many other department stores. Its merchandizing style had grown stale and unappealing to shoppers. Niche marketing was become the norm. Selfridges wisely adopted the niche merchandizing style where retail departments within its store became independent from each other. Under the modern, old management system departments stores were run from a central office and as a result lost touch with changing tastes. By decentralizing itself and giving its departments the freedom to make decisions, Selfridges remade itself, becoming the toast of the department store world, so much so that its postmodern formate was adopted universally as a means of survival.
What modernists believed, to their detriment, was that once the world had adopted the rational of The Enlightenment things would fall into place. It hasn't quite worked out that way because modernists didn't take into account that their ideas wouldn't satisfy everybody. They hadn't considered that humans would still be unruly and behave independently, having their own ideas about how to lead their lives. For instance modernists believed the world would be structured in a hierarchal manner, run by men, ‘white’ men. Modernists believed in maintaining the status quo. It was more about colonization and uniformity. The backlash that mounted against this mindset in the 1960s is what helped pave the way to the postmodernism of today. Today it's about globalization, diversity and flexibility.
Perhaps this simple narrative might help explain why we live in a postmodern world and why it will remain so: An aspect of postmodernism had been to constantly deconstruct (Derrida) systems and centers of power in order to examine and find fault with them. If in the process a system is found wanting but has sufficiently redeeming qualities, it is reconstructed, with improvements, and put back into service. With this in mind, let’s compare liberal democracy's governing style with its opposite — communism, which has ostensibly collapsed. Simply put, liberal democracy has survived as a governing system because when deconstructed and examined it was found at its core worthy of something to built on. In comparison, when communism was deconstructed and examined it was found rotten at its core and therefore discarded.
Foucault would have agreed that postmodernism is basically about decentralizing authority and emancipating the individual, helpfully enabled by technologies like the iPod and the Internet.
Postmodernism has not only changed the sensibilities and lifestyles of society on the whole but also between the sexes. The Atlantic magazine recently did an article on "The End Of Men: How Women Are Taking Control - Of Everything". As the article points out, The Great Recession in the US has caused more unemployment among men because the traditional jobs they hold in construction and manufacturing have been the hardest hit. Also, the economy is changing from a basically industrial one to a service one in which women are favored. For the first time more women are employed than men. Also, more women are graduating from universities and more parents are choosing to have girls, even in societies that once favored boys. This situation has upended the modern world which was more industrial, patriarchal and controlled by men. With these changes women are bring a new perspective to the world, something postmodernism is all about.
In His book “Consilience” Edward O. Wilson writes, “Postmodernism is the ultimate polar antithesis of the Enlightenment”. It was The Enlightenment that gave us modernism and the idea that there is truth and progress in human endeavor. Enlightenment thinkers believed that science would advance the world. And it has. However, an element of postmodernism particular to academia, generally resentful of the powers that be, preached antiscience, that science is arbitrary, depending on who is in control. The Enlightenment also gave us democracy, which begs the question, is postmodernism antidemocratic?
Not exactly, but Fredrick Nietzsche (1844-1900), considered one of the first postmodernists, disliked modernity because it espoused democracy. He saw democracy as empowering the masses, something he despised because he felt that mass culture would smother individual achievement. Individual exceptionalism wouldn't survive in a sea of mass equality, he believed. However, Nietzsche must have been thinking of the illiberal version of democracy offered by Marxism rather than the liberal democracy of today's open societies where individual exceptionalism flourishes.
It is in academia that postmodernism has been most polemic and problematic, teaching things like science is an ideology and not necessarily ‘science‘ but only one truth among many. In other words, there are other ways of knowing about nature and the universe. In this respect postmodernism did a disservice by effecting people's ability to comprehend reality.
It is said that postmodernism is dead because those who most promulgated it are dead, like Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Perhaps in academia it is but not in the real world or in retailing, as The Economist magazine pointed out in its article "Post-modernism is the new black", the new cool. The Economist used the London department store Selfridges as an example. In the early 1990s Selfridges was near collapse, following the fate of many other department stores. Its merchandizing style had grown stale and unappealing to shoppers. Niche marketing was become the norm. Selfridges wisely adopted the niche merchandizing style where retail departments within its store became independent from each other. Under the modern, old management system departments stores were run from a central office and as a result lost touch with changing tastes. By decentralizing itself and giving its departments the freedom to make decisions, Selfridges remade itself, becoming the toast of the department store world, so much so that its postmodern formate was adopted universally as a means of survival.
What modernists believed, to their detriment, was that once the world had adopted the rational of The Enlightenment things would fall into place. It hasn't quite worked out that way because modernists didn't take into account that their ideas wouldn't satisfy everybody. They hadn't considered that humans would still be unruly and behave independently, having their own ideas about how to lead their lives. For instance modernists believed the world would be structured in a hierarchal manner, run by men, ‘white’ men. Modernists believed in maintaining the status quo. It was more about colonization and uniformity. The backlash that mounted against this mindset in the 1960s is what helped pave the way to the postmodernism of today. Today it's about globalization, diversity and flexibility.
Perhaps this simple narrative might help explain why we live in a postmodern world and why it will remain so: An aspect of postmodernism had been to constantly deconstruct (Derrida) systems and centers of power in order to examine and find fault with them. If in the process a system is found wanting but has sufficiently redeeming qualities, it is reconstructed, with improvements, and put back into service. With this in mind, let’s compare liberal democracy's governing style with its opposite — communism, which has ostensibly collapsed. Simply put, liberal democracy has survived as a governing system because when deconstructed and examined it was found at its core worthy of something to built on. In comparison, when communism was deconstructed and examined it was found rotten at its core and therefore discarded.
Foucault would have agreed that postmodernism is basically about decentralizing authority and emancipating the individual, helpfully enabled by technologies like the iPod and the Internet.
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mickthinks
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Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
meh - I think it's a debate for poseurs.
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
Thanks, Alan Kirby,
It is with some relief that postmodernism is dead. It was such a butt of late-nite jokes and scurrilous slander by newspaper editors, who characterized postmodernists as relativist hippies of no particular values or beliefs. Science will breathe a sigh of relief and hope again for some restoration of its smudged Enlightenment prestige.
And it is quite postmodern than postmodernism passes on and gives way to new worlds and new visions. The new label, pseudo-modernism is an appropriate moniker for postmodernism's lively progeny so well described in your fortunate article.
But we old-timers will look back fondly at the magnificence of postmodernisms accomplishments and the brilliance of its champions. Who can forget the likes of Hume, Vico, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Peirce, James, Dewey, Barth, Derrida, Rorty, and Popper? Their rejection of dualism, absolutism of every kind, and correspondence theory, their insistence on the limitations human knowledge, the solidarity of the human family, and the place of emotion in human thought and learning--all set their indelible mark on us, our times, and on history.
But, maybe, it is not over until its over. Newcomers such as Americans Lakoff and Johnson still have something to say. They show that the human body not only limits knowledge, but also makes it possible and shapes it. This is such a happy corrective for both postmodern philosophy and cognitive science! They don't quite get the fly out of the bottle, but they do show that human thought and language are not entirely arbitrary, but grounded in bodily experience.
Most radically, they suggest that the brain uses the same nerve regions for sensory-motor processing as for thought. This is an evolutionary economy that uses the same structures for more than one purpose.
This suggestion implies that any organism that can feel and move can categorize experiences and make distinctions between them, enabling them at least to distinguish between food and not food, enemies and friends. This suggests that other animals not only share our genes, but they also in a fundamental way think like us. Because they have different bodies, their languages and modes of thought are different. But even an octopus (with its 9 brains), can conceptualize, compare, contrast, conjecture, speculate, and experiment.
Often in observing the behavior of an animal, I have thought, "If I had a body like that, that's exactly how I would react." Postmodernism still has a few more thrilling thoughts to reveal, and these are very exciting times.
It is with some relief that postmodernism is dead. It was such a butt of late-nite jokes and scurrilous slander by newspaper editors, who characterized postmodernists as relativist hippies of no particular values or beliefs. Science will breathe a sigh of relief and hope again for some restoration of its smudged Enlightenment prestige.
And it is quite postmodern than postmodernism passes on and gives way to new worlds and new visions. The new label, pseudo-modernism is an appropriate moniker for postmodernism's lively progeny so well described in your fortunate article.
But we old-timers will look back fondly at the magnificence of postmodernisms accomplishments and the brilliance of its champions. Who can forget the likes of Hume, Vico, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Peirce, James, Dewey, Barth, Derrida, Rorty, and Popper? Their rejection of dualism, absolutism of every kind, and correspondence theory, their insistence on the limitations human knowledge, the solidarity of the human family, and the place of emotion in human thought and learning--all set their indelible mark on us, our times, and on history.
But, maybe, it is not over until its over. Newcomers such as Americans Lakoff and Johnson still have something to say. They show that the human body not only limits knowledge, but also makes it possible and shapes it. This is such a happy corrective for both postmodern philosophy and cognitive science! They don't quite get the fly out of the bottle, but they do show that human thought and language are not entirely arbitrary, but grounded in bodily experience.
Most radically, they suggest that the brain uses the same nerve regions for sensory-motor processing as for thought. This is an evolutionary economy that uses the same structures for more than one purpose.
This suggestion implies that any organism that can feel and move can categorize experiences and make distinctions between them, enabling them at least to distinguish between food and not food, enemies and friends. This suggests that other animals not only share our genes, but they also in a fundamental way think like us. Because they have different bodies, their languages and modes of thought are different. But even an octopus (with its 9 brains), can conceptualize, compare, contrast, conjecture, speculate, and experiment.
Often in observing the behavior of an animal, I have thought, "If I had a body like that, that's exactly how I would react." Postmodernism still has a few more thrilling thoughts to reveal, and these are very exciting times.
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
Postmodernism has made its passing in science, literature and academia. But it is still around when it comes to lifestyle, politics and economics. One size does not fit all as taught under its predecessor modernism.
Even though we live in a more interconnected world it is a more fractured one in its tastes and views, and how it goes about its business. That is postmodernism.
Even though we live in a more interconnected world it is a more fractured one in its tastes and views, and how it goes about its business. That is postmodernism.
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
Postmodern thought, alongside Phenomenology (to which it owes a tremedous debt, often left unacknowledged) and Logical Positivism are all both continuations and critiques of the 'Enlightenment project'. One of the most important ideas, initially framed by Kant, was that Enlightenment should never 'end' and that it should be a process of constant critique; admittedly, both Kant and, later, Hegel, attempted to illuminate the manner in which such critique takes place (perhaps demonstrating a lack of belief in this fundamental idea). However, we needn't be so quick to claim that Postmodern thought is antithetical to the Enlightenment, as it is wholly wedded to the idea of 'the critique that never ends'.
As for Postmodernism being 'anti-science', I would contend that it is wholly 'scientific' insofar as it can be seen as part of this wider, more general attempt to engage in the critical project of the Enlightenment. For one thing, it shows the importance of criticizing 'science' thus preventing it from assuming the dogmatic status it would claim to reject. Phenomenology helps here, as it allows us to see science as an activity rather than a 'thing', an ontological orientation rather than a concrete object.
As for the debate being for posers ... it's certainly for those who have something with which to pose!
As for Postmodernism being 'anti-science', I would contend that it is wholly 'scientific' insofar as it can be seen as part of this wider, more general attempt to engage in the critical project of the Enlightenment. For one thing, it shows the importance of criticizing 'science' thus preventing it from assuming the dogmatic status it would claim to reject. Phenomenology helps here, as it allows us to see science as an activity rather than a 'thing', an ontological orientation rather than a concrete object.
As for the debate being for posers ... it's certainly for those who have something with which to pose!
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Arising_uk
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Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
What an interesting article. Mainly about Literature and Critical Theory I think but cracking stuff none the less.
Just to be picky;
"... Neuromancer, anything by B.S. Johnson – and the same applies. It’s all about as contemporary as The Smiths, as hip as shoulder pads, as happening as Betamax video recorders. These are texts which are just coming to grips with the existence of rock music and television; they mostly do not dream even of the possibility of the technology and communications media – mobile phones, email, the internet, computers in every house powerful enough to put a man on the moon – which today’s undergraduates take for granted."
I seriously doubt the above applies to Neuromancer.
bdubay makes some good points in his post but I think it not post-modernism but phenomenology as the possible source of new and exciting insights.
Just to be picky;
"... Neuromancer, anything by B.S. Johnson – and the same applies. It’s all about as contemporary as The Smiths, as hip as shoulder pads, as happening as Betamax video recorders. These are texts which are just coming to grips with the existence of rock music and television; they mostly do not dream even of the possibility of the technology and communications media – mobile phones, email, the internet, computers in every house powerful enough to put a man on the moon – which today’s undergraduates take for granted."
I seriously doubt the above applies to Neuromancer.
bdubay makes some good points in his post but I think it not post-modernism but phenomenology as the possible source of new and exciting insights.
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Ron de Weijze
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Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
Even though the article is from 2006, the dragon raises its ugly head now and again, so we must keep it asleep until we reach Jurassic Park where it should be put behind firm electric wire for the rest of its natural life. Similar words must have been used by the Hippies so eager to replace modern elitism by their own variety, tricking our view of life into no longer believing in little things like Truth, Reality, Self, God and who knows what other deconstructibles. I do not agree that postmodernism dissolved into pseudo modernism of end-user involvement in the creation of vulgar cultural products and would like to put it instead as the replacement of top-down communication by lateral non-elitist communication. I agree that it was the internet that enabled this. Kirby doesn't seem to have made much use of it, even in 2006, describing it as "click-in downloading" to describe how user-involved it was as opposed to simply buying the book and read it. Clearly Twitter and Facebook had not emerged yet but I am sure the blogosphere was unavoidable even back then. Elites are in turmoil for their power doesn't float to the top all by its one-way televised self any more, now that people can at least comment on a billion internet pages. That I consider the straw that finally broke the camel's back. So apparently it is the skewedness of technical innovation that allows democracy to be elite dictatorship in absentia as a loophole in the rule of modern law.
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
what i find interesting is that i first came upon the word in college. it was like a 'hot word'. like a new fad or style i thought at the time. i wonder what the word 'postmodernism' means to people who have not gone to college/university and have not come upon it? i was also blown away by all the theories. social contract theory, this theory, that theory... endless theories to memorize, and their creators and players etc.. i was blown away. in some/many diciplines, to be at the top your brain must become memorex tape for theories. thanks
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Mark Question
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Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
that pot..posh..postmoderat..postmordenism is just a taste of wind. developing development. Technological singularity. intelligence explosion. what would decontsructing termite think about postmodernism? they didnt know what they were doing?
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
interesting you mentioned pot/posh/and termites, because when i first saw the first few words of your post the first thing that flashed through my mind was potash. there is a big potash plant/company a couple hours from where i live that harvests wood. to avoid confusion, in america, at least in some places maybe, an industrial type company is often called a plant. (i do not know why) anyhow, in an area near me and where i used to live briefly there is a big potash plant. and it mows down trees. like a termite i suppose. what a BEAUTIFUL AREA it is too. (in my opinion at least). people from the cities flock there whenever possible. everytime i go there, throughout my life, i notice more and more of what makes it beautiful gone. and it keeps happening faster and faster and faster. almost like termites have invaded. i wonder if you'll ever be able to hear a loon again there shortly. i wonder.
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
I have not been to college/university.bus2bondi wrote:what i find interesting is that i first came upon the word in college. it was like a 'hot word'. like a new fad or style i thought at the time. i wonder what the word 'postmodernism' means to people who have not gone to college/university
I am a post-futurist: "I have been the future... then I worked."
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
I have to agree with the post-modernism-is-dead thing. Actually, it was probably dead before someone stated it; at least what post-modernism discourse is based upon, which is usually called ironic self reflection.
I believe it is dead because of the inability of individuals to realize what was being said, and to actuallize what the authors were attempting to express: the discourse is inherently ironic, and most people have not has the ironic experience, nor can reading about the actuality in discourse bring about such reflection.
One would think that Sartre had it right: that we should revolt. But revolt to where?
Well the only place one can revolt to: a reassertion of "proper knowledge" which amounts to a "proper ethics", which is what our world appears to up to now: an attempt to place a "proper ethics" upon the world.
I do not believe this is possible though, and indeed, this situation is what Slavoj Zizek speaks about.
He is describing the effect of the truth of postmodernism when it is realized.
And the truth of Sartre: we merely exist and have no choice except to revolt against having no choice, but this is in reality merely the moment expression of the inevitable humanity.
Ironically post-modernism is dead, but in this it never was "alive". It merely expresses a condition of existing.
Maybe...
I believe it is dead because of the inability of individuals to realize what was being said, and to actuallize what the authors were attempting to express: the discourse is inherently ironic, and most people have not has the ironic experience, nor can reading about the actuality in discourse bring about such reflection.
One would think that Sartre had it right: that we should revolt. But revolt to where?
Well the only place one can revolt to: a reassertion of "proper knowledge" which amounts to a "proper ethics", which is what our world appears to up to now: an attempt to place a "proper ethics" upon the world.
I do not believe this is possible though, and indeed, this situation is what Slavoj Zizek speaks about.
He is describing the effect of the truth of postmodernism when it is realized.
And the truth of Sartre: we merely exist and have no choice except to revolt against having no choice, but this is in reality merely the moment expression of the inevitable humanity.
Ironically post-modernism is dead, but in this it never was "alive". It merely expresses a condition of existing.
Maybe...
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
Nietzsche was a postmodernist. According to this article Nietzsche is also dead. Perhaps, then, Philosophy Now should do a cover story on 'Is Nietzsche really Dead?'.
Re: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond
Is the author talking about philosophical postmodernism, a branch of epistemology, or is he talking about the literary and cultural expressions of it?
I find it ironic that there is in the same issue of PN, a discussion of Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, which has often been presented as the latest expression of postmodern philosophy.
As philosopher Ray Linn writes in "A Teacher's Introduction to Postmodernism," postmodern philosophy take began with David Hume, who said we cannot know causes. This introduced doubt into all scientific investigations and jettisoned forever the possibility of absolute truth. Science today is built on not knowing causes but probabilities and correlations. Modern science is based on doubt. Everything can be questioned.
Ever since Hume, philosophers have been asking, if we don't have access to the absolute essence that Plato described, if we don't have immediate access to reality, then what is truth?
The best answer so far, according to Linn, has come from the pragmatists such as Peirce, James, Dewey, and Rorty: truth is what you believe works best.
Is Linn wrong? Am I wrong?
I find it ironic that there is in the same issue of PN, a discussion of Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, which has often been presented as the latest expression of postmodern philosophy.
As philosopher Ray Linn writes in "A Teacher's Introduction to Postmodernism," postmodern philosophy take began with David Hume, who said we cannot know causes. This introduced doubt into all scientific investigations and jettisoned forever the possibility of absolute truth. Science today is built on not knowing causes but probabilities and correlations. Modern science is based on doubt. Everything can be questioned.
Ever since Hume, philosophers have been asking, if we don't have access to the absolute essence that Plato described, if we don't have immediate access to reality, then what is truth?
The best answer so far, according to Linn, has come from the pragmatists such as Peirce, James, Dewey, and Rorty: truth is what you believe works best.
Is Linn wrong? Am I wrong?