Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism.

Postmodernism and its critics

The term post-modernism is often used pejoratively to describe tendencies perceived of as Relativist, Counter-enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relationship to critiques of Rationalism, Universalism or Science. It is also sometimes used to describe tendencies in the society which are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of morality.

Related Topics:
Relativist - Counter-enlightenment - Antimodern - Rationalism - Universalism - Science - Morality

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The most prominent recent criticism of postmodern art is John Gardner's. Gardner wrote that the classification "post-modern" / "modern" applied to the art of his time was an evasion, a stab at nothing - i.e., a move to elude the basic function of criticism, which, as Gardner called it, is to judge art's moral value.

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Charles Murray, a strong critic of postmodernism, defines the term:

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:"By contemporary intellectual fashion, I am referring to the constellation of views that come to mind when one hears the words multicultural, gender, deconstruct, politically correct, and Dead White Males. In a broader sense, contemporary intellectual fashion encompasses as well the widespread disdain in certain circles for technology and the scientific method. Embedded in this mind-set is hostility to the idea that discriminating judgments are appropriate in assessing art and literature, to the idea that hierarchies of value exist, hostility to the idea that an objective truth exists. Postmodernism is the overarching label that is attached to this perspective."

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Though Murray's arguments against postmodernism are far from facile, critics have cautioned that Murray's own work in The Bell Curve arrives at racially-charged conclusions through research and argumentation that may not live up to the standards he defends.

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One example is the figure of Harold Bloom, who has simultaneously been hailed as being against multiculturalism and contemporary "fads" in literature, and also placed as an important figure in postmodernism. If even the critics cannot keep score as to which side of a supposedly clear line figures stand on, the best conclusion that can be drawn is that conclusions about membership in the post-modern club are provisional.

Related Topics:
Harold Bloom - Multiculturalism

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Central to the debate is the role of the concept of "objectivity" and what it means. In the broadest sense, denial of objectivity is held to be the post-modern position, and a hostility towards claims advanced on the basis of objectivity its defining feature. It is this underlying hostility toward the concept of objectivity, evident in many contemporary critical theorists, that is the common point of attack for critics of postmodernism. Many critics characterise postmodernism as an ephemeral phenomenon that cannot be adequately defined simply because, as a philosophy at least, it represents nothing more substantial than a series of disparate conjectures allied only in their distrust of modernism.

Related Topics:
Objectivity - Critical theorists - Philosophy - Modernism

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This antipathy of postmodernists towards modernism, and their consequent tendency to define themselves against it, has also attracted criticism. It has been argued that modernity was not actually a lumbering, totalizing monolith at all, but in fact was itself dynamic and ever-changing; the evolution, therefore, between "modern" and "postmodern" should be seen as one of degree, rather than of kind - a continuation rather than a "break." One theorist who takes this view is Marshall Berman, whose book All That is Solid Melts into Air (1982) (a quote from Marx) reflects in its title the fluid nature of "the experience of modernity."

Related Topics:
Marshall Berman - Marx

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As noted above, some theorists such as Habermas even argue that the supposed distinction between the "modern" and the "postmodern" does not exist at all, but that the latter is really no more than a development within a larger, still-current, "modern" framework. Many who make this argument are left academics with Marxist leanings, such as Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, and David Harvey (social geographer), who are concerned that postmodernism's undermining of Enlightenment values makes a progressive cultural politics difficult, if not impossible. How can we effect any change in people's poor living conditions, in inequality and injustice, if we don't accept the validity of underlying universals such as the "real world" and "justice" in the first place? How is any progress to be made through a philosophy so profoundly skeptical of the very notion of progress, and of unified perspectives? The critics charge that the postmodern vision of a tolerant, pluralist society in which every political ideology is perceived to be as valid, or as redundant, as the other, may ultimately encourage individuals to lead lives of a rather disastrous apathetic quietism. This reasoning leads Habermas to compare postmodernism with conservatism and the preservation of the status quo.

Related Topics:
Above - Habermas - Left - Marxist - Terry Eagleton - Fredric Jameson - David Harvey (social geographer)

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Such critics often argue that, in actual fact, such postmodern premises are rarely, if ever, actually embraced — that if they were, we would be left with nothing more than a crippling radical subjectivism. That the projects of the Enlightenment and modernity are alive and well can be seen in the justice system, in science, in political rights movements, in the very idea of universities, and so on.

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To some critics, there seems, indeed, to be a glaring contradiction in maintaining the death of objectivity and privileged position on one hand, while the scientific community continues a project of unprecedented scope to unify various scientific disciplines into a theory of everything, on the other. Hostility toward hierarchies of value and objectivity becomes similarly problematic when postmodernity itself attempts to analyse such hierarchies with, apparently, some measure of objectivity and make categorical statements concerning them.

Related Topics:
Theory of everything - Hierarchies

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Such critics see postmodernism as, essentially, a kind of semantic gamesmanship, more sophistry than substance. Postmodernism's proponents are often criticised for a tendency to indulge in exhausting, verbose stretches of rhetorical gymnastics, which critics feel sound important but are ultimately meaningless. (Some postmodernists may argue that this is precisely the point.) In the Sokal Affair, Alan Sokal, a physicist, wrote a deliberately nonsensical article purportedly about interpreting physics and mathematics in terms of postmodern theory, which was nevertheless published by the Left-leaning Social Text, a journal which he and most of the scientific community considered as postmodernist. Notable among Sokal's false arguments published in Social Text was that the value of π changed over time and that the strength of Earth's gravity was relative to the observer. Sokal claimed this highlighted the postmodern tendency to value rhetoric and verbal gamesmanship over serious meaning. Sokal also co-wrote Fashionable Nonsense, which criticizes the inaccurate use of scientific terminology in intellectual writing and finishes with a critique of some forms of postmodernism. Ironically, postmodern literature often self-consciously plays on the format and structure of scientific writing, emphasizing the distinction between the complex content of the world and its understanding in written form. To borrow a phrase from René Magritte, some postmodern literature and art says "This is not a pipe", pointing out that the form of technical writing is not necessarily connected to its content. The Sokal affair also generated political controversy, with conservative pundits parading it as proof of the irrelevance of the academic left, while leftists criticized Sokal of serving a conservative agenda. Sokal, meanwhile, identified himself as an "unabashed Old Leftist."

Related Topics:
Sokal Affair - Alan Sokal - Social Text - π - Fashionable Nonsense - Intellectual - Postmodern literature - René Magritte - This is not a pipe

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Some critics feel that postmodernism is so strongly linked to politics that it does not qualify as a philosophy. These critics claim that, inasmuch as many postmodernist arguments rely on charges of racism and ethnocentrism in traditional Western science, it is little more than an out. Clearly postmodern thought has never been able to establish a logical or philosophical basis for itself, relying instead on anti-rational rejection of premises and presuppostions. This strikes many critics as inherently illogical.

Related Topics:
Racism - Ethnocentrism

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Other critics attack postmodernist thought from a theological perspective, arguing that a blanket condemnation of absolutes carries implications for morality, ethics and spirituality. Few would agree that basic moral standards are random individual or social constructions. Further, absolute anti-rational perspectives comprise a profound worldview but are so general and limited as to offer little to satisfy man's search for, truth, meaning and purpose. From this perspective postmodernism is itself a false theology offering nothing more than repackaged cynicism and nihilism.

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