Postmodernism

[MarluxiaNo11]

So we're studying this at University at the moment and I've got the Easter break to do the essay.

Just want people to give their definition of it as there is no official definition out there, I decided my 5 external sources would be what you guys (the public) determine Postmodernism to be.

I declared it to be:

Postmodernism is the framework behind ideology, it is the methods behind what make society with an example being feminism. Adapted from a quote I read somewhere else to make it my own.

Discuss?

Thanks dudes!

 

[Alaude Drenxta]

Intentional divergence from established frameworks of society and idealism. It is the epitome of individualism and originality that has culminated from the modernist approach to advancement both technological and social.

Also known as hipsters.

 

[Enchanted Rose]

No, there isn’t really a definition, as it’s more a collective term for prevalent ideologies and pieces of artwork produced in a certain era from the aftermath of the second world war onwards (circa 1950s-1980s).

It’s definitely true to say that both modernism and post-modernism sought to challenge hegemony, but postmodernism wasn’t an extension of modernism, but an active retaliation against the elitism, optimism and authoritative leanings of modernism.

Modernism attempted to legitimate and protect ‘high culture’, whilst disparaging the ‘low culture’ of the masses. Eugenics, for instance, was widely embraced by many modernists. Furthermore, modernist art and literature was highly reverent of tradition (see: T.S Eliot’s essay ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, and James Joyce reworking of Homer’s the Odyssey in Ulysses). The most prominent modernists were all extremely well educated, relatively wealthy, and white.

Alternatively, postmodernism is much more inclusive and it embraced popular culture. It extended into various art forms: household objects, interior design, fashion, music videos, photography etc. Importantly, it was consciously commercial and most postmodernist art was mass produced, which meant that anyone could consume art (rather than a select, privileged few). It was mean to be fun and free (though was of course often sceptical in tone) and you’ll notice a lot more vibrant colours and bricolage used in postmodernist art.

(Modern day) hipsters aren’t postmodernist, as whether they’re aware of it or not, they are concerned with the relentless acquisition and therefore reification of sub-culture, which is something else entirely – possibly post-postmodernism?

I attended a wonderful exhibition on Postmodernism at the V&A last autumn which helped solidify my understanding of what Postmodernism is – sometimes it’s better to actually look at examples of work produced in the postmodernist period instead of grappling with definitions.

P.S - this is one of my favourite postmodernist pieces of art, which I have hanging in my room:

 

[Alaude Drenxta]

I was referring more to their intent than their actual accomplishments. Just as the very idea of being a hipster means you fail at the ultimate goal of originality.

 

[Hidden]

No, there isn’t really a definition, as it’s more a collective term for prevalent ideologies and pieces of artwork produced in a certain era from the aftermath of the second world war onwards (circa 1950s-1980s).

It’s definitely true to say that both modernism and post-modernism sought to challenge hegemony, but postmodernism wasn’t an extension of modernism, but an active retaliation against the elitism, optimism and authoritative leanings of modernism.

This is a wonderfully helpful description from Enchanted Rose; I have never been confident in identifying "postmodernism" in any of the arts.

Another field where you'll find postmodernism showing up is in the social sciences, where it's associated with another term, "post-structuralism." Structuralism was a movement that could be said to 'categorize' and 'codify' lived experience, breaking it down into a set of relations that were more or less autonomous of historical action, or the actual event. It produced a lot of abstract theories on power relations, identity, religion and belief, and so on, which were derived from the study of peoples but not dependent upon them (i.e. a king performing a sacrifice was an example of ritualized, sacred belief--he is performing a part in a structure much larger than him).

Post-structuralism was deeply skeptical of these ahistorical 'structures' that were supposed to exist outside of their historical event, and went about 'deconstructing' them (another popular term in postmodernism). There is no set of fundamental relations that can neatly encapsulate lived experience--the king performing a sacrifice is not a pawn piece moved by the 'structure' of ritualized belief, he is a conscious, thinking being who is acted upon by many forces and who reacts on them in turn. Everything is interdependent, nothing exists separate of the historical conditions that brought it into being. This includes the anthropologist or sociologist and the people s/he studies. Structuralist thinkers might have placed their theories 'above' the people they studied (and some were no doubt more culpable of this than others), but post-structuralists maintained that no theory transcended the historical and cultural biases that shaped it. Whether they admitted it or not, social scientists and their experiments were part of the social systems they studied.

I actually had an antagonistic relationship with post-modernism in the social sciences for quite a long while, though I'll attribute this now more to my own predisposed bias and ignorance than any fundamental difference in ideas. I still have a few issues with the (what to call it? movement? philosophy?), mostly in its reading of structuralist writers however. Postmodernists accuse structuralists of being too simplistic; I accuse postmodernists of reading structuralism too simplistically. I think many of the ideas of post-structuralists can be presaged in structuralist writers (indeed, many of them were structuralist writers initially), and I think many others were simply too banal to bear mentioning. But basically my critique boils down to "I don't find this new."

So, there is postmodernism from (my) social sciences perspective.