Postmodernism for beginners

c deakin, 2005

Remember the ‘good old days’!

Life was once predictable

Things were well structured – mapped out for us

We knew who we were – a clear identity

We had firm beliefs about the nature of things

From modernity to post-modernityModern age Post modern age

• production• Community life• Social class• Family• A belief in continuity and situation• A role of education• A one-way media• Overt social control• Nationhood• Science aided progress and finding

the truth

• consumption• fragmentation (individualism)• Identity from other sources• Families (many options)• Breakage with the past/tradition• Education for what?• Duality of media (choice/interchange)• Covert control (CCTV etc)• Global• Science is only one source of

knowledge – plurality of truths now

Structure/security/place/stability

YOU KNEW WHO YOU WERE

Confusion/lack of structure/

incessant choice

YOU CREATE WHO YOU WANT TO BE

Key features of post-modernism

• Truth is relative• Consumerism is all• Transformation of the self (‘pick ‘n’ mix’)• Disillusionment with the idea of progress• Uncertainty• Fragmentation of social life• Incessant choice• Globalisation• The impact of ICT on social life

postmodernism

Modern age has lost the enlightenment

Search for truth

People less likely to follow rigid ideology

Greater pluralism is modern life

No absolutes

Culture and structures are fragmented

Less predictable

Traditional labels and categories lose relevance

We recreate the past, blend with the present

Globalisation has narrowed time and space

Further thoughts…

Science no longer has the answers

Progress is now a questionable enterprise

Post modern society feeds upon

itself..recreating the past, entwining it with

the present, with some self mocking humour

Cultural cohesion comes from sharing

the same media

Accepting many realities and that all the big

explanations are only bigger stories

Each cultural identity can co-exist…giving the individual

many ways of being

10 points of post-modernism & style

1. Emphasis on the centrality of style, at the expense of substance

2. Recycling past cultures and styles – pastiche

3. Playful use of ‘useless’ decoration

4. Celebration of complexity and contradiction. Mixture of high and low culture.

5. Sensitivity to the subtleties of image, language and signs

6. Intermixing – different styles – collaging

7. Accepting the collapse of distinction and difference

8. Rejection of monolithic definitions of culture – celebrate pluralism and diversity

9. Scepticism towards metanarratives and ‘absolutism’

10. Decline of the idea of only one source of meaning –truth.

Faith could re-emerge as scientific thinking loses significance

• Science and progress always undermined faith (see Comte and the demise of the theological stage)

• As technical and bureaucratic (Weber) thinking/living lose favour

• Think about the acceptance of the alternative ‘spiritual’

Jacques Derrida

• Modernism = logocentrism

• Post-modernists rejected this and argue that trying to tell the ‘big story’ now is impossible

• Social structure is in a state of flux

• All meaning is now relative and socially constructed

• Reality is fragile and confusing

Jean Francois Lyotard (1984)• Science has helped destroy the

metanarratives

• All metanarratives are simplistic and reductionst

• We should focus on playing language games to explore the many narratives that exist

• Knowledge is no longer a tool of the authorities – we have choice/freedom

• Actions/ideas are now judged on how useful they are..rather than how true they are.

Jean Baudrillard‘we are constantly surrounded by an ecstasy of communication and that communication is sickening’

We are now just customers whose desires are created by the media.

We pursue the images attached to the products

‘simulacra’ - make believe goods which bear no relationship to the real world

We live in hyper-realities in which appearances are everything.

IMAGE IS EVERYTHING !

Post-modernism illustrated – ‘reality TV’

Reality TV illustrates the interchange between the consumer and the media

They are ‘real people’ who people can be observed and scrutinised.

They do not entertain – rather than exist…they are a mish-mash of cctv surveillance and gameshow

In the real world they are talentless nobodys who are treated as stars

Post-modernism ilustrated –’Disneyland’

Disneyland is a simulacra. It is a simulated reality.

It is artificial – yet ‘real’.

It is a place that exists and is accepted because our imagination makes it so.

The fine line between reality and fantasy is ‘greyer’.

The power of the symbol over substance.

Post-modernism illustrated - diet

The high street is global. Look at the choices and combination that we now have.

What is the impact on traditional culture? Identity?

People are also driven by to change their body shape through diet..a control..choice.

People are constructing themselves and designing their individual identities

Religion in a post-modern age

• Faith could re-emerge as scientific thinking loses significance

• Religious symbols have new life in new contexts

• Faith is now ‘up for grabs’ in the absence of absolute truth

• People can blend elements of various faiths to suit their lifestyle

• Globalisation has divorced faiths from locations and cultures

• fundamentalism is a response to a moral vacuum

• People can make choices which are more personal and meaningful

• Collective worship no longer needs to be based on ‘face to face’ interaction

Religious symbols have new life in new contexts

How have traditional religious symbols been recycled.

Where can we find crucifixes, pentangles, kaballah bracelets, buddhas etc

Faith is now ‘up for grabs’ in the absence of absolute truth

We can now make spiritual choices that fit in with our identity and our own version of ultimate truth and meaning.

People can blend elements of various faiths to suit their lifestyle

Many people are finding greater freedom to ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ faiths to suit their lifestyles.

This is about individual interpretation and incorporating elements, ie, buddhist philosophy with Christian morality

(Yuppie Buddhist experience in early 1990s)

Globalisation has divorced faiths from locations and cultures

Religion is now more universal and there are less barriers to hold people back from joining faiths that differ to tradition

fundamentalism is a response to a moral vacuum

There has been a revival of ultra traditional ideas and ‘strict morality’ with some religions which many have found inviting and a source of ‘security’

People can make choices which are more personal and meaningful

Almost an extension of individuation and the search for individual meaning.

the control and oppressive elements of religion can be edited (see Rastafari)

Collective worship no longer needs to be based on ‘face to face’ interaction

Organised religion may be suffering – but faith is still alive.

Structures/institutions are melting away as they now existing within individual minds and action.