To understand what post-modernism is, it's more useful to compare it to what it isn't. Post-modernism broadly refers to the cultural period that succeeded the "modern" era, as historians know it. Roughly describing the period of time between the end of the "Victorian" era to the middle of the 1960's (roughly 1900-1965), the "modern" epoch was characterized by a triumphant view of science and technology, and the rise of the market economy, democracy and global integration. Essentially the height of the Victorian English civilization upon which it was built, this period of history is most noted for its confidence. While post-modernism can be characterized by a continuation of the same developments in science and technology that were the hallmarks of the "modern" era, it doesn't share the confidence of the time period that it replaced.
Intellectually personified by the "continental" philosophy of Jacques Derrida, the writings of historian Michel Foucault, and the work of Jacques Lacan in psychology, the first "post-modern" thinkers are roughly associated with a school of thought which railed against the prevailing "rational/scientific" (i.e. "modern") approach to the social sciences and philosophy which dominated academic life during the post-war period. The most important commonality between these post-modern thinkers and what are actually distinct epistemological approaches is the radical skepticism that characterizes each of their thinking, as well as a concurrent willingness to experiment within the academic boundaries of their respective vocations. To take Foucault as an example (the thinker with whom I am most familiar), his work contains sincere doubts about the relevance of narrative in historical texts (in a narrative driven discipline), the pretension of "scientific" approaches to the subject, and is characterized by a willingness to explore topics not traditionally considered worthy of historical analysis (such as sexuality and mental illness). Foucault's skepticism, as well as his desire to experiment, characterizes some of the traits of our current age.
The "modern" epoch followed a coherent narrative: "The Triumph of Science." Scientific knowledge led to enormous advances in health, technological development, and economic progress throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Human beings lived longer, led healthier lives, and found themselves freer to pursue leisure activities as the result of scientific advances. Compared with the misery of dying of tuberculosis or cholera as late as the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries in the western world, scientific progress was ultimately humanistic and therefore welcomed by the academic and cultural voices of the period. However, historical developments including the growth of nuclear power and the arms race during and after the Second World War (not to mention the technological barbarity unleashed across Europe during the First World War), environmental damage, and economic uncertainty (the OPEC crisis and inflation), all contributed to a re-thinking of the epoch's intellectual foundations. Academic and cultural voices began to ask: Is science truly the answer? The skepticism then grew to encompass the question: Are there any answers at all?
This reaction to modernism has been labeled "post-modernism." This is the spirit of our age. Like Foucault, it rejects narratives. There is no overarching explanation for the way things are. Rather life is the cumulative result of human experience. Therefore the ordinary (sexuality, mental health) rather than the traditional areas of historical inquiry such as politics, war and economics (the large external events which shaped human existence in the "modern" epoch) became the focus of Foucault's inquiry. Humanity is the center of the post-modern period; indeed it is helpful to characterize this age as the self-centered era. Because there is no external reason for being, no explanation for human existence (such as the scientific march of evolution towards the perfection of the species), the focus of the post-modern age is internal and concerned with individual human existence.
Post-modernism then, looks inward, to find human meaning. Thus one looks to internal sources of morality (the self is the arbiter of moral behavior) in the post-modern age (there being no external God to provide moral direction). In political life one rejects military service (in the case of the Vietnam War) because of a basic distrust of external political leadership (who are willing to sacrifice human lives for the sake of abstract ideas such as "democracy" and the "state"). In economics capitalism exalts a new age of individual entrepreneurship whilst huge disparities between the rich and the poor emerge in the "new" economy (poverty being the individual failure of the poor rather than a broader systematic result of the structural economic system).
The other feature of post-modern thought is experimentation. The post-modern person is willing to look to non-western forms of religion (the remarkable rise of Buddhism in the west is an example) for spiritual guidance, and non-traditional forms of social habitation (such as the rise of sexuality including sexual experimentation) to engender self-actualization (I'm purposely using psychological terminology such as "self-actualization" to further my contention regarding the rise of self-centred human understanding. The language of psychology is the vocabulary that describes the nature of humanness in the post-modern age).
To summarize, post-modernism is a reaction to the overarching narratives which gave meaning to the modern era. In defining it, it is easiest to compare post-modernism to what it isn't rather than positively define it for what it is. Comparing its modern forms to the thought of the intellectuals whose ideas characterize the age, it is possible however, to find that post-modernism rests on a basic assumption: Truth, whatever truth is, is human centered and internal. This search for truth has resulted in a marked rise in experimentation in social arrangements such as sexuality, as people attempt to redefine truth based on the experience of the primary source of truth in the post-modern age: The self.
Copyright © 2000 Robert Delamar All Rights Reserved
Also See Wikipedia for an explanation of Post-modernism
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