A basic introduction to Pomo
Eske
introduction to Pomo and publish it on the web. It is primarily aimed at
university students.
If anyone has the time to read it, I would be grateful for input, both
constructive and otherwise.
POSTMODERNISM
- For Dummies!
A basic introduction to the term and its consequences for life, art and
culture
Introduction - What is postmodernism? - What does postmodernism mean to
you? - Work Report
Introduction
Have you ever read a text that relied on your
immediate understanding of the term postmodernism? If so, you have probably
been mind boggled by this strange word and its elusive meaning, but don't
despair: This web page has been made for you!
This weird word may have sneaked into high school and
general purpose-texts as well, but postmodernism is usually only relevant in
areas of study at university level. You may find it a little challenging to
understand every aspect of this page if you are unfamiliar with basic
academic expressions, but have no fear: you will understand enough to grasp
the term with a little more certainty.
This web page was designed with the following purposes:
1. Giving a broad definition of the term postmodernism
2. Describing how human life is affected by the postmodern world
3. Passing the final Formidlingsopgave-eksamen in English Philology at
Århus University
What is postmodernism?
Postmodernism is a word with multiple connotations, so before plunging into
discussing the term, it is necessary to understand the several different
conceptions of the word. When a group of people hear the word
post-modernism, they often think of completely different concepts and ideas,
most often connected to architecture and literature. No one definition is
more correct than the other, so it is necessary to keep in mind that people
can mean a plethora of things when using the word.
Postmodernism is multi-facetted and therefore hard to
pin down to one basic point. However, this page will make an attempt at
making a basic layout for the range of ideas covered by the term. This basic
layout will be applicable to most, if not all the different versions of
post-modernism.
Let us first look at the existing ways of talking about postmodernism. The
most famous and perhaps most groundbreaking attempt at defining
postmodernism was made by Francois Lyotard in his "The Post-modern
Condition". Here, he defined it as "incredulity towards meta-narratives".
Meta-narratives are grand theories that attempt to define the world using a
certain range of values and ideas. Examples of meta-narratives are Religion,
Marxism, Nationalism and even Science. These are all authoritative and
totalising accounts of how the world works, and they offer a predetermined
worldview and an absolute set of values.
So what Lyotard is offering is a statement that undermines these
meta-narratives. His idea is that in the latter half of the 20th century,
these powerhouses of human knowledge started losing their power to convince
people of their truth-value. People started to lose faith in them. Why was
this? A long range of reasons can be enumerated, including the emergence of
mass media and a qualitative rise in education. The most important point is
that people lost something to cling on to. There emerged what could be
called the postmodern void - a place where the individual is trapped in
relativism, and because no authoritative opinion on values is present (in
the form of God, king or soul), the modern individual is continuously
tempted by nihilism.
The main idea in postmodernism is that there exist multiplicities of truths
instead of one all-encompassing truth. This makes it hard to choose which
truth to rely on: Can you believe in God if you are aware that people
believe in an endless amount of other gods? What makes your God better than
the others? Can you be a Marxist if you know that this ideology builds on
flawed paradigms, and that they hardly apply to human life in the 21st
century? Can you believe in science if you know how much is uncertain in
certainty?
Postmodernism is deeply intertwined with the concept
of deconstruction. Deconstruction is the process of picking constructs
apart, usually without putting them back together. For example, the
deconstruction of Christianity was what Nietzsche did when he claimed that
God was dead. One could say that deconstruction is the tool of the
postmodern observer.
Postmodernism can also be described as
anti-essentialism. This is the notion that representation is basically
flawed, and that the essence of things can never be transferred perfectly
from one mind to another. There will always be spills, crossovers,
misinterpretation and misunderstanding. This makes the act of representation
(meaning all communication based on signs; texts, speech, images etc)
problematic and relative. This is extremely compromising for human knowledge
since everything we know is represented in one way or the other.
What does postmodernism mean to you?
A lot. It is all around you. Just take a look at the web page you are
currently scrutinizing: It is postmodern in its very nature; fragmented,
independent and hard-to-grasp. And where did you find it? In the postmodern
electronic jungle that is the Internet. The Internet is huge and sprawling,
with millions of individuals giving their tiny bit of information to make up
a flowing and ever-changing truth. There is no right or wrong on the
Internet - censorship is almost impossible - and every voice has its own
distinguishable timbre.
The postmodernism condition is visible in all aspects
of our society. Political disparity, sexual liberation and even the concept
of drug use are all the result of a lacking common core of absolute values.
So where does postmodernism leave you? Some might not
like the far-reaching consequences this set of ideas has. But postmodernism
basically leaves you free to make up your own mind instead of blindly
accepting the values and concepts of other people. It enables you to shed
off the layers of dead skin and examine the core of your Self. More
importantly, it is not something that you can choose to believe in or not;
it is part of you no matter if you want to accept it or not.
Work Report
A great thing about a web page is its ability to be direct: The information
displayed is easily dismissed or absorbed, according to the immediate need
of the user. This opens the possibility of addressing the user directly, and
I have tried to make the wording as personally appealing as possible.
Target audience
Potentially every user of the Internet can be exposed
to this page. All it takes is doing a search in a major search engine, or
another one of the millions of possible ways of connection.
However, the main target audience are university
students. This has several reasons: The term is usually only used in
academic circles, and there is a need for an easily digested tutorial for
university students who may not have the time to delve into the bigger
works. This enables them to get unstuck if they happen to stumble upon the
term in an assigned text.