POSTMODERNISM: I need your help
Rowland Croucher
I've been asked to talk to some clergy conferences on the differences
between modernism and postmodernism, and want to make it simple. How
about helping me complete this imaginary overhead projector
transparency? (As a pre-postmodernist I like things to be
logical/understood :-)!
(P.S. I know a little of the debate about whether 'postmodernism'
ought to be regarded as a misnomer: Lyotard speaks of postmodernism as
the 'acceleration of modernism')
***MODERNISM*** ***POSTMODERNISM***
Truth is 'given'/there are absolutes All underlying premises are banished
somewhere (Relativism reigns)
Individualism The Group
Rationality/logic/scientism Search for transcendent / resacralizing
of nature
Media icons: The Brady Bunch (Mike is The Simpsons: no order, no one's in
the God-figure, sorting out good/evil charge. Main idea: what's right, now?
Best book/overview (secular): ??? ???
Best ditto (Christian) ??? ???
etc.
etc.
etc.
Thanks!
--
Shalom! Rowland Croucher
Director, John Mark Ministries - resources for pastors/leaders.
(Bookroom, library, and worldwide F.W.Boreham Trading Post)
Home Page: http://www.pastornet.net.au/jmm
CLERGY/LEADERS' LIST: clergy-...@pastornet.net.au
('SUBSCRIBE' on subject-line)
J.R. Grit
Rowland Croucher asked for a bit of help about postmodernism (Pomo).
Some remarks.
The first thing to say concerning your imaginary overhead: it is too
transparant to be true. Some oppositions in your Mo<>Pomo table do apply
to certain areas and are held by certain pomo's while they do not cover the
whole of Pomo. Pomo is perhaps too diverse (too recent, also) to get a full
picture. On the other hand, presicely this diversity seems to be a main
characteristic of Pomo. (The very attempt, therefore, to help clarify / come
to a certain understanding of Pomo by means of a table of opposites is
questionable [well, thoroughly Mo ;->])
> (P.S. I know a little of the debate about whether 'postmodernism'
> ought to be regarded as a misnomer: Lyotard speaks of postmodernism
> as the 'acceleration of modernism')
Correct, but this is not a debate "about" Pomo, but a debate that takes
place "within" Pomo. That also indicates its diversity. Toulmin's position is
not unlike Lyotard's.
Speaking of diversity: the opposition
> Individualism The Group
is not really a common characteristic of Pomo. E.g. Stephen Toulmin shows
a tendency in culture (in his "Cosmopolis") toward the particular. The grand
Modern idea's of universality (& political, economical ideals to build
Cosmopolis) are replaced by diversity and ideals of local, small
communities. This is not just 'an ideal', but something which simply
happens. See e.g. the falling apart of the Sovjet Union (n.b. Toulmin
prophesied the breakdown of Yugoslavia...)
The stress on diversity is also a recognition of "difference" / "diverance"
(Derrida) and "irreducable otherness of what/who is other than myself"
(Levinas). In that sense, many would say "real individualism" started with
Pomo (and not in Mo). It is recognized that the tendency of reason to
"grasp" everything it encounters imprisons others. (Levinas's reply is to say
that the face of the other imprisons me - thus countering the tendency of
reason to built Towers of Babel and urging a way to a new form of moral
behaviour. This implies that the particularity of reason is stressed (i.e.,
reason has a definite time and place: here, in my body, community, country
at the end of the 20th century...), and the hidden and personal motives
behind its so-called "universal logic" are examined.
> (As a pre-postmodernist I like things to be logical/understood :-)!
Another aspect related to diversity and difference: some pomo's try to think
"difference itself". Instead of incorporating / harmonizing all difference into
identity (e.g. Hegelian dialectics: thesis > antithesis > synthesis. Antithesis
is really only necessary to keep the movement going) they try to think the
'nature' of difference and point out the 'irregular jumps' in 'harmonizing
texts'. This is not easy or trivial at all (what is the strategy of thinking when
the object seems to contradict reasons main tendency: to pull everything
together?!). That it does not imply some illogical kind of reasoning is clearly
shown in one of the fundamental works that gave rise to Pomo in the first
place: Gilles Deleuze's "Difference & Repetition" (1968).
Regards,
James R. Grit
jrg...@worldaccess.nl