4. Debates about postmodernism and whether it is really a useful theory or not.
Lyotard and Baudrillard share a belief that the idea of truth needs to be ‘deconstructed’ so that we can challenge dominant ideas that people claim as truth. There are always competing versions of the truth. A postmodernist cannot wish to remove one version of the truth and replace it with the ‘correct’ one. All notions of truth must be viewed with suspicion. Postmodernism challenges the very notion of truth….and certainly disputes the idea that we should live our lives by adhering to widely perceived ideas of the truth (through religion etc)
Many critics see this position as offensive. They believe that it is a luxury of people who live in advanced, rich nations and democratic states to take this ‘playful’ stance on matters of truth… For example, many people in sub-Saharan have to face very fundamental truths every day…truths about the need to eat to survive etc
The denial of ‘grand narratives’ and moral principles in postmodernism is also objected to by people who have religious convictions and attach importance to moral principles.
If truth is absent, many would argue that we sink into a moral relativism where ‘anything goes’.
Even if you accept the idea that there is such a thing as postmodernism, many would suggest that its time has now passed. It has been argued that the events and aftermath of 9/11 have undermined postmodernism’s belief that we have reached the end of ‘grand narratives’. Religious fundamentalism is perhaps the ultimate grand narrative. Did postmodernism get it wrong? Possibly, but there is an argument put forward by some that 9/11 reminds us of why we need postmodernism to try to challenge the authority of ‘grand narratives’.
Postmodernism has emerged from so many different disciplines that it is notoriously difficult to define. How much value can we ascribe to theory which remains so elusive? If it is difficult to define what postmodernism is all about, might we conclude that there is nothing really there: there is nothing at its heart.
Postmodern challenges the ideas of core truths/principles. By disputing the very notion of core truths, it would be contradictory for postmodernism to establish a coherent and clear set of central ‘postmodern ideas’. It has therefore become impossible for postmodernism to coalesce around a shared ideology (it challenges the idea that you should/could have one) and as a result has postmodernism denied the possibility that it can make a difference.
Some would argue that postmodernism is really a descriptive rather than prescriptive movement. It tries to describe current phenomena but does not really move towards any idea of how we should progress from this point. In many ways, it even disputes the idea that we can make progress.
Can you really separate postmodernism from modernism? One criticism of postmodernism is that it is not as new as many would claim it to be. In particular, intertextuality/pastiche/parody are often seen as key characteristics of postmodernism but, it is argued, they can also be seen as characteristics of many modernist texts: ‘Joe Dante’s films may be marked by a plundering of all kinds of popular cultural sources, but then so is James Joyce’s Ulysees, a high modernist novel’.
It is important to remember that not everyone agrees with the ideas of postmodernism….Many would dispute the ideas commonly associated with postmodernism.
Amongst those who criticize postmodernism as relativistic, they usually base it on the idea that postmodernists reject belief in any sort of absolutive objectivity. Someone defending post- modernism would probably say that they reject the idea of Truth with a capital T or the idea that we can have access to any sort of objective reality or truth outside of our own fallible human experience, but they would deny that this simply means that anything goes and that we can't make judgements about the relative merits of ideas.
Postmodernism tends to argue for situated knowledge (knowledge embedded in a particular discipline with a history etc.). It tends to reject any idea of truth that claims we can have access to some ahistorical knowledge of objective reality (what is sometimes mocked by post-modernists as the God's eye view).
If you're going to argue against postmodernism then you should probably go at it from a defense of objective truth (in the old fashioned sense of the word objective). Basically, a view of objectivity that goes back to the Englightenment view of rationality as an attempt to free ourselves from the limits of our historical and cultural background and get to "the truth".
Some more to think about:
Some might state that as all forms of communication rely upon the suspension of disbelief or, to put it another way, having faith in meanings that are arbitrary (e.g. written words, speech, smoke signals) then the term 'Postmodernism' might be a little misleading. In this respect, the parodic and inter-textual qualities might best be described by the pre-enlightenment term 'carnivalesque'. carnival = 'an exciting or riotous mixture of something'
To say that digital texts are 'postmodern' could also be misleading. The music of the Rolling Stones can be bought digitally but on a textual level it conforms rigidly to the Modernist / Romantic projection of emotion as aesthetic experience. Mick and Keith are deemed as true artists, pouring out their souls for us understand. Their is no parody, humour or Irony. Listening it is deemed to be a deep, rewarding experience. Ah, but! (i hear you say) what abou the fact that the recordings are often simulacra. Pieced together in the study from separate recordings that were never played at he same time.
Social media re-enforces community rather than fragments it.
In Modernist texts we can still find references to high and low culture. James Joyce's 'Ulysses' (1922) mixes up a self-conscious literary style with steamy romantic fiction and journalistic prose.
Watch Disney's 'Fantasia'. This example might illustrate how the much loved 'cultural flattening' of Postmodernism can be read as the victory of mass culture over taste discrimination.
Critics of Postmodernism state that as it relies on Relativism it is weak, ineffective and offers no guidance for action or decision making.
If truth is absent, many would argue that we sink into a moral relativism where ‘anything goes’.
Even if you accept the idea that there is such a thing as postmodernism, many would suggest that its time has now passed. It has been argued that the events and aftermath of 9/11 have undermined postmodernism’s belief that we have reached the end of ‘grand narratives’. Religious fundamentalism is perhaps the ultimate grand narrative. Did postmodernism get it wrong? Possibly, but there is an argument put forward by some that 9/11 reminds us of why we need postmodernism to try to challenge the authority of ‘grand narratives’.
Postmodernism has emerged from so many different disciplines that it is notoriously difficult to define. How much value can we ascribe to theory which remains so elusive? If it is difficult to define what postmodernism is all about, might we conclude that there is nothing really there: there is nothing at its heart.
Postmodern challenges the ideas of core truths/principles. By disputing the very notion of core truths, it would be contradictory for postmodernism to establish a coherent and clear set of central ‘postmodern ideas’. It has therefore become impossible for postmodernism to coalesce around a shared ideology (it challenges the idea that you should/could have one) and as a result has postmodernism denied the possibility that it can make a difference.
Some would argue that postmodernism is really a descriptive rather than prescriptive movement. It tries to describe current phenomena but does not really move towards any idea of how we should progress from this point. In many ways, it even disputes the idea that we can make progress.
Can you really separate postmodernism from modernism? One criticism of postmodernism is that it is not as new as many would claim it to be. In particular, intertextuality/pastiche/parody are often seen as key characteristics of postmodernism but, it is argued, they can also be seen as characteristics of many modernist texts: ‘Joe Dante’s films may be marked by a plundering of all kinds of popular cultural sources, but then so is James Joyce’s Ulysees, a high modernist novel’.
It is important to remember that not everyone agrees with the ideas of postmodernism….Many would dispute the ideas commonly associated with postmodernism.
Amongst those who criticize postmodernism as relativistic, they usually base it on the idea that postmodernists reject belief in any sort of absolutive objectivity. Someone defending post- modernism would probably say that they reject the idea of Truth with a capital T or the idea that we can have access to any sort of objective reality or truth outside of our own fallible human experience, but they would deny that this simply means that anything goes and that we can't make judgements about the relative merits of ideas.
Postmodernism tends to argue for situated knowledge (knowledge embedded in a particular discipline with a history etc.). It tends to reject any idea of truth that claims we can have access to some ahistorical knowledge of objective reality (what is sometimes mocked by post-modernists as the God's eye view).
If you're going to argue against postmodernism then you should probably go at it from a defense of objective truth (in the old fashioned sense of the word objective). Basically, a view of objectivity that goes back to the Englightenment view of rationality as an attempt to free ourselves from the limits of our historical and cultural background and get to "the truth".
Some more to think about:
Some might state that as all forms of communication rely upon the suspension of disbelief or, to put it another way, having faith in meanings that are arbitrary (e.g. written words, speech, smoke signals) then the term 'Postmodernism' might be a little misleading. In this respect, the parodic and inter-textual qualities might best be described by the pre-enlightenment term 'carnivalesque'. carnival = 'an exciting or riotous mixture of something'
To say that digital texts are 'postmodern' could also be misleading. The music of the Rolling Stones can be bought digitally but on a textual level it conforms rigidly to the Modernist / Romantic projection of emotion as aesthetic experience. Mick and Keith are deemed as true artists, pouring out their souls for us understand. Their is no parody, humour or Irony. Listening it is deemed to be a deep, rewarding experience. Ah, but! (i hear you say) what abou the fact that the recordings are often simulacra. Pieced together in the study from separate recordings that were never played at he same time.
Social media re-enforces community rather than fragments it.
In Modernist texts we can still find references to high and low culture. James Joyce's 'Ulysses' (1922) mixes up a self-conscious literary style with steamy romantic fiction and journalistic prose.
Watch Disney's 'Fantasia'. This example might illustrate how the much loved 'cultural flattening' of Postmodernism can be read as the victory of mass culture over taste discrimination.
Critics of Postmodernism state that as it relies on Relativism it is weak, ineffective and offers no guidance for action or decision making.
No comments:
Post a Comment