Post Modernism values

PostModernism- Humour and Pastiche, "it's all surface/copying so let's have fun" - fit's well with capitalism?

Different views of what PM is

The term postmodernism is used in a confusing variety of ways. For some it means anti–modern, while for others it means the revision of modernist premises. (Get/Make chart/list of authors) The seemingly anti–modern stance involves a basic rejection of the tenets of modernism, such as belief in the supremacy of reason, the notion of truth, and the idea that it is possible through the application of reason and truth to create a better society

As an anti–modernist movement, therefore, postmodernism is seen as rejecting those elements that comprise the modernist worldview, including the ideas of truth, self, meaning, and purpose. In this respect, deconstructive postmodernism is seen by some as nihilistic.

Questions are then raised about who constructed these intellectual ideals and what were their motives. Who does modernism serve? When considered in a global context, it should be clear from the history outlined is this essay that modernism serves Western social and political aspirations.

In contrast to the anti–modern position, an alternative understanding seeks to revise Modernism’s premises and traditional concepts, which have become institutionalized, corrupt, and entrenched.

In support of the core values of modernism — liberty, equality, rights, the pursuit of happiness — the aim is to challenge the logic of the oppressive modernist state and undermine the legitimacy of prevailing conservative forces. Sometimes termed constructive postmodernism, it seeks to provide a new unity of scientific, ethical, aesthetic, and religious intuitions.

It rejects not science and religion as such, but only those scientific approaches and religious practices in which only prescribed data and beliefs are permitted to contribute to the construction of our worldview.

Constructive postmodernism seeks to recover truths and values from various forms of pre–modern thought and practice. This is necessary because the pursuit of modernism, especially in its unfettered capitalistic and consumerist manifestations, is not sustainable and threatens the very survival of human life on the planet.


The postmodern is deliberately elusive as a concept, due in part to its willingness to accept, in contrast to modernism, uncertainty and ambiguity. (**** Levels of type (cant you be clear at a meta linguistic level (if not can be exploited by the elite? (mystification of Modern Art) (and reification used as a door to it) (as here)???l!!!)  (explore metalanguage its place in postmodern) (knowledge-intuition) Whereas Modernism was concerned with reasoned progress and logical conclusions, postmodernism respects ‘process’ and ‘becoming,’ preferring openness, transparency, and the unbounded.

Whitcombe C

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/modernism/modpostmod.html

The ways that modern societies go about creating categories labeled as "order" or "disorder" have to do with the effort to achieve stability. Francois Lyotard (the theorist whose works Sarup describes in his article on postmodernism) equates that stability with the idea of "totality," or a totalized system (think here of Derrida's idea of "totality" as the wholeness or completeness of a system). Totality, and stability, and order, Lyotard argues, are maintained in modern societies through the means of "grand narratives" or "master narratives," which are stories a culture tells itself about its practices and beliefs. A "grand narrative" in American culture might be the story that democracy is the most enlightened (rational) form of government, and that democracy can and will lead to universal human happiness. Every belief system or ideology has its grand narratives, according to Lyotard; for Marxism, for instance, the "grand narrative" is the idea that capitalism will collapse in on itself and a utopian socialist world will evolve. You might think of grand narratives as a kind of meta-theory, or meta-ideology????, that is, an ideology that explains an ideology (as with Marxism); a story that is told to explain the belief systems that exist.


??? Grand Narrative = Meta Theory?? is this true? doesnt this create confusion? cant this be used by those divisive elements (duakistic constructs) that are exposed by meta theories,  what about their liberating value?
(Meta language is essential for wisdom -?) clarity about levels of  typing (dialectic) - eg (safety openness, union-freedom)
add too with references

Another way of saying this, according to Jean Baudrillard, is that in postmodern society there are no originals, only copies--or what he calls "simulacra." You might think, for example, about painting or sculpture, where there is an original work (by Van Gogh, for instance), and there might also be thousands of copies, but the original is the one with the highest value (particularly monetary value). Contrast that with cds or music recordings, where there is no "original," as in painting--no recording that is hung on a wall, or kept in a vault; rather, there are only copies, by the millions, that are all the same, and all sold for (approximately) the same amount of money. Another version of Baudrillard's "simulacrum" would be the concept of virtual reality, a reality created by simulation, for which there is no original. This is particularly evident in computer games/simulations--think of Sim City, Sim Ant, etc


Lyotard says (and this is what Sarup spends a lot of time explaining) that the important question for postmodern societies is who decides what knowledge is (and what "noise" is), and who knows what needs to be decided. Such decisions about knowledge don't involve the old modern/humanist qualifications: for example, to assess knowledge as truth (its technical quality), or as goodness or justice (its ethical quality) or as beauty (its aesthetic quality). Rather, Lyotard argues, knowledge follows the paradigm of a language game, as laid out by Wittgenstein. I won't go into the details of Wittgenstein's ideas of language games; Sarup gives a pretty good explanation of this concept in his article, for those who are interested.

There are lots of questions to be asked about postmodernism, and one of the most important is about the politics involved--or, more simply, is this movement toward fragmentation, provisionality, performance, and instability something good or something bad? There are various answers to that; in our contemporary society, however, the desire to return to the pre-postmodern era (modern/humanist/Enlightenment thinking) tends to get associated with conservative political, religious, and philosophical groups. In fact, one of the consequences of postmodernism seems to be the rise of religious fundamentalism, as a form of resistance to the questioning of the "grand narratives" of religious truth. 

This association between the rejection of postmodernism and conservatism or fundamentalism may explain in part why the postmodern avowal of fragmentation and multiplicity tends to attract liberals and radicals. This is why, in part, feminist theorists have found postmodernism so attractive, as Sarup, Flax, and Butler all point out.

On another level, however, postmodernism seems to offer some alternatives to joining the global culture of consumption, where commodities and forms of knowledge are offered by forces far beyond any individual's control. These alternatives focus on thinking of any and all action (or social struggle) as necessarily local, limited, and partial--but nonetheless effective. By discarding "grand narratives" (like the liberation of the entire working class) and focusing on specific local goals (such as improved day care centers for working mothers in your own community), postmodernist politics offers a way to theorize local situations as fluid and unpredictable, though influenced by global trends. Hence the motto for postmodern politics might well be "think globally, act locally"--and don't worry about any grand scheme or master plan.

 Dr. Mary Klages, Associate Professor, English Department, University of Colorado, Boulder.


http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html