A nebulous concept simplified.
Stanley Burnski · Feb 27 · Medium.com
If you’ve spent even a middling amount of time in intellectual circles, you will have heard the term “postmodernism” thrown out at some point. The name of postmodernism is usually invoked in an ambiguous way where the speaker takes no time to elaborate on what specifically they are referring to.
Sometimes it can feel as if the term “postmodern” just serves as a way for academics to say “weird” in a highbrow setting. In more egregious cases, it seems postmodernism acts as a dog whistle for anything that is contrary to traditional norms.
People like Jordan Peterson come to mind. In the canon of Jordan Peterson, postmodernism acts as the abstract academic bogeyman that “completely rejects the structure of western civilization.”
I’d rather not say that Peterson has a flawed understanding of postmodernism, maybe he does, although I’m not saying that at the moment, but he is the first person who comes to mind when I think of the muddying of the term.
I’m sure I will be deservingly corrected by his fans about how he actually has a very in-depth understanding of postmodernism and always sufficiently qualifies what he means by that.
That’s beside the point though, now that you hopefully see what I’m referring to, let’s get into the nitty-gritty.
The Essence of Postmodernism
It’s important to note that postmodernism spans a variety of fields like philosophy, architecture, art, etc. The underlying axioms are similar, and I would hope the contents of this article could be applied generally to the concept as a whole. For our purposes, we will be focusing on philosophy, as I would like to believe that philosophy might supersede architecture.
To put it simply, the heart of postmodernism could be described as a distrust of traditional metanarratives as well as objective truth and values. A meta-narrative, meaning any kind of comprehensive and all-encompassing world view usually appearing in traditional thought.
Jean-François Lyotard, the man largely credited with adding postmodernism to the philosophical vocabulary, said it like this in his The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge:
“I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress in the sciences:”
I’m sure you can at least see where the accusations against postmodernism of rejecting the core tenets of “western civilization” are coming from. I would be irresponsible to not dismiss that idea, though, postmodernism is not a league of evil villains coming to destroy society and rebuild it in their own image. Any claim to the contrary is overly dramatic fearmongering at best.
If you aren’t familiar with postmodernism, it may sound like it’s a sort of recent, mysterious, new-age invention. Chances are, though, that for most of the people reading this, postmodernist thought has been the dominant school for their entire lives but it hasn’t always been that way.
The Opposition of Postmodernism
I think it best serves my purpose of attempting to give you a complete view of postmodernism if I also familiarize you with the problems people have with it.
It’s imperative to know the predecessor of postmodernism was, unsurprisingly, modern philosophy or modernism. Modern philosophy is widely regarded to be best exemplified by the ideas that originated in the Renaissance and came after it during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The emphasis on rationality, objectivity, progress, and the questioning of knowledge that was previously taken for granted.
It is a rare person who would criticize the Renaissance for being too progressive and radical. I’m sure almost everyone would agree that the Renaissance was an era of unprecedented achievements and a net gain for humanity.
In a way, you can see how postmodernism sprung up from modern and Renaissance philosophy. In the sense that we made some progress and things started to make sense, but a postmodernist might say, once we went a little further, it seemed less certain and objective.
That is the root of the critiques of postmodernism in a nutshell. That its emphasis on relativism, rejection of objectivity, and the doubt of comprehensive world views leave you without a sense of much meaning in the world.
This close association with nihilism and uncertainty is something that doesn’t sit right with a lot of people, especially at an emotional level. It may even feel insulting if something you had assumed your whole life to have universal value and worth is written off as socially constructed.
The Takeaway
Postmodernism is just another chronological intellectual tradition like any other. It seemed to me as if the word was developing a very negative connotation due to its use by certain thinkers as shorthand for “the enemy.” They can do what they want, I don’t really have a dog in this fight, or if I do, I haven’t realized it yet. The point is, just be skeptical about what people are selling you and always do your due diligence.
Ensure that you don’t end up as a useful idiot pushing somebody else’s agenda. There’s nothing more depressing than seeing an otherwise reasonable person get swept up in the rhetorical waves of some manipulative demagogue.
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WRITTEN BY
Stanley Burnski
Professional layman and mediocre sophist with an interest in many things.