postmodernism

Truth, knowledge, reason, progress—these pillars form the foundation of modernism, a philosophical stance that emerged from the Enlightenment era. While modernism also manifests as an art movement, our focus here is on the broader intellectual framework that postmodernism challenges. At its essence, modernism embodies the conviction that human progress is achievable through the systematic development and application of knowledge.

Consider the encyclopedia—a quintessential modernist creation. It represents an ambitious attempt to catalog and systematize human understanding, reflecting the modernist drive to refine collective thinking and dispel imprecise ideas. This quest for clarity and structure, however, was not without its controversies and limitations.

But today, I will be giving a nuanced introduction into the vast world of postmodernism that has shaped our very knowledge about art, architecture and human philosophy.

French Postmodernism

The 1960s witnessed the emergence of French postmodernism, a intellectual movement born from the disillusionment of post-World War II Europe. These thinkers, predominantly from the political left, mounted a vigorous challenge to modernist ideals. Their central thesis: modernist thinking had become overly constraining, blinding us to crucial aspects of reality. To truly liberate our minds and perceive the world more holistically, they argued, we needed to loosen the rigid structures of modernist thought and go ahead with their own agenda.

Postmodernism, in essence, complicates the simplifications present in modernism. Where modernism seeks to distill and categorize, postmodernism revels in complexity and ambiguity. This stance was deliberately provocative, designed to unsettle those who held modernist values in very high regard. I stumbled across the core concepts of Post-modernism which included the following principles:

Subjective Knowledge: Postmodernists reject the notion of knowledge as an external, discoverable truth. Instead, they view it as a subjective social construction, shaped by fallible human minds and further distorted by the inherent limitations of language.
Critique of Privilege and Marginalization: They argue that by intensely focusing on certain ideas or methods, we inadvertently sideline others. For instance, the rise of digital media might overshadow traditional forms of knowledge transmission, each with its own merits and blind spots.
Relativism: Given the subjective nature of our understanding, postmodernists contend that we can never be entirely certain our ideas or values are objectively superior to those of other cultures or perspectives.

Jean Baudrillard, a prominent postmodernist, exemplified this relativistic thinking in his provocatively titled work, "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place". He posited that "consensual traditionalism is every bit as fierce as that of any tribal religion or primitive society," challenging the assumed superiority of Western scientific consensus.

While postmodernists critique scientific thinking, they rarely advocate for its complete abandonment. Rather, they encourage a more nuanced skepticism, arguing that we've perhaps overvalued scientific approaches and should be more critical of their inherent flaws and biases.

Michel Foucault, another influential postmodernist, explored how societal structures and language shape our perceptions of normalcy and deviance. His work on the history of madness and the penal system revealed how our concepts of mental illness and criminality are deeply influenced by power structures and historical context, rather than being objective, timeless truths.

Michael Foucault thought about these things in his books Madness & Civilization and Discipline & Punish

Jean-François Lyotard provided a rare, concise definition of postmodernism as "incredulity towards metanarratives"—essentially, skepticism towards overarching explanatory frameworks. This definition highlights a key limitation: postmodernism excels at deconstructing existing systems of thought but struggles to offer constructive alternatives without falling into the trap of creating new metanarratives.

Radicalist Postmodernism and its approach

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw a significant evolution in postmodern thought, as a new wave of writers and activists began adapting these ideas to address issues of identity and social justice. This gave birth to what we might term "radical postmodernism."

Around the same time, in the book that argued for gender being a social construction, Judith Butler explicitly named Foucault as her basis for doing so.

To expose the foundational categories of sex, gender, and desire as effects of a specific formation of power requires a form of critical inquiry that Foucault, reformulating Nietzsche, designates as "geneal-ogy." ~ Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble

Again, around the same time, bell hooks used postmodernism to call on people to form coalitions along the lines of identity and embrace their own meta-narrative that the world is roughly broken into two groups—the oppressed and the oppressors—and the oppressed need to band together.

The overall impact of the postmodern condition is that many other groups now share with black folks a sense of deep alienation, despair, uncertainty, loss of a sense of grounding, even if it is not informed by shared circumstance. Radical postmodernism calls attention to those sensibilities which are shared across the boundaries of class, gender, and race, and which could be fertile ground for the construction of empathy--ties that would promote recognition of common commitments and serve as a base for solidarity and coalition.

In her adaptation, Hooks uses the term radical postmodernism, and I think that works pretty well, so I'm going to keep on using that term going forward for the rest of this video to keep their version separate from the original French postmodernism.

Unlike the original French postmodernists, radical postmodernists are less hesitant to make strong, overarching claims and create their own metanarratives. However, these narratives often rely more on personal experiences, selective data points, and collectively accepted truths within certain communities, rather than on traditional empirical evidence or logical argumentation.

This approach has led to significant achievements, such as bringing previously ignored issues like systemic violence against women into the national spotlight. However, it has also sparked intense debates about the nature of truth, the role of objectivity in academia and public discourse, and the potential dangers of relativism taken to extremes.

As we grapple with these complex ideas, Hannah Arendt's warning about totalitarianism remains pertinent:

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

This sobering reflection underscores the potential risks of completely abandoning the pursuit of objective truth and the ability to distinguish fact from fiction, even as we acknowledge the valuable insights postmodern thought has brought to our understanding of knowledge, power, and society.

thanks for reading and godspeed

Addendum: Further Reading on Postmodernism

If you too would like to read more into Postmodernism, consider exploring these influential works:

These texts offer rich perspectives on postmodernism, from its philosophical foundations to its practical implications across various fields in our lives. They provide readers with the tools to develop a nuanced understanding of this complex and influential movement, its critiques of modern society, and its ongoing relevance in contemporary debates about truth, knowledge, and power.