Postmodernism

Postmodernism
This article is about the movement. For the
condition or state of being, see Postmodernity .
For other uses, see Postmodernism
(disambiguation) .
Postmodernism is a late-20th-century
movement in the arts, architecture, and
criticism that was a departure from
modernism. [1][2] Postmodernism includes
skeptical interpretations of culture , literature,
art , philosophy, history , economics ,
architecture , fiction , and literary criticism. It is
often associated with deconstruction and post-
structuralism because its usage as a term
gained significant popularity at the same time
as twentieth-century post-structural thought.
The term postmodernism has been applied to a
host of movements, many in art, music, and
literature, that reacted against tendencies in
modernism, and are typically marked by revival
of historical elements and techniques. [3]
History
The term postmodern was first used around
the 1870s. John Watkins Chapman suggested
"a Postmodern style of painting" as a way to
move beyond French Impressionism . [4] J. M.
Thompson, in his 1914 article in The Hibbert
Journal (a quarterly philosophical review),
used it to describe changes in attitudes and
beliefs in the critique of religion : "The raison
d'etre of Post-Modernism is to escape from
the double-mindedness of Modernism by being
thorough in its criticism by extending it to
religion as well as theology , to Catholic feeling
as well as to Catholic tradition." [5]
In 1921 and 1925, postmodernism had been
used to describe new forms of art and music .
In 1942 H. R. Hays described it as a new
literary form. However, as a general theory for
a historical movement it was first used in 1939
by Arnold J. Toynbee: "Our own Post-Modern
Age has been inaugurated by the general war
of 1914-1918." [6]
Portland
Building , an
example of
Postmodern
architecture
In 1949 the term was used to describe a
dissatisfaction with modern architecture , and
led to the postmodern architecture movement,
[7] perhaps also a response to the modernist
architectural movement known as the
International Style . Postmodernism in
architecture is marked by the re-emergence of
surface ornament, reference to surrounding
buildings in urban architecture, historical
reference in decorative forms, and non-
orthogonal angles.
In 1971, in a lecture delivered at the Institute
of Contemporary Art, London, Mel Bochner
described "post-modernism" in art as having
started with Jasper Johns, "who first rejected
sense-data and the singular point-of-view as
the basis for his art, and treated art as a
critical investigation." [8]
More recently, Walter Truett Anderson
described postmodernism as belonging to one
of four typological world views, which he
identifies as either (a) Postmodern-ironist,
which sees truth as socially constructed, (b)
Scientific-rational, in which truth is found
through methodical, disciplined inquiry, (c)
Social-traditional, in which truth is found in the
heritage of American and Western civilization,
or (d) Neo-romantic, in which truth is found
through attaining harmony with nature and/or
spiritual exploration of the inner self. [9]
Postmodernist ideas in philosophy and the
analysis of culture and society expanded the
importance of critical theory and has been the
point of departure for works of literature,
architecture , and design , as well as being
visible in marketing/business and the
interpretation of history , law and culture ,
starting in the late 20th century. These
developments—re-evaluation of the entire
Western value system ( love , marriage , popular
culture , shift from industrial to service
economy) that took place since the 1950s and
1960s, with a peak in the Social Revolution of
1968 —are described with the term
Postmodernity , Influences on postmodern
thought, Paul Lützeler (St. Louis) as opposed
to Postmodernism, a term referring to an
opinion or movement. Postmodernism has also
been used interchangeably with the term post-
structuralism out of which postmodernism
grew, a proper understanding of
postmodernism or doing justice to the
postmodernist thought demands an
understanding of the poststructuralist
movement and the ideas of its advocates.
Post-structuralism resulted similarly to
postmodernism by following a time of
structuralism. It is characterized by new ways
of thinking through structuralism, contrary to
the original form. [10] "Postmodernist"
describes part of a movement; "Postmodern"
places it in the period of time since the 1950s,
making it a part of contemporary history .
Influence on art
Architecture
Main article: Postmodern architecture
Detail of the
postmodern Abteiberg
Museum in Germany .
The idea of Postmodernism in architecture
began as a response to the perceived
blandness and failed Utopianism of the Modern
movement. Modern Architecture, as
established and developed by Walter Gropius
and Le Corbusier , was focused on the pursuit
of a perceived ideal perfection, and attempted
harmony of form and function, [11] and
dismissal of "frivolous ornament." [12][13]
Critics of modernism argued that the attributes
of perfection and minimalism themselves were
subjective, and pointed out anachronisms in
modern thought and questioned the benefits of
its philosophy.[14] Definitive postmodern
architecture such as the work of Michael
Graves and Robert Venturi rejects the notion of
a 'pure' form or 'perfect' architectonic detail,
instead conspicuously drawing from all
methods, materials, forms and colors available
to architects.
Modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is
associated with the phrase " less is more "; in
contrast Venturi famously said, "Less is a
bore." Postmodernist architecture was one of
the first aesthetic movements to openly
challenge Modernism as antiquated and
"totalitarian", favoring personal preferences
and variety over objective, ultimate truths or
principles.
It is this atmosphere of criticism, skepticism,
and emphasis on difference over and against
unity that distinguishes the postmodernism
aesthetic. Among writers defining the terms of
this discourse is Charles Jencks, described by
Architectural Design Magazine as "the definer
of Post-Modernism for thirty years" and the
"internationally acclaimed critic..., whose name
became synonymous with Post-modernism in
the 80s". [15]
Urban planning
Postmodernism is a rejection of 'totality', of
the notion that planning could be
'comprehensive', widely applied regardless of
context, and rational. In this sense,
Postmodernism is a rejection of its
predecessor: Modernism. From the 1920s
onwards, the Modern movement sought to
design and plan cities which followed the logic
of the new model of industrial mass
production ; reverting to large-scale solutions,
aesthetic standardisation and prefabricated
design solutions (Goodchild 1990). Postmodern
also brought a break from the notion that
planning and architecture could result in social
reform , which was an integral dimension of the
plans of Modernism (Simonsen 1990).
Furthermore, Modernism eroded urban living by
its failure to recognise differences and aim
towards homogenous landscapes (Simonsen
1990, 57). Within Modernism, urban planning
represented a 20th-century move towards
establishing something stable, structured, and
rationalised within what had become a world
of chaos, flux and change (Irving 1993, 475).
The role of planners predating Postmodernism
was one of the 'qualified professional' who
believed they could find and implement one
single 'right way' of planning new urban
establishments (Irving 1993). In fact, after
1945, urban planning became one of the
methods through which capitalism could be
managed and the interests of developers and
corporations could be administered (Irving
1993, 479).
Considering Modernism inclined urban planning
to treat buildings and developments as
isolated, unrelated parts of the overall urban
ecosystems created fragmented, isolated, and
homogeneous urban landscapes (Goodchild,
1990). One of the greater problems with
Modernist-style of planning was the disregard
of resident or public opinion , which resulted in
planning being forced upon the majority by a
minority consisting of affluent professionals
with little to no knowledge of real 'urban'
problems characteristic of post- Second World
War urban environments; slums , overcrowding,
deteriorated infrastructure, pollution and
disease, among others (Irving 1993). These
were precisely the 'urban ills' Modernism was
meant to 'solve', but more often than not, the
types of 'comprehensive', 'one size fits all'
approaches to planning made things worse.,
and residents began to show interest in
becoming involved in decisions which had once
been solely entrusted to professionals of the
built environment. Advocacy planning and
participatory models of planning emerged in
the 1960s to counter these traditional elitist
and technocratic approaches to urban planning
(Irving 1993; Hatuka & D'Hooghe 2007).
Furthermore, an assessment of the 'ills' of
Modernism among planners during the 1960s,
fuelled development of a participatory model
that aimed to expand the range of participants
in urban interventions (Hatuka & D'Hooghe
2007, 21).
Jane Jacobs's 1961 book The Death and Life
of Great American Cities was a sustained
critique of urban planning as it had developed
within Modernism and marked a transition
from modernity to postmodernity in thinking
about urban planning (Irving 1993, 479).
However, the transition from Modernism to
Postmodernism is often said to have happened
at 3:32pm on the 15th of July in 1972, when
Pruitt Igoe ; a housing development for low-
income people in St. Louis designed by
architect Minoru Yamasaki , which had been a
prize winning version of Le Corbusier 's
'machine for modern living' was deemed
uninhabitable and was torn down (Irving 1993,
480). Since then, Postmodernism has involved
theories that embrace and aim to create
diversity, and it exhaults uncertainty, flexibility
and change (Hatuka & D'Hooghe 2007).
Postmodern planning aims to accept pluralism
and heighten awareness of social differences in
order to accept and bring to light the claims of
minority and disadvantaged groups (Goodchild
1990). It is important to note that urban
planning discourse within Modernity and
Postmodernity has developed in different
contexts, even though they both grew within a
capitalist culture. Modernity was shaped by a
capitalist ethic of Fordist -Keynesian paradigm
of mass, standardized production and
consumption, while postmodernity was created
out of a more flexible form of capital
accumulation, labor markets and organisations
(Irving 1993, 60). Also, there is a distinction
between a postmodernism of 'reaction' and
one of 'resistance'. A postmodernism of
'reaction' rejects Modernism and seeks to
return to the lost traditions and history in
order to create a new cultural synthesis, while
Postmodernity of 'resistance' seeks to
deconstruct Modernism and is a critique of the
origins without necessarily returning to them
(Irving 1993, 60). As a result of
Postmodernism, planners are much less
inclined to lay a firm or steady claim to there
being one single 'right way' of engaging in
urban planning and are more open to different
styles and ideas of 'how to plan' (Irving 474).
[16][17][18][19]
Literature
Orhan Pamuk , winner
of the 2006 Nobel
Prize in Literature.
Main article: Postmodern literature
Literary postmodernism was officially
inaugurated in the United States with the first
issue of boundary 2, subtitled "Journal of
Postmodern Literature and Culture", which
appeared in 1972. David Antin , Charles Olson ,
John Cage , and the Black Mountain College
school of poetry and the arts were integral
figures in the intellectual and artistic exposition
of postmodernism at the time. [20] boundary 2
remains an influential journal in postmodernist
circles today. [21]
Jorge Luis Borges 's (1939) short story Pierre
Menard, Author of the Quixote , is often
considered as predicting postmodernism [22]
and conceiving the ideal of the ultimate
parody .[23] Samuel Beckett is sometimes seen
as an important precursor and influence.
Novelists who are commonly connected with
postmodern literature include Vladimir
Nabokov , William Gaddis , John Hawkes,
William Burroughs, Giannina Braschi , Kurt
Vonnegut , John Barth, Donald Barthelme , E.L.
Doctorow , Jerzy Kosinski , Don DeLillo , Thomas
Pynchon [24] (Pynchon's work has also been
described as " high modern" [25] ), Ishmael
Reed , Kathy Acker, Ana Lydia Vega, and Paul
Auster .
In 1971, the Arab-American scholar Ihab
Hassan published The Dismemberment of
Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature, an
early work of literary criticism from a
postmodern perspective, in which the author
traces the development of what he calls
"literature of silence" through Marquis de Sade ,
Franz Kafka , Ernest Hemingway, Beckett, and
many others, including developments such as
the Theatre of the Absurd and the nouveau
roman . In 'Postmodernist Fiction' (1987), Brian
McHale details the shift from modernism to
postmodernism, arguing that the former is
characterized by an epistemological
dominant [clarification needed ], and that
postmodern works have developed out of
modernism and are primarily concerned with
questions of ontology. In Constructing
Postmodernism (1992), McHale's second book,
he provides readings of postmodern fiction and
of some of the contemporary writers who go
under the label of cyberpunk. McHale's "What
Was Postmodernism?" (2007), [26] follows
Raymond Federman's lead in now using the
past tense when discussing postmodernism.
Music
Composer Henryk
Górecki .
Main articles: Postmodern music and
Postmodern classical music
Postmodern music is either music of the
postmodern era, or music that follows
aesthetic and philosophical trends of
postmodernism. As the name suggests, the
postmodernist movement formed partly in
reaction to the ideals of the modernist.
Because of this, Postmodern music is mostly
defined in opposition to modernist music , and
a work can either be modernist , or
postmodern, but not both. Jonathan Kramer
posits the idea (following Umberto Eco and
Jean-François Lyotard ) that postmodernism
(including musical postmodernism) is less a
surface style or historical period (i.e.,
condition) than an attitude .
The postmodern impulse in classical music
arose in the 1960s with the advent of musical
minimalism . Composers such as Terry Riley ,
Henryk Górecki , Bradley Joseph, John Adams ,
George Crumb, Steve Reich , Philip Glass ,
Michael Nyman , and Lou Harrison reacted to
the perceived elitism and dissonant sound of
atonal academic modernism by producing
music with simple textures and relatively
consonant harmonies, whilst others, most
notably John Cage challenged the prevailing
Narratives of beauty and objectivity common
to Modernism. Some composers have been
openly influenced by popular music and world
ethnic musical traditions.
Postmodern Classical music as well is not a
musical style , but rather refers to music of the
postmodern era. It bears the same relationship
to postmodernist music that postmodernity
bears to postmodernism. Postmodern music,
on the other hand, shares characteristics with
postmodernist art—that is, art that comes after
and reacts against modernism (see Modernism
in Music ).
Though representing a general return to certain
notions of music-making that are often
considered to be classical or
romantic [ citation needed ] , not all postmodern
composers have eschewed the experimentalist
or academic tenets of modernism. The works
of Dutch composer Louis Andriessen , for
example, exhibit experimentalist preoccupation
that is decidedly anti-romantic. Eclecticism
and freedom of expression, in reaction to the
rigidity and aesthetic limitations of modernism,
are the hallmarks of the postmodern influence
in musical composition.
Influential postmodernist
philosophers
See also: Postmodern philosophy
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)
Rejected the philosophical basis of the
concepts of "subjectivity" and "objectivity"
and asserted that similar grounding
oppositions in logic ultimately refer to one
another. Instead of resisting the admission
of this paradox in the search for
understanding, Heidegger requires that we
embrace it through an active process of
elucidation he called the " Hermeneutic
Circle ". He stressed the historicity and
cultural construction of concepts while
simultaneously advocating the necessity of
an atemporal and immanent apprehension
of them. In this vein, he asserted that it
was the task of contemporary philosophy to
recover the original question of (or
"openness to") Dasein (translated as Being
or Being-in-the-World) present in the
Presocratic philosophers but normalized,
neutered and standardized since Plato . This
was to be done, in part, by tracing the
record of Dasein's sublimation or
forgetfulness through the history of
philosophy which meant that we were to
ask again what constituted the grounding
conditions in ourselves and in the World for
the affinity between beings and between
the many usages of the term "being" in
philosophy. To do this, however, a non-
historical and, to a degree, self-referential
engagement with whatever set of ideas,
feelings or practices would permit (both the
non-fixed concept and reality of) such a
continuity was required — a continuity
permitting the possible experience, possible
existence indeed not only of beings but of
all differences as they appeared and tended
to develop. Such a conclusion led
Heidegger to depart from the
Phenomenology of his teacher Husserl and
prompt instead an (ironically anachronistic)
return to the yet-unasked questions of
Ontology , a return that in general did not
acknowledge an intrinsic distinction
between phenomena and noumena or
between things in themselves ( de re ) and
things as they appear (see qualia): Being-
in-the-world, or rather, the openness to the
process of Dasein's /Being's becoming was
to bridge the age-old gap between these
two. In this latter premise, Heidegger
shares an affinity with the late Romantic
philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche , another
principal forerunner of Post-structuralist
and Postmodernist thought. Influential to
thinkers associated with Postmodernism are
Heidegger's critique of the subject-object or
sense-knowledge division implicit in
Rationalism , Empiricism and Methodological
Naturalism , his repudiation of the idea that
facts exist outside or separately from the
process of thinking and speaking them
(however, Heidegger is not specifically a
Nominalist), his related admission that the
possibilities of philosophical and scientific
discourse are wrapped up in the practices
and expectations of a society and that
concepts and fundamental constructs are
the expression of a lived, historical exercise
rather than simple derivations of external,
apriori conditions independent from
historical mind and changing experience
(see Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Heinrich von
Kleist , Weltanschauung and Social
Constructionism ), and his Instrumentalist
and Negativist notion that Being (and, by
extension, reality) is an action, method,
tendency, possibility and question rather
than a discreet, positive, identifiable state,
answer or entity (see also Process
Philosophy , Dynamism, Instrumentalism ,
Pragmatism and Vitalism).
Jacques Derrida (1930–2004)
Re-examined the fundamentals of writing
and its consequences on philosophy in
general; sought to undermine the language
of 'presence' or metaphysics in an
analytical technique which, beginning as a
point of departure from Heidegger's notion
of Destruktion, came to be known as
Deconstruction. Derrida utilized, like
Heidegger, references to Greek philosophical
notions associated with the Skeptics and
the Presocratics , such as Epoché and
Aporia to articulate his notion of implicit
circularity between premises and
conclusions, origins and manifestations, but
— in a manner analogous in certain
respects to Gilles Deleuze — presented a
radical re-reading of canonical
philosophical figures such as Plato ,
Aristotle and Descartes as themselves being
informed by such "destabilizing" notions.
Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
Introduced concepts such as ' discursive
regime ', or re-invoked those of older
philosophers like ' episteme' and ' genealogy '
in order to explain the relationship among
meaning, power, and social behavior within
social orders (see The Order of Things , The
Archaeology of Knowledge, Discipline and
Punish and The History of Sexuality). In
direct contradiction to what have been
typified as Modernist perspectives on
epistemology, Foucault asserted that
rational judgment, social practice and what
he called ' biopower ' are not only
inseparable but co-determinant. While
Foucault himself was deeply involved in a
number of progressive political causes and
maintained close personal ties with
members of the far-Left, he was also
controversial with Leftist thinkers of his
day, including those associated with various
strains of Marxism , proponents of Left
libertarianism (e.g. Noam Chomsky ) and
Humanism (e.g. Jürgen Habermas), for his
rejection of what he deemed to be
Enlightenment concepts of freedom,
liberation, self-determination and human
nature. Instead, Foucault focused on the
ways in which such constructs can foster
cultural hegemony, violence and exclusion.
In line with his rejection of such ' positive '
tenets of Enlightenment-era Humanism, he
was active, with Gilles Deleuze and Félix
Guattari, in the Anti-Psychiatry Movement ,
considering much of institutionalized
psychiatry and, in particular, Freud's
concept of repression central to
Psychoanalysis (which was still very
influential in France during the 1960s and
70s), to be both harmful and misplaced.
Foucault was known for his controversial
aphorisms, such as "language is
oppression", meaning that language
functions in such a way as to render
nonsensical, false or silent tendencies that
might otherwise threaten or undermine the
distributions of power backing a society's
conventions — even when such distributions
purport to celebrate liberation and
expression or value minority groups and
perspectives. His writings have had a major
influence on the larger body of Postmodern
academic literature.
Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998)
Identified in The Postmodern Condition a
crisis in the "discourses of the Human
Sciences" latent in Modernism but
catapulted to the fore by the advent of the
"computerized" or "telematic" era (see
Information Revolution ). This crisis, insofar
as it pertains to academia, concerns both
the motivations and justification procedures
for making research claims: unstated givens
or values that have validated the basic
efforts of academic research since the late
18th century might no longer be valid
(particularly, in Social Science & Humanities
research, though examples from
Mathematics are given by Lyotard as well).
As formal conjecture about real-world
issues becomes inextricably linked to
automated calculation, information storage
and retrieval, such knowledge becomes
increasingly "exteriorised" from its knowers
in the form of information. Knowledge is
materialized and made into a commodity
exchanged between producers and
consumers; it ceases to be either an
idealistic end-in-itself or a tool capable of
bringing about liberty or social benefit; it is
stripped of its humanistic and spiritual
associations, its connection with education,
teaching and human development, being
simply rendered as "data" — omnipresent,
material, unending and without any
contexts or pre-requisites. [27] Furthermore,
the 'diversity' of claims made by various
disciplines begins to lack any unifying
principle or intuition as objects of study
become more and more specialized due to
the emphasis on specificity, precision and
uniformity of reference that competitive,
database-oriented research implies. The
value-premises upholding academic
research have been maintained by what
Lyotard considers to be quasi-mythological
beliefs about human purpose, human
reason and human progress — large,
background constructs he calls
"Metanarratives" . These Metanarratives still
remain in Western society but are now
being undermined by rapid Informatization
and the commercialization of the University
and its functions. The shift of authority
from the presence and intuition of knowers
— from the good-faith of Reason to seek
diverse knowledge integrated for human
benefit or truth fidelity — to the automated
database and the market had, in Lyotard's
view, the power to unravel the very idea of
'justification' or 'legitimation' and, with it,
the rationale for research altogether — esp.
in disciplines pertaining to human life,
society and meaning. We are now
controlled not by binding extra-linguistic
value paradigms defining notions of
collective identity and ultimate purpose, but
rather by our automatic responses to
different species of "language games" (a
concept Lyotard imports from JL Austin's
theory of speech acts ). In his vision of a
solution to this "vertigo," Lyotard opposes
the assumptions of universality, consensus,
and generality that he identified within the
thought of Humanistic, Neo-Kantian
philosophers like Jürgen Habermas and
proposes a continuation of experimentation
and diversity to be assessed pragmatically
in the context of language games rather
than via appeal to a resurrected series of
transcendentals and metaphysical unities.
Richard Rorty (1931–2007)
Argues in Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature that contemporary Analytic
philosophy mistakenly imitates scientific
methods. In addition, he denounces the
traditional epistemological perspectives of
Representationalism and Correspondence
theory that rely upon the independence of
knowers and observers from phenomena
and the passivity of natural phenomena in
relation to consciousness. As a proponent
of anti-foundationalism and anti-
essentialism within a Pragmatist
framework, he echoes Postmodern strains
of Conventionalism and Philosophical
Relativism , but opposes much Postmodern
thinking with his commitment to Social
Liberalism .
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007),
In Simulacra and Simulation , introduced the
concept that reality or the principle of the
" Real " is short-circuited by the
interchangeability of signs in an era whose
communicative and semantic acts are
dominated by electronic media and digital
technologies. Baudrillard proposes the
notion that, in such a state, where subjects
are detached from the outcomes of events
(political, literary, artistic, personal, or
otherwise), events no longer hold any
particular sway on the subject nor have any
identifiable context; they therefore have the
effect of producing widespread indifference,
detachment, and passivity in industrialized
populations. He claimed that a constant
stream of appearances and references
without any direct consequences to viewers
or readers could eventually render the
division between appearance and object
indiscernible, resulting, ironically, in the
"disappearance" of mankind in what is, in
effect, a virtual or holographic state,
composed only of appearances.
Fredric Jameson (born 1934)
Set forth one of the first expansive
theoretical treatments of Postmodernism as
a historical period, intellectual trend and
social phenomenon in a series of lectures at
the Whitney Museum, later expanded as
Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of
Late Capitalism (1991). Eclectic in his
methodology, Jameson has continued a
sustained examination of the role that
Periodization continues to play as a
grounding assumption of critical
methodologies in Humanities disciplines. He
has contributed extensive effort to
explicating the importance of concepts of
Utopianism and Utopia as driving forces in
the cultural and intellectual movements of
Modernity, and outlining the political and
existential uncertainties that may result
from the decline or suspension of this trend
in the theorized state of Postmodernity.
Like Susan Sontag , Jameson served to
introduce a wide audience of American
readers to key figures of the 20th Century
Continental European intellectual Left,
particularly those associated with the
Frankfurt School , Structuralism and Post-
Structuralism. Thus, his importance as a
'translator' of their ideas to the common
vocabularies of a variety of disciplines in
the Anglo-American academic complex is
equally as important as his own critical
engagement with them.
Douglas Kellner (born 1943)
In "Analysis of the Journey," a journal
birthed from postmodernism, Kellner insists
that the "assumptions and procedures of
modern theory" must be forgotten. His
terms defined in the depth of
postmodernism is based on advancement,
innovation, and adaptation. Extensively,
Kellner analyzes the terms of this theory in
real life experiences and examples. Kellner
used science and technology studies as a
major part of his analysis; he urged that
the theory is incomplete without it. The
scale was larger than just postmodernism
alone, it must be interpreted through
cultural studies where science and
technology studies play a huge role. The
reality of the September Eleventh attacks
on the United States of America is the
catalyst for his explanation. This catalyst is
used as a great representation due to the
mere fact of the planned ambush and
destruction of "symbols of globalization",
insinuating the World Trade Centers . One of
the numerous, yet appropriate definitions of
postmodernism and the qualm aspect aids
this attribute to seem perfectly accurate. In
response, Kellner continues to examine the
repercussions of understanding the effects
of the September Eleventh attacks. He
questions if the attacks are only able to be
understood in a limited form of postmodern
theory due to the level of irony. [28] In
further studies, he enhances the idea of
semiotics in alignment with the theory.
Similar to the act of September 11 and the
symbols that were interpreted through this
postmodern ideal, he continues to even
describe this as " semiotic systems " that
people use to make sense of their lives and
the events that occur in them. Kellner's
adamancy that signs are necessary to
understand one's culture is what he
analyzes from the evidence that most
cultures have used signs in place of
existence. Finally, he recognizes that many
theorists of postmodernism are trapped by
their own cogitations. He finds strength in
theorist Baudrillard and his idea of
Marxism . Kellner acknowledges Marxism's
end and lack of importance to his theory.
The conclusion he depicts is simple:
postmodernism, as most utilize it today,
will decide what experiences and signs in
one's reality will be one's reality as they
know it. [29]
Deconstruction
Main article: Deconstruction
One of the most well-known postmodernist
concerns is "deconstruction," a concern for
philosophy, literary criticism, and textual
analysis developed by Jacques Derrida. The
notion of a "deconstructive" approach implies
an analysis that questions the already evident
deconstruction of a text in terms of
presuppositions, ideological underpinnings,
hierarchical values, and frames of reference. A
deconstructive approach further depends on
the techniques of close reading without
reference to cultural, ideological, moral
opinions or information derived from an
authority over the text such as the author. At
the same time Derrida famously writes: "Il n'y
a pas d'hors-texte ( there is no such thing as
outside-of-the-text )." [30] Derrida implies that
the world follows the grammar of a text
undergoing its own deconstruction. Derrida's
method frequently involves recognizing and
spelling out the different, yet similar
interpretations of the meaning of a given text
and the problematic implications of binary
oppositions within the meaning of a text.
Derrida's philosophy influenced a postmodern
movement called deconstructivism among
architects, characterized by the intentional
fragmentation, distortion, and dislocation of
architectural elements in designing a building.
Derrida discontinued his involvement with the
movement after the publication of his
collaborative project with architect Peter
Eisenmann in Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida
and Peter Eisenman. [31]
Postmodernism and structuralism
Further information: Manifestations of
Postmodernism
Structuralism was a philosophical movement
developed by French academics in the 1950s,
partly in response to French Existentialism . It
has been seen variously as an expression of
Modernism, High modernism, or
postmodernism [ by whom? ] . "Post-
structuralists" were thinkers who moved away
from the strict interpretations and applications
of structuralist ideas. Many American
academics consider post-structuralism to be
part of the broader, less well-defined
postmodernist movement, even though many
post-structuralists insisted it was not.
Thinkers who have been called structuralists
include the anthropologist Claude Lévi-
Strauss , the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure ,
the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and
the semiotician Algirdas Greimas. The early
writings of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan
and the literary theorist Roland Barthes have
also been called structuralist. Those who
began as structuralists but became post-
structuralists include Michel Foucault , Roland
Barthes , Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze . Other
post-structuralists include Jacques Derrida,
Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-François Lyotard , Julia
Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, and Luce Irigaray . The
American cultural theorists, critics and
intellectuals whom they influenced include
Judith Butler, John Fiske, Rosalind Krauss ,
Avital Ronell , and Hayden White .
Post-structuralism is not defined by a set of
shared axioms or methodologies, but by an
emphasis on how various aspects of a
particular culture, from its most ordinary,
everyday material details to its most abstract
theories and beliefs, determine one another.
Post-structuralist thinkers reject Reductionism
and Epiphenomenalism and the idea that
cause-and-effect relationships are top-down
or bottom-up. Like structuralists, they start
from the assumption that people's identities,
values and economic conditions determine
each other rather than having intrinsic
properties that can be understood in isolation.
[32] Thus the French structuralists considered
themselves to be espousing Relativism and
Constructionism . But they nevertheless tended
to explore how the subjects of their study
might be described, reductively, as a set of
essential relationships, schematics, or
mathematical symbols. (An example is Claude
Lévi-Strauss's algebraic formulation of
mythological transformation in "The Structural
Study of Myth" [33] ). Post-structuralists
thinkers went further, questioning the existence
of any distinction between the nature of a
thing and its relationship to other things.
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralists generally reject the notion
of formulations of “essential relations” in
primitive cultures, languages, or descriptions of
psychological phenomena being forms of
Aristotelianism , rationalism , or idealism .
Another common thread among thinkers
associated with the post-structuralist
movement is the criticism of the absolutist,
quasi-scientific claims of structuralist theorists
as more reflective of the mechanistic bias [34]
inspired by bureaucratization and
industrialization than of the inner-workings of
actual primitive cultures, languages or
psyches. Generally, post-structuralists
emphasize the inter-determination and
contingency of social and historical
phenomena with each other and with the
cultural values and biases of perspective. Such
realities were not to be dissected, in the
manner of some structuralists, as a system of
facts that could exist independently from
values and paradigms (either those of the
analysts or the subjects themselves), but to be
understood as both causes and effects of each
other. [35] For this reason, most post-
structuralists hold a more open-ended view of
function within systems than did Structuralists
and were sometimes accused of circularity and
ambiguity. Post-structuralists countered that,
when closely examined, all formalized claims
describing phenomena, reality, or truth, rely on
some form of circular reasoning and self-
referential logic that is often paradoxical in
nature. Thus, it was important to uncover the
hidden patterns of circularity, self-reference
and paradox within a given set of statements
rather than feign objectivity, as such an
investigation might allow new perspectives to
have influence and new practices to be
sanctioned or adopted. In this latter respect,
post-structuralists were, as a group,
continuing the philosophical project initiated
by Martin Heidegger, and saw themselves as
extending the implications of Friedrich
Nietzsche 's work.
Post-structuralist writing tends to connect
observations and references from many, widely
varying disciplines into a synthetic view of
knowledge and its relationship to experience,
the body, society and economy—a synthesis in
which it sees itself as participating.
Structuralists, while also somewhat inter-
disciplinary, were more comfortable within
departmental boundaries and often maintained
the autonomy of their analytical methods over
the objects they analyzed. Post-structuralists,
unlike structuralists, did not privilege a system
of (abstract) "relations" over the specifics to
which such relations were applied, but tended
to see the notion of “the relation” or of
systemization itself as part-and-parcel of any
stated conclusion rather than a reflection of
reality as an independent, self-contained state
or object. If anything, if a part of objective
reality, theorization and systemization to Post-
structuralists was an exponent of larger, more
nebulous patterns of control in social orders—
patterns that could not be encapsulated in
theory without simultaneously conditioning it.
For this reason, certain post-structural
thinkers were also criticized by more realist,
naturalist or essentialist thinkers of anti-
intellectualism or anti-philosophy. Post-
structuralists, in contrast to structuralists, tend
to place a great deal of skepticism on the
independence of theoretical premises from
collective bias and the influence of power, and
reject the notion of a "pure" or "scientific"
methodology in social analysis, semiotics or
philosophical speculation. No theory, they said
—especially when concerning human society or
psychology—was capable of reducing
phenomena to elemental systems or abstract
patterns, nor could abstract systems be
dismissed as secondary derivatives of a
fundamental nature: systemization,
phenomena, and values were part of each
other. [citation needed ]
Post-postmodernism
Main article: Post-postmodernism
Recently metamodernism, post-postmodernism
and the "death of postmodernism" have been
widely debated: in 2007 Andrew Hoborek noted
in his introduction to a special issue of the
journal Twentieth Century Literature titled
"After Postmodernism" that "declarations of
postmodernism's demise have become a
critical commonplace". A small group of critics
has put forth a range of theories that aim to
describe culture or society in the alleged
aftermath of postmodernism, most notably
Raoul Eshelman (performatism), Gilles
Lipovetsky ( hypermodernity ), Nicolas Bourriaud
( altermodern), and Alan Kirby (digimodernism,
formerly called pseudo-modernism). None of
these new theories and labels have so far
gained very widespread acceptance. The
exhibition Postmodernism - Style and
Subversion 1970-1990 at the Victoria and
Albert Museum ( London , 24 September 2011 –
15 January 2012) was billed as the first show
to document postmodernism as a historical
movement.
Criticisms
Main article: Criticism of postmodernism
Criticisms of postmodernism are intellectually
diverse, including the assertions that
postmodernism is meaningless and promotes
obscurantism . For example, Noam Chomsky
has argued that postmodernism is
meaningless because it adds nothing to
analytical or empirical knowledge. He asks why
postmodernist intellectuals do not respond like
people in other fields when asked, "what are
the principles of their theories, on what
evidence are they based, what do they explain
that wasn't already obvious, etc?...If [these
requests] can't be met, then I'd suggest
recourse to Hume's advice in similar
circumstances: 'to the flames'." [36] Christian
philosopher William Lane Craig has noted "The
idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a
myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an
impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable.
People are not relativistic when it comes to
matters of science, engineering , and
technology; rather, they are relativistic and
pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics .
But, of course, that's not postmodernism;
that's modernism!" [37]
Formal, academic critiques of postmodernism
can also be found in works such as Beyond
the Hoax and Fashionable Nonsense .
However, as for continental philosophy,
American academics have tended to label it
"postmodernist", especially practitioners of
"French Theory". Such a trend might derive
from U.S. departments of Comparative
Literature. [38] It is interesting to note that
Félix Guattari, often considered a
"postmodernist", rejected its theoretical
assumptions by arguing that the structuralist
and postmodernist visions of the world were
not flexible enough to seek explanations in
psychological, social and environmental
domains at the same time.

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