POSTMODERNISM: A THEORITICAL ANALYSIS

TITLE:

POSTMODERNISM,

A THEORITICAL ANALYSIS





Introduction:





Postmodernism is an idea that has been controversial and difficult to define among scholars, intellectuals and historians because it is a concept that appears in a wide variety of discipline or area of study. Nevertheless most agreed that postmodern ideas have influenced philosophy, literature, art, architecture, design, marketing business, culture and interpretation of history since the late 20th century.





Meaning:

Over the last two decades the term postmodernism has been in wide use. Earlier it was only in cultural phenomena but in recent time it has entered into our academic curriculum and assumes an important status.

The meaning of postmodernism is that the prefix “post” means after and modern means “current or up to date.” It means a period after modernism.



The Compact Oxford English Dictionary refers to postmodernism as "a style and concept in the arts characterized by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions.”

The term postmodern is described by Merriam-Webster as meaning either "of, relating to, or being an era after a modern one" or "of, relating to, or being any of various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms (as in architecture) or by ironic self-reference and absurdity (as in literature)", or finally "of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language.”

The American Heritage Dictionary describes the meaning of the same term as "Of or relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes: “It [a roadhouse] is so architecturally interesting … with its postmodern wooden booths and sculptural clock”.



History of the term

The term was first used around the 1870s in various areas. For example, John Watkins Chapman avowed "a postmodern style of painting" to get beyond French Impressionism Then, 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."

In 1917 Rudolf Pannwitz used the term to describe a philosophically oriented culture. Pannwitz's idea of post-modernism came from Nietzsche's analysis of modernity and its ends of decadence and nihilism. Overcoming the modern human would be the post-human. But, contrary to Nietzsche, Pannwitz also includes nationalist and mythical elements.

It was used later in 1926 by B.I.Bell in his "Postmodernism & other Ess." In 1925 and 1921 it had been used to describe new forms of art and music. In 1942 H. R. Hays used it for a new literary form but as a general theory of an historical movement it was first used in 1939 by the historian Arnold J. Toynbee: "Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914-1918."

In 1949 it was used to describe dissatisfaction with modern architecture, leading to the postmodern architecture movement. 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. It may be a response to the modernist architectural movement known as the International Style.

The term was applied to a whole host of movements, many in art, music, and literature, that reacted against modernism, and are typically marked by revival of traditional elements and techniques. Walter Truett Anderson identifies postmodernism as one of four world views. These four worldviews are the postmodern-ironist, which sees truth as socially constructed, the scientific-rational in which truth is found through methodical, disciplined inquiry, the social-traditional in which truth is found in the heritage of American and Western civilization and the neo-romantic in which truth is found either through attaining harmony with nature or spiritual exploration of the inner self.

Scholar’s and historians most commonly hold postmodernism to be a movement of ideas that has both replaced and extended modernism by countering and borrowing from a number of modernism fundamental assumption. For example modernism places a great deal and importance on ideas seen as rationalist, objectivity and progress as well as the other ideas enlightenment and as positivist realist movement from the late 19th century- while postmodernism questioned whether these ideas can actually exist at all.

Post modernism is arises as a critic of modernism. The entry of postmodernism in common usage is very recent like 1990s. During this short period it has developed a bit and its own concept namely grand narratives, cyber people, post structuralism, truth, reality etc. the concept of post modernism is very fluid or dynamic. It carried wide open ended ness. Post modernism is against the ideas about depth and essence and the total and universal. There are lots of controversies and contradiction attended to the meaning of this theme. Again despite controversies, postmodernism stands for superficial and provisional and fragmentation and difference. To Postmodernist there is nothing real in the society nor is there any truth.

The meaning of post-modernism is quite flexible. The use of this term is different in different phases. The history of the meaning of postmodernism has undergone several changes during different phases of history. The meaning of postmodernism has changed so drastically that it is difficult to put it in a precise term. There are some definitions precise by different scholars.

Anthony Gidden: he argues that postmodernism society is highly pluralist and diverse with no grand narratives guiding its development. The postmodern society is no longer governed by history. Because of it there are countless films, videos, TV programs and websites, images circulated around the world. Postmodernist also rejects the claim of classical thinker who looks their inspiration from that idea, “history has an importance”.

Fredric Jameson: he is a neo Marxist. He argued that there is a cultural postmodernism. Jameson is quite clear about his analysis of postmodernism. Firstly – there is a culture of postmodernism. Secondly capitalism has got international dimension which give rise to new proletariat class. He tries to analyze this new class dimension. According to him it is all postmodernism.



Main features of postmodernism:

By going through different definitions, we can find out the following key features of postmodernism.

1) Postmodernism is against depth and essence.

2) Postmodernism is strongly opposed to total and universal. It is because of this opposition that Postmodernism rejects the grand theories.

3) The major force of Postmodernism is that everything in society is superficial and provisional.

4) The Postmodernism society is fully fragmented with various culture, ethnicities and plurality. They argued that there are many conflicting knowledge, identities, and needs that it is neither possible nor desirable to see the human race as a big family.

5) Postmodernism have no faith in science. People no longer believe in the myth of science.

6) Postmodernist rejects the theory of system which provides three types of system cultural, personality and the social, which included the value and norms which influence the individuals choice, personality system and social system involves individual motivation and it based on interrelation among peoples. But Postmodernism has a tendency of flexibility which is against system.

These above are the major characteristics of Postmodernism.



Notable philosophical contribution:

There are a numbers of political thinker who use postmodernism in there political study. Among them we can name Michel Foucault, Fredric Jameson and Jacques Derrida are the prominent one. Here a brief discussion on these scholars follows:

Michel Foucault:

Michel Foucault was born in 15th of October, 1926 and died in 25th June 1984. He was a French philosopher. He is known for his study of social institution, psychology, medicine, the human science and the prison system. His work on power and relationship among power, knowledge and discourse has been widely discussed. His prominent works are:

1. Madness and Civilization:

The English edition of Madness and Civilization is an abridged version of “Folie et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique”, originally published in 1961. A full English translation titled “The History of Madness” has since been published by Routledge in 2006. Here he analyses the human madness in different stages of history. He starts from middle and he saw that in every stage of history on madness people have different views.

2. The Birth of the Clinic:

Foucault's second major book, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (Naissance de la clinique: une archéologie du regard médical) was published in 1963 in France, and translated to English in 1973. It traces the development of the medical profession, and specifically the institution of the clinic.

3. The Order of Things:

Foucault's Les Mots et les choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines was published in 1966. It was translated into English in 1970 under the title The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. He argues that all periods of history have possessed specific underlying conditions of truth that constituted what was acceptable as, for example, scientific discourse. Foucault argues that these conditions of discourse have changed over time, in major and relatively sudden shifts, from one period's episteme to another

4. Discipline and Punish:

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison was translated into English in 1977. Here he mad a comparative analysis of punishment in ancient period and modern era and noticed the change.

5. The History of Sexuality:

Three volumes of The History of Sexuality were published before Foucault's death in 1984. Here he focused on the functioning of sexuality as an analytics of power related to the emergence of a science of sexuality.

Foucault’s key points are:

1. Knowledge is the power. It rests in individuals.

2. Each individual age is characterized by particular forms of knowledge.

3. Truth is produce by power.

4. Power is exercised and it is productive.

In this way Foucault had established relation between knowledge and power. To him power is in every stage of society.

Fredric Jameson:

Fredric Jameson was born 14 April 1934. He is an American literary critic and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends—he once described postmodernism as the specialization of culture under the pressure of organized capitalism. Jameson's best-known books include Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, The Political Unconscious, and Marxism and Form. He was a neo-Marxist.

In his writings “Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” he gave an image of a postmodern society. To him a postmodern society consists of five elements. These are:



1. It is a superficial and depthless society.

2. It has weak emotion.

3. There is lost of historicity.

4. This postmodern society is associated with technology.

5. It is characterized multicultural capitalism.

To him postmodern society is a capitalist society and there is nothing stable in this society. This society has developed a pattern of culture which is specific to it only. Here culture is comodified and it becomes saleable. Jameson talks about three stages of capitalism a) Market capitalism, b) Monopoly capitalism and c) Late capitalism.

Jacques Derrida:

Derrida was born at 15 July 1930 and died at 8 October 2004. He was a French philosopher born in Algeria, who is known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon literary theory and continental philosophy. Derrida's best known work is Of Grammatology. His central contribution to postmodernism is deconstruction.

Derrida argues that there is fragmentation and instability of languages in postmodernism. He established that the meaning of texts can be plural and unstable rather than in fixing them to a rigid structure. To him the meaning or truth is determined by the limitation of discipline, which supposedly discovered and describes them. To him meaning is never absolute, nor is truth. Each one is conditioned by special and social knowledge.

Criticism of post modernism:

The criticisms of the postmodernism are often complicated by the nature of term. There are some critics of this concept like Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Paul Auster, Rosenau . Rosenau (1993) identifies seven contradictions in Postmodernism:

1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.

2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.

3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.

4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.

5. By adamantly rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgments.

6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.

7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.

. These are the major criticism of postmodernism. Although postmodern theory is criticized on several grounds but it is one of the most famous theories of recent decades. In last few decades because of its practical analysis it has very rightly explained the present capitalist society.

Conclusion:

In concluding remarks it can be said that postmodernism in recent time a very popular theory in political science and it succeeded in explaining the present situation of society. It has opened a new hope in political science by rejecting grand theories like Marxism, Liberalism, realism etc.





Reference List:





1. Doshi, S.L; Modernity, Postmodernity and Neo-sociological Theories. Rawat Publications, Jaipur and New Delhi, 2003.

2. Foucault, Michel; The Archeology of Knowledge. Pantheon Books, New York, 1972.

3. Harvey, David; The Conditions of Postmodernity, Blackwell, London, 1989.

4. Powell Jim; Postmodernism For Beginners, Orient Longman, 2001.

5. Sheridan, Alan; The will to power. Routtedge, London, 1980.

6. Smart, B; Michel Foucault, London, Tavistock, 1985.

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