Modernism vs. Postmodernism Jul 25, 2019 Literary Theory and Philosophy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8EfyhIv72I
This video is an explanation of the difference between modernism and postmodernism.
Summary of Differences
• Modernism began in the 1890s and lasted till about 1945.
• Postmodernism began after the Second World War, especially after 1968.
• Modernism’s aim was criticism of the bourgeois social order of the 19th century and its world view.
• The first use of the term postmodernism dates back to the 1870s. John Watkins Chapman referred to a postmodern style of painting which differed from French Impressionism. J.M. Thompson used the term to refer to changes in attitudes and beliefs in religion.
• Low forms of culture was a part of modernism. Simplicity and elegance in design are the characteristics of modernism.
• Postmodern art brought high and low culture together by using industrial materials and pop culture imagery. Postmodern art is decorative.
• Modernism was based on using rational and logical means to gain knowledge. It rejected realism. A hierarchical, organized, and determinate nature of knowledge characterized modernism.
• Postmodernism denied the application of logical thinking. Rather, the thinking during the postmodern era was based on an unscientific, irrational thought process, as a reaction to modernism.
• Modernism is based on European and Western thought.
• Postmodernists believe in multiculturalism.
• Modernist approach was objective, theoretical, and analytical.
• Postmodernism was based on an anarchical, non-totalized, and indeterminate state of knowledge.
• Modernist thinking is about the search of an abstract truth of life.
• Postmodernist thinkers believe that there is no universal truth, abstract or otherwise.
• Modernism attempts to construct a coherent world-view.
• Postmodernism attempts to remove the difference between high and low.
• Modernist thinking asserts that mankind progresses by using science and reason. It believes in learning from past experiences and trusts the texts that narrate the past.
• Postmodernists believe that progress is the only way to justify the European domination on culture. They defy any truth in the text narrating the past and render it of no use in the present times.
• Modernist historians believe in depth. They believe in going deep into a subject to fully analyze it.
• Postmodernist thinkers believe in going by superficial appearances, they believe in playing on surfaces and show less or no concern towards the depth of subjects.
• Modernist historians believe in depth. They believe in going deep into a subject to fully analyze it.
• Postmodernist thinkers believe in going by superficial appearances, they believe in playing on surfaces and show less or no concern towards the depth of subjects.
• Modernist historians believe in depth. They believe in going deep into a subject to fully analyze it.
• Postmodernist thinkers believe in going by superficial appearances, they believe in playing on surfaces and show less or no concern towards the depth of subjects.
• Modernist historians believe in depth. They believe in going deep into a subject to fully analyze it.
• Postmodernist thinkers believe in going by superficial appearances, they believe in playing on surfaces and show less or no concern towards the depth of subjects.
• Modernism considers the original works as authentic.
• Postmodernist thinkers base their views on hyper-reality; they get highly influenced by things propagated through media.
• Modernism considers the original works as authentic.
• Postmodernist thinkers base their views on hyper-reality; they get highly influenced by things propagated through media.
• Modernists believe that morality can be defined.
• Postmodernists believe that morality is relative.
• The year 1939 is considered to have marked the end of modernism. In the 1970s, postmodern movement entered music. In art and architecture, it began to establish itself in the early 1980s. The exact year when modernism ended, and whether it ended is debatable.
• It is considered that postmodernism started going out of fashion around the late 1990s, and was replaced by post-postmodernism which has developed from and is a reaction to postmodernism. Metamodernism is a related term that was first used by Zavarzadeh in 1975 to describe aesthetics and attitudes emerging in the American literature in the mid-1950s.
Sources:
Modernism/Postmodernism. (1992). Peter Brooker, Ed. New York: Routledge.
Modernism vs. Postmodernism
The term "Postmodern" begins to make sense if you understand what "Modernism" refers to. In this case, "Modernism" usually refers to Neo-Classical, Enlightenment assumptions concerning the role reason, or rationality, or scientific reasoning, play in guiding our understanding of the human condition and, in extreme cases of Postmodern theory, nature itself. Postmodernism basically challenges those basic assumptions.
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Modernism (or Enlightenment Empiricism and Humanism) |
Postmodernism (or The Post Truth Era?) |
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Reason and science provide accurate, objective, reliable foundation of “knowledge” |
Reason and science are Ideologies in the Nietzschean or Marxist sense: simply myths created by man. |
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Reason transcends and exists independently of our existential, historical, cultural contexts; it is universal and “true”. |
Cultural Relativism: Reason itself is a specific Western tradition (ideology) competing with other traditions, like faith and other cultural means of knowing. |
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Freedom in the form of democracy and free markets are the natural extension of universally true, reasonable beliefs. "We hold these truths to be self evident...." |
Cultural Relativism: Democracy and capitalism are specific Western traditions (ideology) competing with other traditions (China and Russia especially challenge this assumption. Also, democracy and capitalism, like all ideologies, are often used to colonize foreign cultures (ie Belgian Congo, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan) or subjugate women etc. |
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Science is an objective means of understanding the natural world and its application can improve our lives. |
Nope. Science is ideology. "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." -- Donald Trump "A majority of people have been paid to say that man is causing the climate to warm up [...] they only get the money if they come up with the right result." Rush Limbaugh |
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Reason will lead to universal truths all cultures will embrace. |
“…no eternal truths, no universal human experience, no universal human rights, overriding narrative of human progress” (Faigley, 8). |
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Language is transparent; a one to one relationship between signifier (word) and signified (thing or concept). |
Language is fluid and arbitrary and/or rooted in Power/Knowledge relations. Meaning is fluid and arbitrary. Meaning is “messy”. |
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In sum: Truth exists independent of human consciousness and can be known thru the application of Reason. All Enlightenment conclusions lead from this assumption.
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In sum: Truth may exist independent of human consciousness but there is no objective means of nailing it down. All Postmodern conclusions lead from this assumption. |
| Existence of stable, coherent “self”, independent of culture and society. Identity is static: one either is one's racial, ethnic, national or gender identity (the traditional view) or one has an innate identity which should be separated from social influences (Rousseau's romantic view). |
The “self” is a myth and largely a composite of one’s social experiences and cultural contexts. Identity is fluid and performative. There is no true definition of self or even gender; we put on identities as masks or perform our "selves" exactly as do actors on a stage. |
| Modernist Feminism: Women are oppressed by patriarchy and can use Reason to achieve both independence and regain their “authentic selves”. | Postmodern Feminism: The categories male/female, masculine/feminine are themselves culturally constructed and/or Ideology. Gender roles are culturally relative in all cultures and contexts. |
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Modern literature and film: Realism.
Storytelling should mimic a Lockean ideal of how we experience the natural world. |
Post Modern literature and film: realism is no more "real" than fantasy. Game of Thrones or the Xmen is no more fantastic or fictional than The Office Breaking Bad. We are free to tell stories any damn way we want to. |
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Source: Borrowed heavily from Jane Flax, via Lester Faigley's Fragments Of Rationality