What is the essence of postmodernism?

The essence of postmodernism could be stated, ignoring the irony, as the rejection of classical and modern thought that attempts to attribute anything with an objective meaning or truth. To quote the Urban Dictionary, “The postmodernist critique removes that central concept, it “decenters” the system of meaning. Postmodernism points out that all systems of meaning are in constant negotiation and flux, therefore claims of transcendant morality are suspect.”

Recognizing the irony, however, makes it impossible to say that the essence of postmodernism is anything as it is a critique of essence.

For me this means that there are two main types of postmodern critique in academic and theoretical circles – a practically useful one and a practically useless one. The practically useless one rests on the notion that the pervasiveness of subjectivity negates any attempt to find truth. The practically useful one recognizes that subjectivity pervades our notion of truth and our reliance on dichotomy, but uses the critique to unpack the assumptions and controls of the power structures responsible for creating those notions and reliances in order to reveal the harm those required, and potentially move us to positions where those harms can be minimized or even repaired.

This is probably the clearest and most concise summation of postmodernism I’ve come across.

http://www.bucks.edu/~docarmos/PMnotes.html

@iamthemob hit the nail on the head. To state it a bit more simply, postmodernism is a philosophy that says that there is no objective reality. I personally reject postmodern thought in most of its forms. To me there is an objective reality. I suppose it would be the opposite of Ayn Rand’s objectivism philosophy, come to think of it.

That said, I do like postmodern minimalist music, Steve Reich, Arvo Part, Heinrych Gorecki, Phillip Glass, to name a few.

@iamthemob: Spiffing!

@Hobbes – it’s telling that the page you linked doesn’t once mention the word ‘science’. Absolutism begone!

I would venture to suggest that the version of postmodernism with the most social currency right now is creationism.

@the100thmonkey – I would argue that the fundamentalist viewpoint (which is the one usually associated with creationism) is about as far away from the postmodernism as it’s possible to get, since fundamentalists tend to believe that they have access to the Ultimate Truth.

Yet creationists still seek to undermine Science (capitalisation intended) with calls to “teach the controversy” – as if there are some forms of truth that the individual is actually able to decide for themselves. Hence the mocking example of Intelligent Falling.

Postmodernism is a framework, despite the arguments to the contrary. It stands and falls on the results it produces.

Here is a wonderful parody of a post-modernist hippie. Tim Minchin, Storm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk

I am sitting in my Media, Culture and Communication Core masters class at NYU right now, discussing with my classmates (our teacher cancelled 15 min before class) your responses. Wow. Excellent. Very insightful and useful. Thank you so much for your ideas…especially your references to power, objectivity/subjectivity and the fact that “it stands and falls on the results it produces.” Bravo.

@iamthemob wonderful point that postmodernism would “say” that there is no essence of postmodernism because essence is an absolutism, a universal. Bravo.

I actually have a paper due Thursday on postmodernism and this helps emphatically. Please continue to follow the thread!

One of my undergraduate majors at Brown was Literatures in English with the focus on gender, sexuality and race. We from Brown traffic in little else than postmodernism. ;-)

@iamthemob write my paper for me puleaze! ;)

@Rarebear: ∞ lurve.

Thank you for the link!

@the100thmonkey “as if there are some forms of truth that the individual is actually able to decide for themselves” What do you mean by this?

Here is my working thesis for my paper: “The struggle for identity in the gay movement is the struggle for definition in postmodernism.”

@JonnyCeltics Oh, then you need to be talking to Simone. I’ll PM her.

@Rarebear – sweet!

@Hobbes – it was rhetorical sloppiness – I’d had a couple of beers when I write it and wasn’t as precise as I should have been.

Truth is truth, in that there are some absolutes. Other ‘truths’ are contingent and local, and perhaps could be labelled as such.

@the100thmonkey – Haha, no worries =]

What absolutes do you think there are? Mathematical constants?