What is Postmodernism?

The word postmodernism consists of two parts: post and modernism. ‘Post’ means ‘what comes after’ and so, postmodernism in its most simple sense means what has come after modernism. So what is modernism? Modernism is an entangled set of philosophies and beliefs associated with the first half of the twentieth century which valued large-scale political movements, organizing factories as if they were machines, obedience to ideology, the power of science, the importance of discipline and similar. According to these beliefs, Fascism, the Nazis and Stalinism were included as modernist. However, there are other aspects of modernism which are more sympathetic (e.g. the belief that the future of humanity is in space).

Postmodernism, therefore, is a rejection of these modernist beliefs. Inevitably, at least some postmodernists took an exactly opposite or inverted approach to the world: consequently, postmodernism involves the privileging of individual understanding over ideology, subjectivity over objectivity, the death of monolithic political parties and religions and the rejection of the triumph of humanity over the physical laws of science.

These postmodernist positions can be applied to a wide variety of different intellectual pursuits. For example, postmodern art presents items which would never previously been thought of as ‘art works’ and places them in the special places which transforms the everyday into the artistic. So, a dead and embalmed animal is not customarily considered a piece of art but when it is displayed prominently in public at a reputable gallery, then it becomes an item which must be considered a work of art (although not necessarily a very good one). In this way, ‘modernist’ understandings of art are rejected.

In philosophical or sociological terms, postmodernism has come to be associated with the rejection of large-scale or popular thought systems and their replacement with the idea that everybody’s personal interpretation of reality is equally as valid as anyone else’s. In terms of popular culture, if a would-be contestant appears on American Idol or a similar show and performs an act which the judges reject as technically incompetent but the contestant defends as a personal belief or practice and, hence, just as good as anyone else without need for training, then the judges are taking a modernist position and the contestant a postmodernist position.

In recent years, increasing numbers of people have begun explicitly to reject postmodernism and to proclaim the important of universal (or at least widely-held) beliefs. In part, this has been intensified by the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Postmodernism has been associated with the idea that everyone’s beliefs are more or less valid and the terrorist outrages inspired many people to claim the opposite.