In a general sense, postmodernity is the state
or response to a society which has evolved from modernity. It can mean the personal response to a post-modern
society, the conditions in a society which make it post-modern or the state of
being that is associated with a post-modern society. Postmodernity
should not be confused with post-modernism, which is the self-conscious adoption of post-modern traits in art, literature
and society.
There are multiple positions on the diffrences
between postmodernity and post-modernism.
One position says that post-modernity is a condition or state of being,
or is concerned with changes to institutions and conditions (Giddens 1990) - where as postmodernism is an aesthetic, literary, political or social philosophy that
consciously responds to post-modern conditions, or seeks to move beyond or
critique modernity.
Postmodernity can be said to have gone through two relatively distinct phases: the
first phase beginning in the 1950's and running through the end of the Cold War,
where analog dissemination of information produced sharp limits on the width of
channels, and encouraged a few authoritative media channels, and the second
beginning with the explosion of cable television, internetworking and the end
of the Cold War.
The first phase of postmodernity overlaps the
end of modernity and
is regarded by many as being part of the modern period (see lumpers/splitters, periodization). In this period there was the rise of television as the primary news
source, the decreasing importance of manufacturing in the economies of
The second phase of postmodernity is visible
by the increasing power of personal and digital means of communication, including fax machines, modems, cable, and
eventually high speed internet. This lead to the creation of the new economy, whose supporters argued that the dramatic fall in
information costs would alter society
fundamentally. The simplest demarcation point is the collapse of the Soviet Union, and
the liberalisation of
In the 1990's a debate grew as to whether the present was a "high
modernity" or whether postmodernity should be
regarded separately. In general those who believe that postmodernity
is a separate condition acknowledge a transition where postmodernity,
sometimes hyphenated, is an extension of modernity.
Criticisms of the post-modern condition can broadly be put into four catagories: criticisms of post-modernity from the
perspective of those who reject modernism and its offshoots, criticisms from supporters of modernism who
believe that post-modernity lacks crucial characteristics of the modern
project, critics from within post-modernity who seek reform or change based on
their understanding of post-modernism, and those who believe that post-modernity is a passing, and not a
growing, phase in social organization.
Many philosophical movements reject both modernity and post-modernity as
healthy states of being. Many of these are associated with cultural conservatism, and
with some branches of christian
theology. In
this view post-modernity is seen as a rejection of basic spiritual or natural
truths, and the emphasis on material and physical pleasure is explicitly a
rejection of inner balance and spirituality.
Many of these critiques attack, specifically, the perceived
"abandonment of objective truth" as being the crucial unacceptable
feature of the post-modern condition, often with the aim of offering a metanarrative that provides exactly this truth.
Critic Timothy Bewes called Post-Modernity
"an historical blip", a "cynical reaction" against the
Enlightenment, and against the progress of the modern project. This viewpoint,
that features attributed to post-modernity, including consumerism, are
"kitsch" and a turning away from fundamental deep structure and uncompromsing progress is one which is leveled by art critc Robert Hughes as well. Instead, from this viewpoint,
post-modernity is a subsidiary historical moment in a larger modern period.
James Fowler argues that post-modernity is characterized by the
"loss of conviction", and Grenz concurs
saying that post-modernity is a period of pessimism contrasting with modernity's
optimism.
However, the most influential proponent of this critique is Jurgen Habermas, who contends
that all responses to modernity abandon either the critical or rational element
in philosophy, and that the post-modern condition is one of self-deception over
the uncompleted nature of the modern project.
From his perspective, universalism is the fundamental requirement for
any rational criticism, and to abandon this is to abandon the liberalizing
reforms of the last two centuries. From the perspective his his
critics, including Lyotard and Stanley Fish, Habermas' problem is that he desires to rationalize
universalism because he has insufficient faith in social mechanisms to work.
(See post-empiricism).
This argument is then extended to state that Post-modernity is counter-enlightenment,(See The Enlightenment, modern responses). Richard Wolin in his book
The Seduction of Unreason argues that key advocates of post-modernity
began with a fascination for fascism. This is related to the theory that Romanticism is a
reactionary philosophy and that Naziism was an outgrowth of Romanticism, a widely held viewpoint among
modernist philosophers and writers.
They argue that the cultural particularlity,
and identity politics of post-modernity, by which they mean the consquences
of holding to post-structuralist views, is "what
This debate is seen by philosophers such as Richard Rorty as being a debate between modern and post-modern philosophy rather than being related to the condition of post-modernity per se.
The range of critiques of the post-modern condition from those who
generally accept it is quite broad, and impossible to easily summarize, since
the debate is contemporary and on going. The list below includes some which
have generated controversy and interest, and is not intended to be taken as
comprehensive or exclusive.
One criticism is phrased as "The future ain't
what it used to be. In this view, the world
"promised" in the late 1960's and early 1970's has not arrived, and
instead, the current incarnation of society is, somehow, less appealing, or at
least less advanced than the "postmodernity"
envisioned previously.
Another criticism leveled at post-modernity from within is expressed by
author David Foster Wallace, who argues that the trend towards more and more ironic and referential
expression has reached a limit, and that a movement back towards
"sincerity" is required, where the artist actually says what he
intends to have taken as meaning.