Postmodernism

Modernism versus Postmodernism

The distinction between modernism and postmodernism can be most readily viewed through their characteristic differences. In its most general meaning, the term modernism refers to a period in which principles extending from the European Enlightenment gave rise to systems of logical thought and rationalism. These principles were said to have provided hope for a better future and a variety of ideological means for attaining those ends. However, history has shown that modernity proved to be fraught with foibles and shortcomings.

Conversely, postmodernism emerged as a reaction to modernism by challenging, above all, universal perceptions pertaining to the functions of a social world. Where modernism relied on a search for truth and knowledge, postmodernism dealt more with the futility of truth and a perceived misconception that knowledge must perform a useful function. In addition, modernism brought about a sense of optimism that was informed by the growth in industry and progress; postmodernism possesses a pessimistic tone and is more attuned to concerns about an abundance of information.

Within the context of modernism, classifications were extrapolated in an attempt to manage and make sense of the social world at large. One of the most pronounced characteristics of the postmodern condition is the fragmentation of institutions that arose from modernity. Where postmodernity implies a break with modernity, the fragmentation of the latter becomes the infoscape for the former. That is, fragmented institutionalized material found within the postmodern condition allows for only faint interaction with truncated images that reflect an incomplete version of their original form.

This fragmentation can also be applied to one's image of self. Where identity was once the instrument for defining oneself and one's sociological classifications, those categories have now been blurred and fragmented within the postmodern condition. One way of resuscitating these divisions is by borrowing from mass media, the one institution that still holds—albeit artificially constructed—reality as its model. Mass media, through the mechanism of consumption, offers a series of spectacular and limitless audiovisual and literary materials to choose from.

Another distinctive feature of postmodernism that highlights the break with modernism is the critique of grand narratives. These grand narratives refer to large value-laden explanations of the workings of the world and are largely the basis for which modernity has gained legitimacy. Grand narratives among modernity included Marxism as a way of explaining social inequality and providing a solution through class struggle, psychoanalysis as an enterprise of mental liberation through excavating repressed psychosexual feelings and events, structural-functionalism as an analysis of social institutions and their necessities within society at large, and feminism as criticism of a historical system of patriarchy and the subordination of females in general. However, some critics have argued that postmodernism has also posed yet another grand narrative and thus fails to distinguish itself from modernism based on such tenuous criteria.

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