Postmodernism

Conceptual Overview

Postmodernism is deeply controversial, witnessed by statements such as: “A specter is haunting us—the specter of postmodernism.” The artworks ascribed to it repel many. The McDonaldized society it claims to be able to describe is deeply disputed. Postmodernism's radical critique of scientific methodology and/or knowledge terrifies whole segments of academe.

This is a presentation of postmodernism made from an external and not an internal perspective. Two thousand words, the encyclopedia format, the politics of academe and publishing were all very relevant to its writing but will be, by and large, kept invisible.

There are at least three interrelated but distinct strands to what is called postmodernism. One thread refers to art, especially architecture; another to the sociology of the “spectacle society”; and the last to philosophy. The term itself is old; C. Wright Mills used it in 1959 to describe the bureaucratic rationalism of the “postmodern period.” But it is Charles Jenck's bestselling book on postmodern architecture from 1977 that really launched current interest. In architecture, modernism was monolithic, represented by buildings in the style of de Stijl/Bauhaus or Mies van de Rohe—that is, with functionalist intentions, often of glass and steel, straight lines and right angles, an absence of ornamentation, cold and rational. The postmodern alternative was eclectic and flamboyant, embracing the shrill colors and forms of advertising, with blatant disregard for balance, proportion, and seriousness. Pastiche (most clearly seen in the architecture of Las Vegas) was the new watchword. Buildings were to amuse, be playful, and challenge expectations.

The description of the contemporary society as postmodern can be traced to Jean-François Lyotard's book The Postmodern Condition, which appeared in French in 1979 and in English translation in 1984. Lyotard was a serious philosopher with a strong analytic bent—his theoretical work shows strong Wittgensteinian influences and an intense will for ideas to be precise: exact and unambiguous. In this, he followed in the Descartian tradition that championed rational clarity and exactitude. In his popular work [Page 1281](which attracted more attention than his academic philosophy), Lyotard coined the terms postmodern and performativity. For Lyotard, the postmodern condition is supposedly characterized by a society whose key belief systems have lost their credibility. Much modernist social and political thought argued that the empirical phenomenal world is mere illusion and that there were real fundamental causes to be found on a deeper level. Thus, for Sigmund Freud, under the appearances of civility, respect, and duty, there reigned a deeper level of desire, libido, and conflict, while for Karl Marx, cultural, political, and religious arrangements masked forces of production, ownership, and a basic conflict between labor and capital. And for Max Weber, (Protestant) belief paved the way for capitalist economic growth, and social rationalization via bureaucracy threatened to stymie that growth.

Lyotard claimed that our belief in the truths behind the appearances vanished because modernist analysis failed to deliver trustworthy insights with pragmatic value. The Freudian, Marxist, or Weberian “grand narratives” had proved powerless to explain or counter economic crisis, social violence, and warfare. Instead, phenomenal experience has proved more genuine, and with more relevant and humane values, than modernist social thought. Those who are in direct contact with others, involved in their immediate circumstances, are less violent and immoral, creating less mayhem than the actions of experts armed with (modernist) social science. However, Lyotard still believed that contemporary society could be described through different concepts, such as performativity (the principle of improving, increasing, and optimalizing action). This brought a focus in the postmodern society to talk and text, and particularly on the performative or speech (acts) such as “I promise” that, when delivered, perform an action. Postmodern performative organization is narrative; but description that conceptualizes or “totalizes” it is false. Specific partial stories can be shared; generalizations always miss the point. Organization is performed in text(s), but cannot be known in idea(s).

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