Philozed

What is post-modernity?

Many of us have heard the term, “post-modern” applied to ideas or art or theater but have a only a vague idea of what it means. Post-modernity is a complex social movement and few commentators would agree on all its features, its champions and its history. But like many social descriptors it persists as a set of ideas and movements. Although a sure definition of post-modernity is elusive (which may be a good sign, for simply defined ideas are seldom true) there are a number of significant elements of post-modernity that many of its supporters and critics have identified. They are:

1. A suspicion or rejection of meta-narratives.

A meta-narrative is a total narrative scheme which claims to explain the whole of knowledge and experience. It is not hard to find examples of meta-narratives. Communism is one such narrative that attempts to explain the whole of human history and social dynamics in terms of class struggle. Christianity is another meta-narrative that tells a story which explains human history and human nature through a story, in this case with reference to relationship to the God of Jesus. Other meta-narratives may include Neo-Darwinism that looks at all of life through the lens of evolution or Freudian theory which explains humans history and psychology through response to libido.

What problems do post-modernists have with meta-narratives? There are several. Firstly they cannot all be true. The Hindu explanation of the universe and the Jewish description cannot both be true for they posit a very different beginning to the universe and offer very different pictures of God. Here we can see that post-modernism has gone hand in hand with globalization which has made it increasingly difficult for one group to claim exclusive access to truth in the light of all other claims.

A second difficulty post-modernists have with meta-narratives is their inability to come to terms with the chaos and complexity of the real world. The collapse of the Soviet Union is testament that human nature is too diverse and complex to be bent to serve some imposed narrative. Likewise the struggle the Christian church has had with feminism and now homosexuality has shown that complex human behaviours and relationships will not fit into precisely defined dogmas on what it is to be human. Meta-narratives by their nature tend to simplify history into an easily understandable (if not always entirely believable) schema and seldom allow the real complexity and diversity of humanity. This leads to a tendency to treat those outside this simplified narrative as in some way deviant or alien.

Within post-modernism the centrality of a single meta-narrative may be replaced by local narratives or micro-narratives (see Jean-François Lyotard). Rather than one all encompassing theory which seeks to explain everything a micro-narrative approach describes reality through a series of micro-narratives. I often use this circle to illustrate how micro-narratives work whereby the picture of reality emerges from many stories and theories rather than a direct attempt to describe in one overarching world view.

It may well be that truth is best given by the intersection of the micro-narratives rather than dependence on a meta-narrative. It can be argued that truth is only revealed by the intersection of micro-narratives because it always too complex to yield up its mysteries to one interpretative structure and it is only through micro-narratives that the interpretative structure becomes clear in comparison to others.

2. A questioning of power-structures and authority.

Post-modernists have noticed that meta-narratives often support and are supported by authorities. Every religion has its official interpreters and gate-keepers to the community in the form of priest, popes and theologians. There power derives from the meta-narrative and they reinforce it. Communist party officials support the Marxist analysis which supports them. The American president goes to war to spread the democratic system which elects and empowers him. This power-structure is used to modify behaviour and can become self serving. Post modernism also questions the authority of “experts” as their authority may rest in a paradigm which may in future be overthrown. Instead in a world of multiplicity there can be many authorities which each bear their own expertise and talent.

3. Challenging Utopian goals

Meta-narratives usually have some sort of goal that forms the ideal end of their stories. This may take the form of the classless society or a theocracy where all of society shares in their religious beliefs or may be expressed on an individual level as the fully realized person. The trouble that post-modernists have with these Utopian goals is that they would all require the fitting of an individual into a proscribed persona. It is clear that many people or cultures cannot be forced into being religious or to fit a particular psychological or political type. Great utopian movements such as communism or religions that seek political dominance such as Christendom often become repressive because they seek force individuals or groups into ideological visions rather than letting people be what they are. Nor is post-modernism enamored of the idea of man come of age or that we will be saved by technology or science; it rejects the future vision of the age of enlightenment where we are led by rationalism.

4. The medium is the message

Post-modernism does not hold strongly to the traditional view of the separation between the content of a message and the way it is communicated. You cannot enforce democracy at the end of a gun because the medium with which you deliver your message is communicates more than your supposed message itself. Nor can you necessarily communicate a message of equality and freedom of the Christian message through a highly authoritarian and structured institutional church.

5. An embrace of popular culture

Post-modernism tends to reject the idea of high culture – that one form of culture is extrinsically superior to another and sees all cultures as being valid and valuable reflections of human experience and ideas.

6. Man in not the measure of all things

Post-modernism tends to reject the idea that humans are at the centre of the universe. It sees that other living and non-living things have value in themselves apart from what they can offer humanity.

7. Reality is in flux – it is not eternally unchanging

Our individual identity is dependent on our culture which writes many of the scripts which we live by. Therefore as society changes so do we. On a cosmic level post-modernism realizes that life is evolving and the universe is constantly in motion.