With a view to the OCA outing to the V+A later next month, I thought I would find out a bit more about this subject. Other than knowing that it followed modernism, I realised I knew nothing about what it actually is.
Started by downloading a sample of A Very Short Introduction to Post Modernism by Christopher Butler onto my Kindle; soon after, sitting in a cafe in Delhi, I was able to buy the whole book since the introductory pages were quite informative and not too hard to read. Postmodernism is found in the writings of French intellectuals such as Derrida and Barthes also Foucault as well as Edward Said. It is not really a philosophy and has no doctrine, postmodernism being deconstructivist in nature; it is allied with Poststructuralism.
Modernism characterised by the Bauhaus School of Art that grew up in Germany between the wars, was concerned with making the new industrial world a place that could be beautifully created rather than merely utilitarian. A "Brave New World" in fact. Postmodernism however does not have such lofty aims and might be considered as being cynical or at least leading to a general nihilistic view of life.
One can not however deny its intelligence as it challenges so many formerly accepted modes of thought. For instance, history comes under the spotlight and is here generally understood to be closer to fiction than fact. History is written by people who never have all the facts and probably approach it from their own viewpoint often conditioned by the political viewpoint of the country they live in. The same can be said of literary criticism where someone may be writing about a novel from a Freudian perspective. Text is seen as something that can be read or understood in many different ways which lead Barthes to announce "The death of the author". One might ask, "had he/she ever been alive?"
There is something very healthy in the way postmodernism challenges our assumptions but does it have anything to offer to compensate for that, to help one see the world anew rather than dismiss it. Largely the postmodernism view has been propounded by intellectuals and yet it has not been fully aware of former theories such as those of Wittgenstein which in many ways anticipated postmodernism. One of Wittgenstein's maxims was "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Postmodernism challenges the nature of language as one might expect. A word is not the same as the thing it represents even in the case of alliteration. There is much written on this subject and it is not really possible to go into it here except to say that not all postmodern arguments are generally accepted; this is also the case with the postmodern view of science where it is considered that some postmodernists are attacking science without understanding the way it proceeds although one can not ignore the fact that scientists do tend to make make general assumptions. For example, there is the view that it is the male sperm that competes for the female egg without considering the role the egg might be playing in this by actually attracting the sperm.
Some of the main post-modernists are Derrida, Barthes and Foucault also Said. Salman Rushdie's novel Midnights Children is considered to be the ultimate post-modern novel; it lacks the structure of an ordinary novel. Cindy Sherman is considered to be a postmodern photographer; I would like to add Martin Parr to that since his images do not reveal the strictness of much photographic composition as in his horizons sometimes being at an angle.
Postmodernism has questioned authority particularly in the way power tends to have its' own discourse.
Yet sometimes postmodernism does seem to assume ignorance on the behalf of it's audience. There are a lot of things that people don't really need to be told.
Started by downloading a sample of A Very Short Introduction to Post Modernism by Christopher Butler onto my Kindle; soon after, sitting in a cafe in Delhi, I was able to buy the whole book since the introductory pages were quite informative and not too hard to read. Postmodernism is found in the writings of French intellectuals such as Derrida and Barthes also Foucault as well as Edward Said. It is not really a philosophy and has no doctrine, postmodernism being deconstructivist in nature; it is allied with Poststructuralism.
Modernism characterised by the Bauhaus School of Art that grew up in Germany between the wars, was concerned with making the new industrial world a place that could be beautifully created rather than merely utilitarian. A "Brave New World" in fact. Postmodernism however does not have such lofty aims and might be considered as being cynical or at least leading to a general nihilistic view of life.
One can not however deny its intelligence as it challenges so many formerly accepted modes of thought. For instance, history comes under the spotlight and is here generally understood to be closer to fiction than fact. History is written by people who never have all the facts and probably approach it from their own viewpoint often conditioned by the political viewpoint of the country they live in. The same can be said of literary criticism where someone may be writing about a novel from a Freudian perspective. Text is seen as something that can be read or understood in many different ways which lead Barthes to announce "The death of the author". One might ask, "had he/she ever been alive?"
There is something very healthy in the way postmodernism challenges our assumptions but does it have anything to offer to compensate for that, to help one see the world anew rather than dismiss it. Largely the postmodernism view has been propounded by intellectuals and yet it has not been fully aware of former theories such as those of Wittgenstein which in many ways anticipated postmodernism. One of Wittgenstein's maxims was "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Postmodernism challenges the nature of language as one might expect. A word is not the same as the thing it represents even in the case of alliteration. There is much written on this subject and it is not really possible to go into it here except to say that not all postmodern arguments are generally accepted; this is also the case with the postmodern view of science where it is considered that some postmodernists are attacking science without understanding the way it proceeds although one can not ignore the fact that scientists do tend to make make general assumptions. For example, there is the view that it is the male sperm that competes for the female egg without considering the role the egg might be playing in this by actually attracting the sperm.
Some of the main post-modernists are Derrida, Barthes and Foucault also Said. Salman Rushdie's novel Midnights Children is considered to be the ultimate post-modern novel; it lacks the structure of an ordinary novel. Cindy Sherman is considered to be a postmodern photographer; I would like to add Martin Parr to that since his images do not reveal the strictness of much photographic composition as in his horizons sometimes being at an angle.
Postmodernism has questioned authority particularly in the way power tends to have its' own discourse.
Yet sometimes postmodernism does seem to assume ignorance on the behalf of it's audience. There are a lot of things that people don't really need to be told.
No comments:
Post a Comment