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The Postmodern condition

Introduction

Fernando Flores

Lunds universitet

2012

Would be possible to synthesize

the essence of Postmodernism

with a picture ?

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What

is that

the

picture

is

talking

us

about?

What do you see?

Describe the building

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The

picture

oblige us

to think

about the

“limits”

between

the private

and the

public.

Three possible definitions of ”Postmodernism”

There are many definitions of Postmodernism and all of them understand Postmodernism as a development from Modernism.

Let us see three of these definitions:

A) An economic/social definition, which understand Postmodernism as one of capitalism’s phases.

In this case, the “modern society” compares with the “postmodern society” as two social/economic models.

B) An aesthetic/art critical definition, which understand Postmodernism as a qualitative change inside Modernism’s aesthetical values.

In this case, “Modernism” compares to “Postmodernism” as two aesthetical ideologies.

C) The point of view of History of Ideas. According to which the “modern era” compares with the “postmodern era” as two historical periods.

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Our point of view shall be that of the History of Ideas.

According to this point of view the “Modern era” compares with the “Postmodern era” as two historical periods.

In our course, both the definition of Modernity/Postmodernity as a economic/social reality, and

the definition of Modernism/Postmodernism as an aesthetic/art critical definition, are engaged to produce systematic comparative studies in an historical perspective.

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The point of view of History of Ideas

From the point of view of social history

the “Pre-modern” era compares to the “Modern era” and then with the “Postmodern era”

From the point of view of history of aesthetic ideologies

“Modernism” compares to

“Postmodernism”

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From the point of view of the social history

From the point of view of the social history, the term

”Modernity” means “order”, “control”, “effective

administration” and “planning”.

Modernity identifies with colonialism, European culture, and

later also with “representative democracy”.

Colonialism is certainly connected to the development of a

Modern society and of Modern science and technology.

Among the goals of colonialism was first that of the expansion

of Christianity and later the expansion of liberalism and

capitalism.

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The connections of Postmodernism to the Anti-colonial movement

The Postmodern movement is a child of the 20th century, a century characterized by the anti-colonial movement and the rising of many old but also new nationalities.

Among all the wars of liberation, Vietnam and Algeria were specially important for the intellectual environment in France, the place in which many of the grounders of Postmodernism were working.

Other important warfronts were the straggles against apartheid in USA and South Africa, the wars of liberation in Africa and the straggles of the Latin-American left for social and economical justice.

One of the strongest Postmodernist’s groups was the feministic movement, reborn with Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy after Second World War II.

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From the point of view of history of aesthetic

ideologies

Matei Calinescu wrote in “Five faces of Modernity” that we can talk about two Modernities. (Let us see how Matei Calinescu approached the issue from a historical perspective…).

At some point during the first half of the nineteenth century an irreversible split occurred between

modernity as a stage in the history of Western civilization, and …

modernism as an aesthetic concept.

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First of these - the bourgeois idea of modernity, which is

a pragmatic modernity, a consequence of

the measurement of social time done by the rules of capitalism. (”Time” as a

commodity which is offered at the market.)

At the other side, there is a personal, subjective, durée,

a private time, created by the performance of the ”I”.

This identification between the “I” and time, the rise of a subjective time,

constitute the ground of the modern man and the ground for an aesthetical

ideal of Modernity.

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The Modern aesthetical view, started with the

romantic movement during the 19th century.

These radical anti–bourgeois attitudes, would

bring avant-gardes. This idea of Modernity,

disapprove the cruelty and banality of everyday

Modern capitalist life.

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Those ”two Modernities” – as a stage

of social history and as an aesthetic concept-

shall

sometimes cooperate and

sometimes oppose each other and

became rivals.

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Postmodernism as one of the

phases of capitalism

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Three of capitalism’s phases, each with its own cultural expressions.

a) The first phase is colonialism which coincide with the economic expansion of the West during the 19th century.

To this period belongs the development of the steam motor and the aesthetical realism in Europe. That would be called: “earlier Modernism”

b) The second phase begins with modern industry at the end of the 19th century and lasts until the middle of the 20th century.

This phase associates to the creation of the modern market with the rise of both the working class and the middle class. It is the time of the electrical motor and the development of the car industry. Modern industry influences in art and culture creating “mature” Modernism.

c) The third phase coincide with the multinational capitalism with

emphasis in consumption rather than production of commodities.

This phase associates to atomic energy, electronics, space explorations and aesthetically, to

Postmodernism.

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Postmodern philosophies

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Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998)

Jean Baudrillard (1929)

Susan Sontag (1933- 2004)

Gianni Vattimo (1936)

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Postmodernism as philosophy(The term ”Postmodernism” was created by the historian Arnold Toynbee).

The term “Postmodern” in philosophy refers to a very complex ideological movement which affected the whole cognitive field, from music to architecture, from film to philosophy, from technology to sociology.

As an academic subject or an object of studies, is born at the middle of the eighties.

as an historic process, its origins can be found already in Nietzsche.

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Jean- François Lyotard and the Postmodern Condition

According to Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) the “postmodern condition” come up, when modern society tried to represent that which can not be represented.

Then, the mind represent instead ”differences”.

He found the postmodern condition only in the most developed societies.

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Criticizing “metanarratives” (grand narratives)

Lyotard presents the Postmodern in his book “The Postmodern Condition” published in 1979 as:

incredulity towards metanarratives (grand narratives) or metadiscourse

where metanarratives are understood as totalising stories about history and the goals of the human race that ground and legitimise knowledge and cultural practises.

An example of metanarrative could be the ideology of democracy in USA, where the liberal political ideal reach the category of a myth. According to this metanarrative only representative democracy can bring happiness to human kind.

The same can be said about Marxism and the dream of a communistic society in which any injustice would disappear.

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Lyotard’s idea of modernity

As “Modern” Lyotard understands the scientific discourse when it develops into a metadiscourse(metanarrative).

The “Postmodern Condition” then, is the consequence of peoples distrust in any metadiscourse.

The Postmodern Condition is also an expression of a new form of tolerance, a feeling for the incommensurable, a feeling for the different an for mini-discourses.

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The Culture of copies

Postmodern society is also a global society which

works in direction to achieve a maximum of

standardization in every manifestation of culture,

from food-culture to clothes, from technological

products to religion’s practices.

At the other hand, because postmodern

massification is eclectic (that is work combining

many different aesthetics) favor that which is

heterogenic and make resistance to

homogenization. .

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Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra

According to Jean Baudrillard (1929) the Postmodern age characterizes by copies which he call “simulacra”.

Western societies have undergone a process in which the simulacrum become “truth”, whereby the copy has come to replace the original.

According to Baudrillard, present day society is a simulated copy which has superseded the original, so “the map has come to precede the territory”.

The mass production of commodities valorized the existence of copiesindependently from the originals.

The situation of knowledge changes as well, and the application of knowledge became its purpose. There is clear utilitarian goal in the Postmodern cognitive ideal.

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Andy WarholCow-wallpaper, 1966

Simulacra in art - the

culture of copies

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Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol, (Andrew Warhola) (1928 –1987), was an American artist, avant-garde filmmaker, writer and social figure. Warhol also worked as a (magazine) publisher, music producer and actor. With his background and experience in commercial art, Warhol was one of the founders of the Pop Art movement in the United States in the 1950s.

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Gianni Vattimo and Postmodernism as the ”End of history”

For Gianni Vattimo, Nietzsche and Heidegger teach us a lesson when they speak about anticipation and about the End of History.

They sowed that the representation of reality as a well ordered reality, was in fact the product of a primitiveand barbarous civilization.

To achieve emancipation from these barbarisms, delusion was necessary, because delusion permitted the stand out of differences.

The process of emancipation, will be achieved through the cultivation of each own “linguistic dialect” and from this situation shall growth a perplexity which permit the visions which make identity possible.

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If the Modern man believed that

Modernity implied civilization because it

implied order and reason, science and

technology …

The Postmodern man believe that order

and reason conduced mankind to a primitive and barbarous civilization.

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THE END