Doug Henwood wrote:
What's "post-modernism"?<
when in doubt, Google: # If Descartes is seen as the father of modernism, then postmodernism is a variety of cultural positions which reject major features of Cartesian (or allegedly Cartesian) modern thought. Hence, views which, for example, stress the priority of the social to the individual; which reject the universalizing tendencies of philosophy; which prize irony over knowledge; and which give the irrational equal footing with the rational in our decision procedures all fall under the postmodern umbrella. www.filosofia.net/materiales/rec/glosaen.htm # Not so much a stage after modernism, more an impulse to deconstruct totalising systems of knowledge, meaning or belief grand narratives in the terminology of French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard (religions, for example, or grand political theories such as capitalism or communism, or nationalisms, or humanist theories of identity). The postmodern condition, for Lyotard, is that of living without such systems or myths; for Derrida this is about celebrating this advent of an open future. ... www.adamranson.freeserve.co.uk/critical%20concepts.htm # unlike Modernism, Postmodernism starts from the assumption that grand utopias are impossible. It accepts that reality is fragmented and that personal identity is an unstable quantity transmitted by a variety of cultural factors. Postmodernism advocates an irreverent, playful treatment of one's own identity, and a liberal society. www.ffotogallery.org/th-edu/glossary.htm Of course, there are NO standard definitions that aren't subject to doubt, dispute, and ambiguity. But I see Resnick & Wolff as "postmodern" because they reject "essentialism," the idea that some factors in the historical process may be more important than others. Instead of taking the hoary old base/superstructure story and trying to make it more nuanced (and to make more sense, by figuring out what "more important" means), for example, R&W simply reject it: base, superstructure, the Moose Lodge, the local marching band, and all the other parts of society are as important -- and as unimportant -- as all the others. It's sort of like general equilibrium theory (everything depends on everything else) without the equilibrium. -- Jim Devine / "Mathematics has given economics rigor, but alas, also mortis." -- Robert Heilbroner
