Post-Modernism is something that I first gained exposure to through literature. I am a huge fan of writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, David Foster Wallace, and Thomas Pynchon. Meanwhile in terms of music you have post-modernism associated with minimalist music and in later times, ambient music such as that made by Brian Eno. In this respect, post-modernism is directly associated with a reaction to the excess, and a retraction from that to something that is very basic. In the same sense you can look at the shift from modernist pieces of literature such as that by James Joyce to post-modernist pieces. Some of that shift seems to be from an excess of language and a certain verbosity for the sake of description to more of a focus on ideas and using language in different ways. To me, the general concept seems to be that of throwing out what you already know, keeping the ideas and seeing what else you can do with them. It is a rejection of the grand, of the maximization of everything in society and delving into a more obscure path to try to find a meaning hidden behind a garbage can or something of the sort.
However, it seems to be a very broad and overarching concept, and is either ill-defined, very complex to define, or both. b_b's post in the Political View thread got me thinking:
What is Post-Modernism to you? Is it something you have thought about before? Is it a concept that Hubski can reach an agreement on?
I might have an oversimplified view of post-modernism, but here's how it was explained to me: something is post-modern if it requires you to draw on specific cultural knowledge to glean the meaning of it. Visual art that features say, sushi, or WWE Wrestling as a vehicle for the art's meaning would be post-modern, because you'd be at a loss if you didn't know about sushi or WWE
I am in respectful disagreement with this statement for the following reason. Much of the art from the medieval period of European art had an understanding that the symbolism contained within would be immediately identifiable by the viewer and this is something that is lost to most of us today. We may think we know the meaning of a piece, but can that be certain if we do not speak the language of its symbols? And if we can fit Medieval art (or any other symbolic art in history) within the definition of requiring specific cultural knowledge, then Postmodernism as an art movement seems not to be defined by this criterion.
hmm, that does seem to be a problem. I don't know anything about art history, but I can see that under my definition, most symbolic art falls under the category of 'post-modern'. Maybe the problem comes from the definition taking the term 'post-modern' literally, (ie: "it requires modern cultural knowledge, so it's post-modern").
This is exactly what I was hoping for, a succinct way to sum up post-modernism. I agree with everybody else saying that it's one of the best descriptions of post-modernism.
it was someone on reddit, two or three years ago. The person mentioned that they had taken a few 'history of art' kinds of courses, so his definition probably came from what he learned in those courses. So your best bet might be looking through some academic literature for definitions of post-modern.
If you are asking after artistic things that are going on at present, I'm not sure the it will fall under the "Post-Modern" section of some-someday published history text. After all, look at the language that people use in the everyday. Many people refer to where we are as "modern" as in, "modern apartments" and "in modern times." Yes, this is different from the usage in relation to the arts, but it is still linked. If we take a look at movements in various disciplines of Modern art, by which I mean all disciplines of art and not simply painting or writing or dance, they are typically characterized by a break with tradition. Modernist literature is where we see the departure from form in poetry and the exploration of movement in dance. Similarly, modern art departs from portraits of things, to portraits representing things. The Post-Modern, as I interpret it loosely, allows for freedom from both traditional, established forms as well as the establishment of reacting against prior forms. This is why we see many forms of art borrowing from other movements combined with new ideas to create something entirely different. To be flip about it, we have the freedom to choose pornography with or without pubic hair. I think you're right that it's very much about utilizing "what sticks" for maximal effect. The explosion in exposure in terms of influence is something that has never been seen before and it's very hard to understand exactly what that means, from the inside. Modern poetry is characterized by doubt. And for me as someone who is working within poetry in the present, I think that post-modern poetry operates under the doubt that anyone is paying attention and thus, "how can I play with the fact that I don't know if anyone is paying attention?" I think that this relates to other forms of art as well. Take our love of Easter Eggs, things referencing other things the creator has implanted within the work, which those savvy to the popular culture and thus the culture of the day, will understand and enjoy, thus enhancing the piece. This is a bit similar and I think it grew out of things like the "musical jokes" found within various pieces of classical music that were popular in their day, or Duchamp's readymades, notably the piece often referred to as L.H.O.O.Q, which uses a reproduction of a postcard of da Vinci's Mona Lisa as well as some clever wordplay. However, post-modernism seems to focus less on the question, "what is art?" and more on, "where can art go?" or, "what can art become?"
The best three word summary I've heard of postmodernism comes to us from Jean-François Lyotard: "Incredulity toward metanarratives." This is about as throrough as a three word summary can get, though it often leads to more questions. It relates to sirwfc718's assessment of relativism, but also offers something of a view as to why one arrives at that vantage point. The term was originally an architectural term, and described specific reactions against the modernist ideals of design, and would, if memory serves, usually involve some sort of inversion or confounding of modernism's bold, powerful, often simple and unequivocal lines and patterns. I forget who it was who said it, but someone brilliant said that the quintessential postmodern experience was to merely observe the modern (by which I mean contemporary here) cityscape, which features buildings from all eras standing side by side, in a perpetual state of disjunction. It's basically a collage which conforms to no overarching style or social rubric, and therefore offers no unified message, (except for the message of disunity). It then became applied post-hoc to a wide variety of movements in other media, and in thought itself, but it has never been a movement in any monolithic sense (indeed, the essence of the thing defies the creation of anything monolithic) which is what makes it so difficuly -- or impossible, really, I would say -- to provide an adequate, all encompassing definition or category. All of the works I've seen mentioned here across the arts seem related to the non-movement. The term only came into existence in the 20th century, which sort of prohibits the admission of fine fellows like Matthew Arnold. However, Dover Beach (love that poem, by the way, thanks for mentioning it, ecib) clearly demonstrates that the postmodern shift was prefigured in previous ones, especially those that occurred at the cusp where British romanticism bleeds into the Victorian era. This type of grand and tragic wrestling with doubt and loss of meaning is quite common in that time, where all over society, writers are struggling to hold onto the view of the world they've accepted all their lives, attempting to reconcile it with the discoveries and theories of the time (Darwin's work plays a major role in this upset). Tennyson's "In Memoriam" is another epic chronicle of such struggle with doubt. The parallel's to postmodernism as described by Lyotard are clear: the introduction of doubt into a particular metanarrative. The issue is further clouded by being confused with poststructuralism, a movement which takes place in philosophy and semiotics. The ideas of this movement stirs the kettle of all this postmodern foment, but the two are in no means one and the same. Reading Derrida is fun if you like your cerebellum to twist in knots. It's probably better to read about him at first, and the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy is a good place to start. (If you really want to subject yourself to all that).
So it's like people in the 90's claiming that The Sonics were the original Grunge band. Take a term and attempt to pinpoint the earliest instances of what it supposedly describes, some time before its actual introduction into the lexicon.The term only came into existence in the 20th century, which sort of prohibits the admission of fine fellows like Matthew Arnold. However, Dover Beach (love that poem, by the way, thanks for mentioning it, ecib) clearly demonstrates that the postmodern shift was prefigured in previous ones,
Exactly. I have so much pity for those tasked with defining terms and applying hard and fast dates to movements. It's really a never ending and ultimately impossible task, as there is in fact no line between an "event" and its causes. Add to that the fact that the history of ideas is constantly circling back on itself, rediscovering threads from long ago movements which had been put down over time in favor of others, and you have a case where the same things (more or less) are being given a series of different names. Then again, language is constantly working to create the appearance of separation and distinction where in fact there is only continuum. But without false separation, it's hard to tell somebody how to get to the Chisos Basin, for example, or how to make an omelette. Function, it seems, comes at the cost of simplification, and therefore, inaccuracy. At times like this, a certain modest mouse quote comes to mind: "language is the liquid that we're all dissolved in, great for solving problems after it creates the problems."
Post-modernism is the rejection of the modernist program. Modernism is the idea that progress is possible the world is order-able and that reason is reasonable. a postmodernist thinks that reason and empiricism can be compromised by position (POV) by power, by tradition etc. The worst of them talk about multiple truths and that all data is theory-laden and such such-ness. in mathematics Modern is Bertram Russel - Post-Modern is Godel in cultural anthro Modern is Boaz - Post is Geertz (the dumb kind) and Rosado (the smart kind)
Gödel was a platonist. He was opposed to formalism because he didn't think reasoning could be reduced to symbol manipulation (and, of course, proved Hilbert's program for doing so wasn't adequate), but he was hardly any kind of post-modernist. The science wars and the like were irrelevant to mathematics because it doesn't say anything about the world; if you object to the axiomic method, that's cool, you're just not doing mathematics. It just doesn't matter for the purposes of doing math whether you think it's a game that happens to yield results useful to scientists and engineers sometimes, whether it's just a particular genre of literature or whether you think we're studying things that are somehow fundamental. We had a similar conflict much earlier, over non-euclidean geometries, but that was mostly settled by the time modernism was a thing. You could make the case for George Lakoff, but I don't think anyone cares what Lakoff thinks about math.in mathematics Modern is Bertram Russel - Post-Modern is Godel
I think Modernism is Aristotelian. I understand exactly where you are coming from and I don't think Gödel thought of himself as a post modern (I think he was a royalist politically) The effect of his proof was by my definition the definition of post-modernism.
The history of mathematics has a pre-Gödel Hilbert or modern period and a Post-Gödel or postmodern period perfect. :) [edit] I don't think that Gödel should be included in the nothing means anything crowd.
and I do agree that mathematics is or should be immune to the stupidities of the worst manifestations of post-modernism is other fields.
My definition of postmodern is "contrast." When I think about postmodernism I think about the movie Pulp Fiction. It blends in the high art of serious film with a script filled with cultural references to everyday life and B movies. It presents the idea that art isn't as simple as one thing. It can be found in the brutal lives of gangsters, in the conversation at a '50s diner, in a gold watch that has traveled through too many peoples' asses in order to be given to a young boxer. Postmodern is art disguised as something that is not art.
I define Post-Modernism by one word: Relativism. All-encompassing Truths, be they scientific, religious, philosophical, etc. (categorization made for simplicity) are highly suspect in the Postmodern mind due to the importance of interpretation with regard to the definition of what is real. Interpretation is everything and relativism is the rule if such is the case.
I think postmodernism has a definition, and what it is to me is besides the point slightly. I'm going to refrain from researching the term and just give my vague, probably ill informed sketch of what the word means. I've taken it to broadly be a rejection of romanticism in favor of a more self-aware and potentially slightly cynical interpretation of the world around us which can manifest in pretty much any art form. Who knows how far off or close to the mark that is, but I'll leave you with this poem by Matthew Arnold written to his fiance during their honeymoon in 1851. It has been called the first post-modern poem. I particularly like the last stanza in the context of it being written on his honeymoon, -I find it very beautiful.
To me, post-modernism is a description, a subgenre, of the various arts (Pynchon, the painters, minimalist music, the Glass House, and so on). Therein lies its use as a word. It's the next step beyond modern, but modern is always modern by definition -- so maybe post-modernism is, at any given moment, the style that we in the present associate with the future?