Modernism & Postmodernism

Modernism
Perhaps the easiest way to start thinking about postmodernism is by thinking about
modernism, the movement from which postmodernism seems to grow or emerge. Modernism
has two facets, or two modes of definition, both of which are relevant to understanding
postmodernism.
The first facet or definition of modernism comes from the aesthetic movement broadly
labeled "modernism." This movement is roughly coterminous with twentieth century Western
ideas about art (though traces of it in emergent forms can be found in the nineteenth century
as well). Modernism, as you probably know, is the movement in visual arts, music, literature,
and drama which rejected the old Victorian standards of how art should be made, consumed,
and what it should mean. In the period of "high modernism," from around 1910 to 1930, the
major figures of modernism literature helped radically to redefine what poetry and fiction
could be and do: figures like Woolf, Joyce, Eliot, Pound, Stevens, Proust, Mallarme, Kafka,
and Rilke are considered the founders of twentieth-century modernism.
From a literary perspective, the main characteristics of modernism include:
1. an emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and in visual arts as well); an
emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading or perception itself) takes place, rather than on WHAT
is perceived. An example of this would be stream-of-consciousness writing.
2. a movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omniscient third-person
narrators, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions. Faulkner's multiply-
narrated stories are an example of this aspect of modernism.
3. a blurring of distinctions between genres, so that poetry seems more documentary (as in
T.S. Eliot or EE Cummings) and prose seems more poetic (as in Woolf or Joyce).
4. an emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages
of different materials.
5. a tendency toward reflexivity, or self-consciousness, about the production of the work of
art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as something
constructed and consumed in particular ways.
6. a rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs (as in the poetry of
William Carlos Williams) and a rejection, in large part, of formal aesthetic theories, in favor
of spontaneity and discovery in creation.

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7. A rejection of the distinction between "high" and "low" or popular culture, both in choice
of materials used to produce art and in methods of displaying, distributing, and consuming
art.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical
theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized
as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism.
Postmodernism, like modernism, follows most of these same ideas, rejecting boundaries
between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche,
parody, bricolage, irony, and playfulness. Postmodern art (and thought) favors reflexivity and
self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures),
ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized
subject.
But--while postmodernism seems very much like modernism in these ways, it differs from
modernism in its attitude toward a lot of these trends. Modernism, for example, tends to
present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history (think of The Wasteland, for
instance, or of Woolf's To the Lighthouse), but presents that fragmentation as something
tragic, something to be lamented and mourned as a loss. Many modernist works try to uphold
the idea that works of art can provide the unity, coherence, and meaning which has been lost
in most of modern life; art will do what other human institutions fail to do. Postmodernism, in
contrast, doesn't lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather
celebrates that. The world is meaningless? Let's not pretend that art can make meaning then,
let's just play with nonsense.
In architecture, art, music and literature, postmodernism is a name for many stylistic reactions
to, and developments from, modernism. Postmodern style is often characterized
by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, and irony. Some artistic movements commonly
called postmodern are pop art, architectural deconstructivism, magical realism in
literature, maximalism, and neo-romanticism. Postmodern theorists see postmodern art as a
conflation or reversal of well-established modernist systems, such as the roles of artist versus
audience, seriousness versus play, or high culture versus kitsch.
In sociology, postmodernism is described as being the result of economic, cultural
and demographic changes, related terms in this context include postindustrial society, Late
capitalism, and it is attributed to factors the rise of the service economy, the importance of

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the mass media and the rise of an increasingly interdependent world economy. (See
also Postmodern, Information age, Globalization,Global village, Media theory).
As a cultural movement, postmodernism is an aspect of postmodernity, which is broadly
defined as the condition of Western society after modernity. The adjective postmodern can
refer to aspects of either postmodernism or postmodernity. According to postmodern theorist
Jean-François Lyotard, postmodernity is characterized as “incredulity
toward metanarratives", meaning that in the era of postmodern culture, people have lost faith
in grand, universal stories, and have instead begun to organize their cultural life around a
variety of more local and subcultural myths and stories. See La Condition postmoderne:
Rapport sur le savoir (The Post Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge) in 1979, and the
results of acceptance of postmodernism is the view that different realms of discourse are
incomensurable and incapable of judging the results of other discourse, a conclusion he drew
in La Differend (1983).
In philosophy, where the term is extensively used, it applies to movements that include post-
structuralism, deconstruction, multiculturalism, gender studies and literary theory, sometimes
called simply "theory". It emerged beginning in the 1950's as a critique of doctrines such
as positivism and emphasizes the importance of power relationships, personalization
and discourse in the "construction" of truth and world views. In this context it has been used
by many critical theorists to assert that postmodernism is a break with the artistic
and philosophical tradition of the Enlightenment, which they characterize as a quest for an
ever-grander and more universal system of aesthetics, ethics, and knowledge. They present
postmodernism as a radical criticism of Western philosophy. Postmodern philosophy draws
on a number of approaches to criticize Western thought, including historicism,
and psychoanalytic theory.
The term postmodernism is also used in a broader pejorative sense to describe attitudes,
sometimes part of the general culture, and sometimes specifically aimed at postmodern
critical theory, perceived as relativist, nihilist, counter-Enlightenment or antimodern,
particularly in relationship to critiques of rationalism, universalism, or science. It is also
sometimes used to describe social changes which are held to be antithetical to traditional
systems of morality, particularly by evangelical Christians.
The role, proper usage, and meaning of postmodernism are matters of intense debate and vary
widely with context.
Early usage of the term

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In an essay From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: the Local/Global Context, Ihab Hassan
points out a number of instances in which the term postmodernism was used before the term
became popular:
 John Watkins Chapman, an English salon painter, in the 1870s, to mean Post-
Impressionism.
 Federico de Onís, 1934, (postmodernismo) to mean a reaction against the difficulty
and experimentalism of modernist poetry.
 Arnold J. Toynbee, in 1939, to mean the end of the "modern,"
Western bourgeois order dating back to the seventeenth century.
 Bernard Smith, in 1945, to mean the movement of socialist realism in painting.
 Charles Olson, during the 1950s.
 Irving Howe and Harry Levin, in 1959 and 1960, respectively, to mean a decline in
high modernist culture.
Also, many cite Charles Jencks' 1977 "The Language of Postmodern Architecture" among the
earliest works which shaped the use of the term today.

The Development of Postmodernism Theory

Features of postmodern culture begin to arise in the 1920s with the emergence of the dada m
ovement, which featured collage and a focus on the framing of objects and discourse as being
as important, or more important, than the work itself. Another strand which would have
tremendous impact on post-modernism would be the existentialists, who placed the centrality
of the individual narrative as being the source of morals and understanding. However, it is
with the end of the Second World War that recognizably post-modernist attitudes begin to
emerge.
Central to these is the focusing on the problems of any knowledge which is founded on
anything external to an individual. Post-modernism, while widely diverse in its forms, almost
invariably begins from the problem of knowledge which is broadly disseminated in its form,
but not limited in its interpretation. Post-modernism rapidly developed a vocabulary of anti-
enlightenment rhetoric, used to argue that rationality was neither as sure nor as clear as
rationalists supposed, and that knowledge was inherently linked to time, place, social position
and other factors from which an individual constructs their view of knowledge. To escape
from constructed knowledge, it then becomes necessary to critique it, and
thus deconstruct the asserted knowledge. Jacques Derrida argued that to defend against the

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inevitable self-deconstruction of knowledge, systems of power, called hegemony would have
to postulate an original utterance, the logos. This "privileging" of an original utterance is
called "logocentrism". Instead of rooting knowledge in particular utterances, or "texts", the
basis of knowledge was seen to be in the free play of discourse itself, an idea rooted
in Wittgenstein's idea of a language game. This emphasis on the allowability of free play
within the context of conversation and discourse leads postmodernism to adopt the stance of
irony, paradox, textual manipulation, reference and tropes.
Armed with this process of questioning the social basis of assertions, postmodernist
philosophers began to attack unities of modernism, and particularly unities seen as being
rooted in the Enlightenment. Since Modernism had made the Enlightenment a central source
of its superiority over the Victorian and Romantic periods, this attack amounted to an indirect
attack on the establishment of modernism itself. Perhaps the most striking examples of this
skepticism are to be found in the works of French cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard. In his
book Simulations, he contends that social 'reality' no longer exists in the conventional sense,
but has been supplanted by an endless procession of simulacra. The mass media, and other
forms of mass cultural production, generate constant re-appropriation and re-
contextualisation of familiar cultural symbols and images, fundamentally shifting our
experience away from 'reality', to 'hyperreality'. Along this line, it is significant that the
beginning of postmodern architecture is not considered to be the construction of any great
building, but the destruction of the modernist Pruitt-Igoe housing project (see Minoru
Yamasaki).
Postmodernism therefore has an obvious distrust toward claims about truth, ethics, or beauty
being rooted in anything other than individual perception and group
construction. Utopian ideals of universally applicable truths or aesthetics give way to
provisional, decentered, local petit recits which, rather than referencing an underlying
universal truth or aesthetic, point only to other ideas and culturalartifacts, themselves subject
to interpretation and re-interpretation. The "truth", since it can only be understood by all of its
connections is perpetually "deferred", never reaching a point of fixed knowledge which can
be called "the truth." This emphasis on construction and consensus is often used to attack
science, as the Sokal Affair shows.
Postmodernism is often used in a larger sense, meaning the entire trend of thought in the late
20th century, and the social and philosophical realities of that period. Marxist critics argue
that post-modernism is symptomatic of "late capitalism" and the decline of institutions,
particularly the nation-state. Other thinkers assert that post-modernity is the natural reaction

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to mass broadcasting and a society conditioned to mass production and mass political
decision making. The ability of knowledge to be endlessly copied defeats attempts to
constrain interpretation, or to set "originality" by simple means such as the production of a
work. From this perspective, the schools of thought labelled "postmodern" are not as widely
at odds with their time period as the polemics and arguments appear, pointing, for example,
to the shift of the basis of scientific knowledge to a provisional consensus of scientists, as
posited by Thomas Kuhn. Post-modernism is seen, in this view, as being conscious of the
nature of the discontinuity between modern and post-modern periods which is generally
present.
Postmodernism has manifestations in many modern academic and non-academic
disciplines: philosophy, theology,art, architecture, film,television, music, theatre, sociology, f
ashion, technology, literature, and communications are all heavily influenced by postmodern
trends and ideas, and are thoroughly scrutinised from postmodern perspectives. Crucial to
these are the denial of customary expectations, the use of non-orthogonal angles in buildings
such as the work of Frank Gehry, and the shift in arts exemplified by the rise
of minimalism in art and music. Post-modern philosophy often labels itself as critical
theory and grounds the construction of identity in the mass media.
Postmodernism was first identified as a theoretical discipline in the 1980s, but as a cultural
movement it predates them by many years. Exactly when modernism began to give way to
postmodernism is difficult to pinpoint, if not simply impossible. Some theorists reject that
such a distinction even exists, viewing postmodernism, for all its claims of fragmentation and
plurality, as still existing within a larger 'modernist' framework. The philosopher Jürgen
Habermas is a strong proponent of this view, which has aspects of a lumpers/splitters
problem: is the entire 20th century one period, or two distinct periods?
The theory gained some of its strongest ground early on in French academia. In 1979 Jean-
François Lyotard wrote a short but influential work The Postmodern Condition : a report on
knowledge. Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes (in his more post-
structural work) are also strongly influential in postmodern theory. Postmodernism is closely
allied with several contemporary academic disciplines, most notably those connected with
sociology. Many of its assumptions are integral to feminist and post-colonial theory.
Some identify the burgeoning anti-establishment movements of the 1960s as the earliest trend
out of cultural modernity toward postmodernism.
Tracing it further back, some identify its roots in the breakdown of Hegelian idealism, and
the impact of both World Wars (perhaps even the concept of a World

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War). Heidegger and Derrida were influential in re-examining the fundamentals of
knowledge, together with the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and his philosophy of
action, Soren Kierkegaard's and Karl Barth's important fideist approach to theology, and even
the nihilism of Nietzsche's philosophy. Michel Foucault's application of Hegel to thinking
about the body is also identified as an important landmark. While it is rare to pin down the
specific origins of any large cultural shift, it is fair to assume that postmodernism represents
an accumulated disillusionment with the promises of the Enlightenment project and its
progress of science, so central to modern thinking.
The movement has had diverse political ramifications: its anti-ideological insights appear
conducive to, and strongly associated with, the feminist movement, racial equality
movements, gay rights movements, most forms of late 20th century anarchism, even
the peace movement and various hybrids of these in the current anti-globalization movement.
Unsurprisingly, none of these institutions entirely embraces all aspects of the postmodern
movement, but reflect or, in true postmodern style, borrow from some of its core ideas.
Postmodernism in its Manifestations:
Postmodernism in art
Where modernists hoped to unearth universals or the fundamentals of art, postmodernism
aims to unseat them, to embrace diversity and contradiction. A postmodern approach to art
thus rejects the distinction between low and high art forms. It rejects rigid genre boundaries
and favors eclecticism, the mixing of ideas and forms. Partly due to this rejection, it
promotes parody, irony, and playfulness, commonly referred to as jouissance by postmodern
theorists. Unlike modern art, postmodern art does not approach this fragmentation as
somehow faulty or undesirable, but rather celebrates it. As the gravity of the search for
underlying truth is relieved, it is replaced with 'play'. As postmodern icon David Byrne, and
his band Talking Heads said: 'Stop making sense'.
Post-modernity, in attacking the perceived elitist approach of Modernism, sought greater
connection with broader audiences. This is often labelled 'accessibility' and is a central point
of dispute in the question of the value of postmodern art. It has also embraced the mixing of
words with art, collage and other movements in modernity, in an attempt to create more
multiplicity of medium and message. Much of this centers on a shift of basic subject matter:
postmodern artists regard the mass media as a fundamental subject for art, and use forms,
tropes, and materials - such as banks of video monitors, found art, and depictions of media
objects - as focal points for their art. Andy Warhol is an early example of postmodern art in

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action, with his appropriation of common popular symbols and "ready-made" cultural
artifacts, bringing the previously mundane or trivial onto the previously hallowed ground of
high art.
Postmodernism's critical stance is interlinked with presenting new appraisals of previous
works. As implied above the works of the "Dada" movement received greater attention, as
did collagists such as Robert Rauschenberg, whose works were initially considered
unimportant in the context of the modernism of the 1950s, but who, by the 1980s, began to be
seen as seminal. Post-modernism also elevated the importance of cinema in artistic
discussions, placing it on a peer level with the other fine arts. This is both because of the
blurring of distinctions between "high" and "low" forms, and because of the recognition that
cinema represented the creation of simulacra which was later duplicated in the other arts.
Postmodernism in Language
Postmodern philosophers are often regarded as difficult to read, and the critical theory that
has sprung up in the wake of postmodernism has often been ridiculed for its stilted syntax and
attempts to combine polemical tone and a vast array of new coinages. However, similar
charges could be levelled at the works of previous eras, such as the works of Immanuel Kant,
as well as at the entire tradition of Greek thought in antiquity.
More important to postmodernism's role in language is the focus on the implied meaning of
words and forms, the power structures that are accepted as part of the way words are used,
from the use of the word "Man" with a capital "M" to refer to the collective humanity, to the
default of the word "he" in English as a pronoun for a person of gender unknown to the
speaker, or as a casual replacement for the word "one". This, however, is merely the most
obvious example of the changing relationship between diction and discourse which
postmodernism presents.
An important concept in postmodernism's view of language is the idea of "play". In the
context of postmodernism, play means changing the framework which connects ideas, and
thus allows the troping, or turning, of a metaphor or word from one context to another, or
from one frame of reference to another. Since, in postmodern thought, the "text" is a series of
"markings" whose meaning is imputed by the reader, and not by the author, this play is the
means by which the reader constructs or interprets the text, and the means by which the
author gains a presence in the reader's mind. Play then involves invoking words in a manner
which undermines their authority, by mocking their assumptions or style, or by layers of
misdirection as to the intention of the author.

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This view of writing is not without harsh detractors, who regard it as needlessly difficult and
obscure, and a violation of the implicit contract of lucidity between author and reader: that an
author has something to communicate, and shall choose words which transmit the idea as
transparently as possible to the reader. Thus postmodernism in language has often been
identified with poor writing and communication skills. The term pomobabble came to be
within pop culture to illustrate this trend.
Postmodernism in literature
Postmodern literature argues for expansion, the return of reference, the celebration of
fragmentation rather than the fear of it, and the role of reference itself in literature. While
drawing on the experimental tendencies of authors such as James Joyce and Virginia
Woolf in English, and Borges in Spanish, who were taken as influences by American
postmodern works by authors such as Thomas Pynchon ,John Barth, Don Delillo, David
Foster Wallace and Paul Auster, the advocates of post-modern literature argue that the
present is fundamentally different from the modern period, and therefore requires a new
literary sensibility.
Postmodernism and post-structuralism
In terms of frequently cited works, postmodernism and post-structuralism overlap quite
significantly. Some philosophers, such as Francois Lyotard, can legitimately be classified into
both groups. This is partly due to the fact that both modernism and structuralism owe much to
the Enlightenment project.
Structuralism has a strong tendency to be scientific in seeking out stable patterns in observed
phenomena - an epistemological attitude which is quite compatible with Enlightenment
thinking, and incompatible with postmodernists. At the same time, findings from structuralist
analysis carried a somewhat anti-Enlightenment message, revealing that rationality can be
found in the minds of 'savage' people, just in forms differing from those that people from
'civilized' societies are used to seeing. Implicit here is a critique of the practice
of colonialism, which was partly justified as a 'civilizing' process by which wealthier
societies bring knowledge, manners, and reason to less 'civilized' ones.
Post-structuralism, emerging as a response to the structuralists' scientific orientation, has kept
the cultural relativism in structuralism, while discarding the scientific orientations.
One clear difference between postmodernism and poststructuralism is found in their
respective attitudes towards the demise of the project of the Enlightenment: post-
structuralism is fundamentally ambivalent, while postmodernism is decidedly celebratory.

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Another difference is the nature of the two positions. While post-structuralism is a position in
philosophy, encompassing views on human beings, language, body, society, and many other
issues, it is not a name of an era. Post-modernism, on the other hand, is closely associated
with "post-modern" era, a period in the history coming after the modern age.
Postmodernism and its Critics
The term postmodernism is often used pejoratively to describe tendencies perceived of
as Relativist, Counter-enlightenment. Particularly in relationship to critiques
of Rationalism, Universalism or Science. Sometimes used to describe tendencies in the
society which are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of morality, particularly by
Evangelical Christians.
Charles Murray, a strong critic of postmodernism, defines the term:
"By contemporary intellectual fashion, I am referring to the constellation of views that
come to mind when one hears the words multicultural, gender, deconstruct, politically
correct, and Dead White Males. In a broader sense, contemporary intellectual fashion
encompasses as well the widespread disdain in certain circles for technology and the
scientific method. Embedded in this mind-set is hostility to the idea that
discriminating judgments are appropriate in assessing art and literature, to the idea
that hierarchies of value exist, hostility to the idea that an objective truth exists.
Postmodernism is the overarching label that is attached to this perspective."
Though Murray's arguments against postmodernism are far from facile, critics have cautioned
that Murray's own work in The Bell Curve arrives at racist conclusions through research and
argumentation that show flagrant disregard for the very standards he defends.
One example is the figure of Harold Bloom, who has simultaneously been hailed as being
against multiculturalism and contemporary "fads" in literature, and also placed as an
important figure in postmodernism. If even the critics cannot keep score as to which side of a
supposedly clear line figures stand on, the best conclusion that can be drawn is that
conclusions about membership in the post-modern club are provisional.
Central to the debate is the role of the concept of "objectivity" and what it means. In the
broadest sense, denial of objectivity is held to be the post-modern position, and hostility
towards claims advanced on the basis of objectivity its defining feature. It is this
underlying hostility toward the concept of objectivity, evident in many
contemporary critical theorists, that is the common point of attack for critics of
postmodernism. Many critics characterise postmodernism as an ephemeral phenomenon
that cannot be adequately defined simply because, as a philosophy at least, it represents

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nothing more substantial than a series of disparate conjectures allied only in their
distrust of modernism.
This antipathy of postmodernists towards modernism, and their consequent tendency to
define themselves against it, has also attracted criticism. It has been argued that
modernity was not actually a lumbering, totalizing monolith at all, but in fact was itself
dynamic and ever-changing; the evolution, therefore, between 'modern' and 'postmodern'
should be seen as one of degree, rather than of kind - a continuation rather than a 'break'.
One theorist who takes this view is Marshall Berman, whose book All That is Solid
Melts into Air (a quote from Marx) reflects in its title the fluid nature of 'the experience
of modernity'.
As noted above (see History of postmodernism), some theorists such as Habermas even
argue that the supposed distinction between the 'modern' and the 'postmodern' does not
exist at all, but that the latter is really no more than a development within a larger, still-
current, 'modern' framework. Many who make this argument are left academics
with Marxist leanings, such as  Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, and David Harvey
(philosopher), who are concerned that postmodernism's undermining of Enlightenment
values makes a progressive cultural politics difficult, if not impossible. How can we
effect any change in people's poor living conditions, in inequality and injustice, if we
don't accept the validity of underlying universals such as the 'real world' and 'justice' in
the first place? How is any progress to be made through a philosophy so profoundly
skeptical of the very notion of progress, and of unified perspectives? The critics charge
that the postmodern vision of a tolerant, pluralist society in which every political
ideology is perceived to be as valid, or as redundant, as the other; may ultimately
encourage individuals to lead lives of a rather disastrous apathetic quietism. This
reasoning leads Habermas to compare postmodernism with conservatism and the
preservation of the status quo.
Such critics often argue that, in actual fact, such postmodern premises are rarely, if ever,
actually embraced — that if they were, we would be left with nothing more than a
crippling radical subjectivism. That the projects of the Enlightenment and modernity are
alive and well can be seen in the justice system, in science, in political rights
movements, in the very idea of universities; and so on.
To some critics, there seems, indeed, to be a glaring contradiction in maintaining the
death of objectivity and privileged position on one hand, while the scientific community
continues a project of unprecedented scope to unify various scientific disciplines into

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a theory of everything, on the other. Hostility toward hierarchies of value and objectivity
becomes similarly problematic when post-modernity itself attempts to analyse such
hierarchies with, apparently, some measure of objectivity and make categorical
statements concerning them.
Such critics see postmodernism as, essentially, a kind of semantic gamesmanship, more
sophistry than substance. Postmodernism's proponents are often criticised for a tendency
to indulge in exhausting, verbose stretches of rhetorical gymnastics, which critics feel
sound important but are ultimately meaningless. (Some postmodernists may argue that
this is precisely the point.) In the Sokal Affair,Alan Sokal, a physicist, wrote a
deliberately nonsensical article purportedly about interpreting physics and mathematics
in terms of postmodern theory, which was nevertheless published by the Left-
leaning Social Text, a journal which he and most of the scientific community considered
as postmodernist. Notable among Sokal's false arguments published in Social Text was
that the value of π changed over time and that the strength of Earth's gravity was relative
to the observer. Sokal claimed this highlighted the postmodern tendency to value
rhetoric and verbal gamesmanship over serious meaning. Sokal also co-
wrote Fashionable Nonsense, which criticizes the inaccurate use of scientific
terminology in intellectual writing and finishes with a critique of some forms of
postmodernism. Ironically, postmodern literature often self-consciously plays on
the format and structure of scientific writing, emphasizing the distinction between the
complex content of the world and its understanding in written form. To borrow a phrase
from René Magritte, some postmodern literature and art says "This is not a pipe",
pointing out that the form of technical writing is not necessarily connected to
its content. The Sokal affair also generated political controversy, with conservative
pundits parading it as proof of the irrelevance of the academic left, while leftists
criticized Sokal of serving a conservative agenda. Sokal, meanwhile, identified himself
as an "unabashed Old Leftist."
Some critics feel that postmodernism is so strongly linked to politics that it does not
qualify as a philosophy. These critics claim that, inasmuch as many postmodernist
arguments rely on charges of racism and ethnocentrism in traditional Western science, it
is little more than an attempt by postmodernists to impose their own political agenda on
the sciences. Meanwhile, other critics claim that postmodernism is nothing but a new
trend of solipsism, and a complete withdrawal from the political sphere.

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 Whatever its philosophical value, postmodern phenomena can be observed in nearly all
areas of Western capitalist cultures, and a postmodern theoretical approach can help
explain much of this cultural condition, irrespective of whether it offers a coherent,
functional epistemology.

Bibliography
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