# What the -bleep- is Postmodernism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 18, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717 "2010-06-18T22:11:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/1 "2010-06-18T22:11:15Z")
As a layman in the fields of Philosophy, I would be very grateful for an easy (if one) explanation of the term Postmodernism and what it entails? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/2 "2010-06-19T00:20:42Z")
> [@scamartistry](#): > > As a layman in the fields of Philosophy, I would be very grateful for an easy (if one) explanation of the term Postmodernism and what it entails? > > Thanks! IIRC, the idea is that we can unpack plenty of seemingly objective claims to spot what’s _ **really** _ going on. So while a modernist philosopher hopes to address a proposed moral justification in terms of the answers he figures actually stem from applying dispassionate reason to reality, a postmodernist philosopher has already rejected that course of action (a) by figuring there _ **are** _ no such answers, (b) instead concentrating on why that obviously incorrect claim is getting pushed in the first place: are unexamined assumptions getting a pass because folks with a vested stake in the status quo are propagandizing as best they can to prop up society’s existing power structures? What oddities are built into language to make assorted conclusions seem obvious, given a typical upbringing in this or that culture? Which apparently rational conclusions are secretly being driven by powerful urges that often go unnoticed by folks who cheerfully remain in denial? That sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/3 "2010-06-19T00:49:34Z")
Excellent answer! What are generally considered the Pros and Cons with this worldview? If its even appropriate to phrase a question that way. (another way of putting it…what does the nay-sayers say?) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/4 "2010-06-19T01:04:06Z")
> [@scamartistry](#): > > another way of putting it…what does the nay-sayers say? In my experience, the discussion usually bogs down pretty quickly at the outset when a number of folks start pointing out that “we can’t know anything” _ **is** _ a statement that we in fact _ **do** _ know something; either the budding postmodernists get flustered as they keep trying to float statements about how “objectivity is impossible” without sounding subjective, or talking in non-contextual terms about how truth is contextual, and so on – or they quickly start retreating to a This Claim Can’t Be Proven Or Disproven position, usually right as the folks on the _ **other** _ side start doing the same for straight-up modernist claims, whereupon the whole thing rapidly shifts into a meta-debate about which side gets to win by default. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/5 "2010-06-19T02:14:06Z")
With your username you don’t know? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/6 "2010-06-19T02:30:12Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Which apparently rational conclusions are secretly being driven by powerful urges that often go unnoticed by folks who cheerfully remain in denial? Isn’t this a Freudian and, therefore, Modernist notion? Freud was a quack, but I don’t know that we can put him in the Postmodernist school simply because of that. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/7 "2010-06-19T02:50:18Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Isn’t this a Freudian and, therefore, Modernist notion? It’s also an entirely Nietzschean, and, therefore, arguably, just as Post-Modernist a notion. So what matters is how it’s applied. A good Modernist simply wants to take those urges (and so on) into account as a means to an end: so they’ll stop getting in the way of coming to grips with objective reality. A good Post-Modernist, by contrast, wants to emphasize that all we’ve _ **got** _ are goodies like that: remove all the irrationalities and preconceptions and subjective quirks that come from biological urges and cultural upbringing or whatever and objective reality is still as elusive as ever. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/8 "2010-06-19T03:18:28Z")
> [@scamartistry](#): > > What are generally considered the Pros and Cons with this worldview? Well, for pros, it tends to be pretty unconflicted. Nobody much argues over postmodernist ideas except for people who really, really care about that little idea. Which mostly means academics. There are big downsides. postmodernists produce nothing of use. At the end of the day, it’s so much intellectual masturbation. postmodernists can talk about how our biases render all conclusions useless - but they don’t produce wealth, knowledge, or even any useful analysis. Postmodernist academic fields it tends to be _heavily_ Leftist to the point of insanity. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/9 "2010-06-19T04:24:36Z")
For a readable but erudite book on postmodernism more as a style (architectural, etc.) and as an economic trend (flexible accumulation, etc.), but all with connections to postmodernism as a social science approach and perhaps something approaching a “philosophy”, I recommend neo-Marxist geographer David Harvey’s c. 1990 book\* The Condition of Postmodernity\*. One cool thing about the book is how he traces much of this to global economic shifts that occurred right around 1973-1974. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/10 "2010-06-19T04:32:11Z")
Post-modernists do not have as much fun as …looking up technical term…oh, yeah: Normal People. The Modernist can have a big, juicy burger while enjoying a Packer game at Shorty’s Brat House. The Post-modernist can do that, too, BUT he can’t enjoy it-- he has to step back out of the experience and analyze why. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/11 "2010-06-19T05:54:14Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Post-modernists do not have as much fun as …looking up technical term…oh, yeah: Normal People. > > The Modernist can have a big, juicy burger while enjoying a Packer game at Shorty’s Brat House. The Post-modernist can do that, too, BUT he can’t enjoy it-- he has to step back out of the experience and analyze why. Yeah, but a lot of modernists (who are not “Normal People” either) will enjoy that burger even less. They are going to be too worried that it will destroy the planet or something. The post-modernist won’t care about that (or, at least, be will try trying very hard not to care - that is what all that analysis stuff is about, to persuade yourself that nothing matters, even if it does, because anything can mean anything anyway). Actually I think the post-modernists get a lot of giggly fun out of teasing the modernists about taking things, even serious things, seriously. That, indeed, may be the main attraction of the movement. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/12 "2010-06-19T05:59:42Z")
“It’s po-mo! [blank stares from all] Post-modern! [more staring] Yeah, all right – weird for the sake of weird.” -Moe Szyslak, the Simpsons ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/13 "2010-06-19T11:56:55Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > There are big downsides. postmodernists produce nothing of use. At the end of the day, it’s so much intellectual masturbation. postmodernists can talk about how our biases render all conclusions useless - but they don’t produce wealth, knowledge, or even any useful analysis. Got to give 'em points for their go-to move of self-referential emphasis – as with books and films where the characters in a story refer in passing to being characters in a story, drawing attention to the storytelling clichés being trotted out amidst the occasional reminder of who authors are and why they make various choices. In small doses, it can be quite good. In larger doses – actually, “intellectual masturbation” maybe summed it up neatly. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/14 "2010-06-19T16:21:52Z")
To go back to the OP, putting postmodernism into philosophy is the wrong way of thinking about it in the first place. It’s a cultural term. A multicultural term, in fact. (That’s a pun.) Each area of the arts and humanities has a postmodernist movement, but their meaning and evolution have diverged widely over the decades. (Their origins, too. We’ve had several threads arguing over the start of postmodernism in literature and who belongs on which side of the divide.) I normally don’t do this, but the article on [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmoderism) is a good introduction to the enormous range of meanings and subjects that postmodernism is applied to. It started earlier than most people realize and may very well have ended. (We’ve also had threads on whether we are in a post-postmodernist era and what that might mean.) We’ve had so many threads on this and virtually every other subject that scamartistry has started a thread on that I’d strongly suggest a better use of the Search function. After reading a few relevant threads the OPs could be better focused and not as general and impossible to answer. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/15 "2010-06-19T19:19:37Z")
Postmodernism, by definition, is something that hasn’t happened yet. Right now is “modern”; post-modern would therefore be some time after right now. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/16 "2010-06-19T20:15:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Postmodernism, by definition, is something that hasn’t happened yet. Right now is “modern”; post-modern would therefore be some time after right now. Nope, sorry, not true. Words don’t always mean what their parts mean. A polar bear is not any bear with an axis of rotation. Words can also have more than one meaning. “Modern” is not only a synonym for “contemporary.” It also means _related to modernism,_ which is a specific movement in art and philosophy that is no longer current. The movement that succeeded modernism in art and philosophy is postmodernism. I remember hearing an essay on NPR in the last year about how an artist or art historian was sick of hearing people on home design shows, people who know about art and design and presumably know better, describing contemporary furniture and architecture as “modern.” Architecture that is modern in a design sense is most definitely not modern in the ordinary sense; it looks quite dated and even kitschy. Both senses are in the dictionary; which one is meant depends on context. ---
**Author:** ![Oly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oly/32/8255_2.png) [@Oly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oly)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/17 "2010-06-20T15:10:51Z")
I have come to think of it like this: Premodern: The way the world is is absolute, revealed and set in stone. Modern: The way the world is is absolute and set in stone, but not revealed. We have to try to figure it out. And figure it out we can. Postmodern: The way the world is may be absoulte and may be set in stone, but whether it is or isn’t we can never really figure out; so all we are left with is people’s attempts to figure it out, and while those attempts don’t tell us anything “true” about how the world is, they might tell us something about the people who made the attempts. Of course, this is just my attempt to figure it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/18 "2010-06-20T15:25:32Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Nope, sorry, not true. Words don’t always mean what their parts mean. A polar bear is not any bear with an axis of rotation. … I beg to differ. Polar bears are bears with an asymmetric electric charge. Rotation has nothing to do with it. d&r ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/19 "2010-06-20T15:54:34Z")
> [@Oly](#): > > I have come to think of it like this: > > Premodern: The way the world is is absolute, revealed and set in stone. > > Modern: The way the world is is absolute and set in stone, but not revealed. We have to try to figure it out. And figure it out we can. > > Postmodern: The way the world is may be absoulte and may be set in stone, but whether it is or isn’t we can never really figure out; so all we are left with is people’s attempts to figure it out, and while those attempts don’t tell us anything “true” about how the world is, they might tell us something about the people who made the attempts. > > Of course, this is just my attempt to figure it. Let me just add quick mention of Nietzsche’s HISTORY OF AN ERROR, “How The ‘TRUE WORLD’ Finally Became A Fable”: > [@](#): > > ``` > 1. The true world -- unattainable but for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man; he lives in it, he is it. > > (The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple and persuasive. A circumlocution for the sentence, "I, Plato, am the truth.") > > 2. The true world -- unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man ("for the sinner who repents"). > > (Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, insidious, incomprehensible -- it becomes female, it becomes Christian.) > > 3. The true world -- unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but the very thought of it -- a consolidation, an obligation, an imperative. > > (At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Konigsbergian) > > 4. The true world -- unattainable? At any rate, unattained, and being unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us? > > (Gray morning, The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism) > > 5. The "true" world -- an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating -- an idea which has become useless and superfluous -- consequently a refuted idea: let us abolish it! > > (Bright day; breakfast: return of bon sens and cheer-fulness; Plato's embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.) > > 6. The true world -- we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we also have abolished the apparent one. > > (Noon: moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.') > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717/20 "2010-06-20T16:13:37Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Post-modernists do not have as much fun as …looking up technical term…oh, yeah: Normal People. > > The Modernist can have a big, juicy burger while enjoying a Packer game at Shorty’s Brat House. The Post-modernist can do that, too, BUT he can’t enjoy it-- he has to step back out of the experience and analyze why. Wouldn’t the Donut Burger, that thing associated with Luther Vandross, be a kind of Post-modern burger? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-bleep-is-postmodernism/543717.md?page=2)