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Jason Courtoy
HIST 4312
Postmodernism Essay
What is the nature of Postmodernism?
Postmodernism was a development that came out of the end of World War II and
the failures of modernism. With the end of World War I, the world saw the failure of the
systems of democracy, socialism, capitalism, and communism. By the end of World War II,
the world saw the large Fascist empires of Germany and Italy tumble to the ground. In
addition, in 1989 the Berlin wall and the Warsaw Pact fell apart spelling the failure again of
the communist system of government's survivability. These failures caused major events
in various cities such as Prague against the Stalinist Soviet system, the student riots against
De Gaulle's France, and the Yippies and Students for a Democratic Society protests in
Chicago against the Vietnam War. Though in the United States these mass protests lead to
the decline of the Leftist philosophy, in Europe it allowed for the development of a "New
Left" because the Left was left behind by both democrats and communists. These events
called into question the tenets of modernism and the idea of modernity. This critique on
modernism and modernity would later be called Postmodernism.
In order to understand the tenets of Postmodernism effectively, it is necessary to
contrast the tenets of modernism. The three main tenets discussed in class are rationalism,
freedom, and social norms or being normal. In order for this essay to be effective, I will
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remain with these three tenets but will expand upon these with the readings from
Cahoone's book. In addition, I will explain the consequences of the Postmodernist critique.
Rationalism, in modernism, is the ability for human and universal knowledge (i.e.,
the capital ‘T’ Truth) to figure things out. This comes in all forms, such as the ability of
technology or science to understand all things. There is the creation of the ‘professional’
that is supposed to be objective or non-biased in his discovery of knowledge, and in
teaching it. In Postmodernist's eyes, this is ridiculous; humans cannot find the capital ‘T’
Truth because it does not exist. There is no universal Truth. Jacques Derrida on her
discourse on "Differance" explains that the problem with trying to understand Truth is that
there are too many. The Postmodernist argument is that theories, such as the Big Bang
Theory, are good answers, but they are just one amongst the many others and neither are
better than the others. Michel Foucault explains that Truth is not universal because those
in power control and manipulate the Truth. "Each society has its regime of truth, its
'general politics of truth." (Foucault 252) In "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History", Foucault
attacks Rationalism in his three misuses of history. The point of his three misuses of
history is that Rationalism says that professionals can be non-bias or neutral in their
observations of their fields. Foucault attacks this by stating, "Knowledge does not slowly
detach itself from its empirical roots, the initial needs from which it arose, to become pure
speculation subject only to the demands of reason." (251) In this statement, he is saying
that knowledge can never detach itself from the human perspective.
Hilary Putnam in her essay "Is There Still Anything to Say About Reality and Truth?"
goes over the idea of chair that has been discussed repeatedly in class. Her argument about
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chair starts with a simple math calculation. Objects calculated in one math system to
another come out with the same right answer, but different results (e.g., that in base 10
math 10+10=20 but in base 5 10+10=40). His argument on the chair is that in the same
world if a chair is colored (brown) or has certain properties (rectangular) then is it not a
chair if the color is green and its square. Putnam states, "To require that all of these must
be reducible to a single version is to make the mistake of supposing that 'Which are the real
objects?' is a question that makes sense independently of our choice of concepts." (599) In
other words, to limit that a chair is only a chair because it has such and such properties is a
mistake. Moreover, we have to accept that there are other Truths, besides scientific
knowledge or religion.
Essential to modernism is freedom of the self, the ability of an individual to do
things or figure things out by way of free will. Postmodernism rejects this in expressing the
structuralist and post structuralist notion that everyone is part of mega-structure or
overarching structure. Moreover, an overwhelming number of these various structures
conform and shape one's actions to the point that free will is no longer attainable, since free
will is determined by these structures. Thomas Kuhn's in "The Nature and Necessity of
Scientific Revolutions" explains that the individual does not control science, instead it is the
scientific community or structure that controls what science is. It is the community that
decides whether a scientist becomes employed; is published; and how and what s/he
studies.
Jean-Francois Lyotard, in "The Postmodern Condition", examines the notion of the
metanarrative or as he terms it the grand narratives. The purpose of the grand narrative is
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to legitimize the state, religious leaders, etc. He goes on to explain that after World War II
with the failure of capitalism, communism, and fascism the grand narrative no longer
supplied legitimacy to those in power. Essentially there is "no longer [a need for]...recourse
to the grand narratives." (Lyotard 269) What replaces the metanarrative, in Lyotard's eyes,
is power. The reason being that technology (which is the chief concern of industrial
societies after World War II) is concerned chiefly with efficiency. Through technologies,
creation, recreation, and redevelopment; power becomes a self-legitimizing force. Lyotard
later combines technology and power together because they are so intertwined that he
uses both interchangeably. The roles of science and power or technology are switched with
the creation of greater ability to store data and connection of research with technology,
power becomes dominate to science. Lyotard states "research funds are allocated by
States, corporations, and nationalized companies in accordance with this logic of power
growth." (269) The switch that he explains later on, between power being superior to
science, is seen today in that scientists seek results faster and more efficiently as they strive
for research grants. If scientists do not meet expectations or the deadline, their project is
simply scrapped and the money goes elsewhere.
Foucault in "Truth and Power" expresses this same link between power and Truth.
"'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it,
and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. [This is] a regime of truth."
(Foucault 253) This 'regime of truth' is meant to explain the connection that power has to
truth. Truth is eternally linked with science it is the product of science and its institutions.
Therefore the distinction between true and false, the rules that govern society are Truth.
Essential to Foucault's argument is that power and truth are inseparable in their current
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understanding or state. Therefore, whoever controls power in society, whether that is a
political leader, religious leader, corporation, etc, controls the capital “T” Truth, as well as
what society sees as true and false. The only solution that he sees is to detach power from
truth, but not from the whole system instead only from the "forms of hegemony" (Foucault
253).
Social norms, as defined by sociology, are social behaviors that are expected to be
adhered to by a member of a society. Modernism saw social norms as universal (e.g., in
that British wanted to civilize the barbaric Germans); they felt that all social norms were
universal in Western Europe. The Postmodernist explicitly say no this is cultural, though
they would not say it exactly, but social norms are all relative. Social norms are controlled
by the overarching structure of society. Therefore, whichever group is in power
establishes what the social norms are. Most of this thought comes from the feminist
thinkers of the time, but not entirely. Foucault in “Madness and Civilization” explains the
history of insanity; how it developed, what it is, etc. In it, he establishes that insanity is a
cultural definition because to be insane there has to be a definition of sane. The definition
of sane or normalcy comes from the dominant culture defining what they see as normal
behavior. Therefore, if public nudity is normal behavior then not being nude in public
makes you insane. The development of the notion of insanity comes from the creation or
building of the insane asylum, in the past those considered insane might be considered
genius’ (e.g., Van Gogh, cutting his hear off).
Luce Irigaray in “The Sex Which is Not One” explains that the dominant norm, that
women should not be sexual, or the way in which they have sex (e.g., intercourse), is a
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masculine structure. She describes it, as “penis envy” (Irigaray 254), that the reason
women are to be attracted to such a thing is that they envy not having one. She destroys
this by identifying that women have multitudes of pleasure places, and like Hilary Putnam
to limit women’s desires to just one area is to miss everything. The point Irigaray is making
is that women are dominated by men, in what they are to do, how they are to act, etc all of
which is defined by men. Her use of the allegorical notions of women’s sexual desires is
only to show that women have no power within the system, their only means is to be slaves
to a masochistic world. She points that to fix this, women must become active politically,
stand for women’s rights, and separate themselves from men because only then can they
become truly equal and separate from the dominant structure of masculinity.
Iris Marion Young in “The Scaling of Bodies and the Politics of Identity” goes on from
Irigaray’s concern with gender roles to attack the notion of ‘respectability. In this section,
she describes two groups: the cultural imperialist group and the minorities. The key for
her of understanding the cultural imperialist group is that they do not have to define
themselves as part of the group (they are invisible). Her main relation in these groups is
between genders (men and women), but she also holds that the cultural imperialist group
perpetuates racism, ageism, etc. Young goes on to say that:
Mosse shows how the virtues of respectability were primarily virtues of manliness.
The primary virtue of manliness is self-mastery . . . [through this] only he who
achieves [it] is truly rational, competent, and deserving of positions of authority.
(373)
The point Young is making is that to be respectable (both male and female) is to be manly
or masculine. Bourgeois males define what social norms are and are not, and what is
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considered professional or respectable. One can see this today with the creation of the
female business suit, in that it looks remarkably similar to a male business suit.
Henry A. Giroux in his discourse on education, “Towards a Postmodern Pedagogy”,
describes a remedy for American democracies lack of political and ethical education. He
establishes nine points of what he termed “critical pedagogy” should be about. Four of
these points are that: first, teaching needs to be understood as creating political adults;
second, ethical discourse; third, teaching needs to be cynical or skeptical of anything that
identifies itself as knowing the capital ‘T’ Truth; and fourth, a combination of feminist
postmodernist concerns of racism, sexism, etc. His chief concern is that the social norm of
the United States was one of political de-activism. His discourse on education was an
attempt to fix the problem and to provide an example as to what could be provided to
politically active regions like Post-communist Eastern Europe. Richard Rorty in “Solidarity
or Objectivity?” expresses a defense of Liberal Democracy, much the same as Giroux does,
but rather through the idea of solidarity or ‘usness’. This is a chief concern of
Postmodernists, the since that we cannot fully know that there is a metaphysical, what we
do have is ourselves or ‘us’. Rorty main addition to this discussion is that he sees no
problem in absolute truths, mainly because he sees that in the future there might be better
truths. Therefore, the notion is that it is all we know now (but it does not mean it is the
true answer).
The consequences of Postmodernism are various, but can all be summed up in one
issue. Postmodernism’s rejection of the universal capital ‘T’ Truths in some aspects is good,
but the problem is that Postmodernism leaves it as a void. Unlike other intellectual
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changes, Postmodernism does not provide a replacement for the loss of these absolute
truths. This leaves each individual to define for himself what is true and false for him/her.
This is detrimental to religious ideology in that it creates a pick and chose notion, that if
one does not like that feature then do not follow it. This is problematic because then the
purpose of religion is to justify oneself rather than to glorify or worship the metaphysical.
This also leads to cultural issues and wars between what is true or false, serial killers like
Ted Bundy or Timothy McVey might see their actions as the Truth and everyone else is
wrong. The cultural war or what Samuel Huntington called the ‘Clash of Civilizations’,
creates problems because everyone is right relatively. However, no one is wrong, except in
the eyes of those other cultures. The major issue is that truths if left to human imagination
are countless, and if humans are really left to a power struggle over structural control, then
we really do live in a Hobbesian ‘State of Nature’.
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Works Citied
Foucault, Michel. "Nietzsche, Genealogy, history." Cahoone, Lawrence. From Modernism to
Postmodernism. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 251.
Foucault, Michel. "Truth and Power." Cahoone, Lawrence. From Modernism to Postmodernism. Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 252, 253.
Irigaray, Luce. "The Sex Which is Not One." Cahoone, Lawrence. From Modernism to Postmodernism.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 254.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. "The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge." Cahoone, Lawrence. From
Modernism to Postmodernism. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 269.
Putnam, Hilary. "Is There Still Anything to Say about Reality and Truth?." Cahoone, Lawrence. From
Modernism to Postmodernism. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 599.
Young, Iris Marion. "The Scaling of Bodies and the Politics of Identity." Cahoone, Lawrence. From
Modernism to Postmodernism. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 373.