Postmodernism

What is postmodernism? What is modernism? Which am I? These are all good questions. Both modernism and postmodernism are ways of looking at the world, and they are philosophical issues as well. They relate to basic questions about the world yet, most of us do not think of them much in our daily lives. Modernism dates from the Renaissance and has shaped the way most of us think, although, as McCloskey (1983) points out with reference to intuitive physics, not all of the time. Modernism emerged from medieval thought (see Lecture Suggestion 2-2 "Medieval Thought" above). Modernist scientists believe that one reality exists, and that science is the process of uncovering that reality. In other words, reality is "out there" for them to find.

Postmodernism first appeared as artists struggled to rid themselves of high art, and of notions of the artist as genius. In literature, ideas about the meaning of texts changed as a result of postmodernism (deconstructionism). In science, postmodernism led to questions about the validity of data in relationship to the collector of these data. Such questions then led to the positing of multiple realities, realities constructed by scientists themselves. Further, those realities could be sub-divided by the gender, race, ethnicity, or culture of the scientist. In other words, postmodernist accounts of science state that reality is inseparable from the discoverer or constructor of that reality. So, for example, a woman may be able to discuss certain issues that a man could not, childbirth, for example. While I have attended two childbirths, I could not say that I had the same experience as my wife. Or, examine the question of race. Can a white, middle class male really put himself in the place of a black man or woman? Postmodernists would say not. Only black men or women could do so. Or again, look at cross-cultural issues. Some psychology has been historically based on American culture, and more precisely, American middle-class culture. Can we generalize to a world of subjects from such a database? The postmodernist reply is no.

In a sense, postmodernism has crept up on us unawares. Social concerns about racial issues and feminism, for instance, are postmodern. Concerns about immigration quotas and multi-culturalism are also postmodern and have supplanted the old, modern metaphor of America as melting pot. But, we have yet to see the full effect of the postmodern movement because it has just started.

Compare postmodernism and modernism to medieval thought and modernism. In the Renaissance, new technologies and discoveries spurred a complete and total change in Europe. Today, new technologies and discoveries may be doing to modernism what they did to medieval thought. Once again, the pace of life is changing. Modernism accelerated that pace, and now postmodernism is moving that pace to exponential levels. Where, in the Middle Ages, stasis was supplanted by change, today, change is being supplanted by hyperchange. We now have come to expect new technologies and discoveries as a matter of course. Look, for example, at the process of buying a computer. Many hesitate because they see last year's models look, this year, like dinosaurs. What to do? Should one buy now, or wait? But, such a strategy is doomed, because, unlike past technologies, computer technology is not likely to stabilize soon. Rather, we can expect ever faster, ever more capable machines. Look in the news, every week some new and startling scientific discovery is announced, a new result from the human genome project, or, this last week, the "top quark." When will it stop? It will not, welcome to postmodernism.

So we may be just like the denizens of the Middle Ages staring at the new books, the new peoples, the news of Jupiter's moons, and the rise of new kinds of jobs and the disappearance of old ones. Get ready.

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