Postmodernism

Postmodernism, at its best, stands for multiculturalism, decentralization of power, and the emergence of new foci of power other than the white heterosexual male paradigm. At its worst, postmodernism degenerates into a New Age naïveté and shallowness that tells us "don't worry, be happy", "we create our own reality", and that promotes notions of "free choice" and "liberty" stripped of any analysis of power imbalances or historical context.

To assert that postmodern approaches are the correct way of viewing the world would violate the associated assumptions of postmodernism itself. Such an assertion would involve context stripping, holding that a single best approach exists for all questions, circumstances, and knowers.

Since we have no clear idea what modernity is, we have recently begun to escape the issue by talking about post-modernity (an extension or an imitation of the somewhat older expressions "post-industrial society", "post-capitalism", etc). And what might come after the "post-modern"? The neo-post-modern? Or will we still be in the continually-moving modern, with this present conveniently named something like the "techno-secular" period and consigned to the past?

The surest sign of the death of the Modern is the loss of confidence among its elites, and in the absence of belief in which they are all the more afraid of new ideas or popular insurgencies.

Often used in very different contexts, the term designates the emergence of a complex of new factors which, widespread and powerful as they are, have shown themselves able to produce important and lasting changes. The term was first used with reference to aesthetic, social and technological phenomena. It was then transposed into the philosophical field, but has remained somewhat ambiguous, both because judgement on what is called "postmodern" is sometimes positive and sometimes negative, and because there is as yet no consensus on the delicate question of the demarcation of the different historical periods. One thing however is certain: the currents of thought which claim to be postmodern merit appropriate attention. According to some of them, the time of certainties is irrevocably past, and the human being must now learn to live in a horizon of total absence of meaning, where everything is provisional and ephemeral. In their destructive critique of every certitude, several authors have failed to make crucial distinctions and have called into question the certitudes of faith. (Papal Encyclical, Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998).

Postmodernism does reject the notion of any single objective "truth" leading to ultimate enlightenment and so on, but there is still an acceptance, indeed the promotion, of many subjective "truths" rather than none at all. Truth thus becomes contextually reliant rather than all-encompassing.