2. Characteristics of Postmodernism: facts and falsehoods are interchangeable
Because one of the characteristics of postmodernism is that there is no absolute truth, a natural outgrowth of this thinking is that facts and falsehoods are interchangeable. What is accepted as truth today could easily be proven wrong tomorrow, and vice versa.
3. Characteristics of Postmodernism: frustrated with modern thinking
Postmoderns are typically very frustrated with the modern generation’s inability to deliver on their promises of peace, advancement, and knowledge. The modern generation’s failure to accomplish their goals has caused postmoderns to harbor a great deal of distrust in the ideals of moderns.
4. Characteristics of Postmodernism: rationalization is the norm
Because of the scientific method’s shortcomings in resolving the problems of the world, postmoderns’ distrust of what is presented as fact has led them to embrace opinion as the driving force of thought. One of the primary characteristics of postmodernism is therefore that if a person can rationalize their understanding or opinion, it is worthwhile and as true as is possible for the postmodern thinker.
5. Characteristics of Postmodernism: global community more important than nationalism
Rationalization, frustration, and the thinking that there is no truth beyond personal and corporate opinion has resulted in the postmodern tendency toward the belief that the global good is more important than national interests.
6. Characteristics of Postmodernism: all religions deserve equal recognition
One of the most controversial characteristics of postmodernism is the idea the all religions are equally valid. If, as postmodern thinking dictates, there is no absolute truth, then no one religion offers a “right” way. If no religion is true, then all religions are equally false, or equally valid, depending on the person’s point of view.
7. Characteristics of Postmodernism: morality is individualistic
If there is no true religion, and if there is no absolute truth, then each person’s ideas about morality are also equally false or valid. This characteristic is most clearly seen in the common statement, “it’s right for me.” Every person’s morality belongs to them alone, and morality that is imposed by another, whether by religion, government, or another person, and anything that claims to be absolute truth is to be distrusted
10/10/13
I have some good news—kick back, relax, enjoy the rest of the summer, stop worrying about where your life is and isn’t heading. What news? Well, on 24th September, we can officially and definitively declare that postmodernism is dead. Finished. History. A difficult period in human thought over and done with. How do I know this? Because that is the date when the Victoria and Albert Museum opens what it calls “the first comprehensive retrospective” in the world: “Postmodernism—Style and Subversion 1970-1990.”
Wait, I hear you cry. How do they know? And what was it? Postmodernism—I didn’t understand it. I never understood it. How can it be over?
You are not alone. If there’s one word that confuses, upsets, angers, beleaguers, exhausts and contaminates us all, then it is postmodernism. And yet, properly understood, postmodernism is playful, intelligent, funny and fascinating. From Grace Jones to Lady Gaga, from Andy Warhol to Gilbert and George, from Paul Auster to David Foster Wallace, its influence has been everywhere and continues. It has been the dominant idea of our age.
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