Postmodernity: What It Is And What Philosophy Characterizes It
To explain and understand the social transformations that we are going through, in Western societies we have generated different frameworks of knowledge, which include different concepts and theories. This is how we have generated and divided the history of ideas from branches that generally go from the origins. from Greek philosophy to the present day.
The latter, the current era, has been named in many and very different ways, among which is the concept of postmodernity In this article we will see some definitions of this term, as well as some of its main characteristics.
Postmodernity is the concept that refers to the state or sociocultural climate that Western societies are currently going through. The latter includes a subjective and intellectual dimension, but also has to do with political and economic organization, as well as artistic activity And it is so because all of them refer to the different phenomena that are configured in our societies, and that at the same time make our societies configured.
On the other hand, it is called “postmodernity” or “postmodernity” because the prefix “post” makes it possible to establish breaking points with the previous era, which we know as “modernity.” This means that it is not that modernity has ended, but rather that it has been traversed: there are some global elements that have had important transformations, so some local and subjective phenomena have also been transformed
Furthermore, the use of this prefix also implies that postmodernity does not go against modernity, but that in its synthesis the stage of modernity is necessary, although it goes beyond this category.
Questioning metanarratives
It must be taken into account, however, that The concept of postmodernism originally referred to an artistic and cultural movement, more than political. However, it served as an inspiration for social movements that incorporated the questioning of metanarratives (explanations of the functioning of society with a claim to universalism) into their way of approaching politics.
Furthermore, since it is such an ambiguous concept (because its core idea is a type of radicalized relativism), there cannot be consensus on what it means to be postmodern. This implies that beyond the criticism of the concept of universal truth, there is not much else that the postmodern elements of society have in common; Not even the idea that all narratives are equally valid is accepted by the entire postmodern movement.
So, if there is something that characterizes the postmodern movement, it is questioning meta-narratives, which are something like hegemonic ways of interpreting ideologies and ways of conceiving reality and historical events. From this philosophy, we tend to view with skepticism the ways of thinking that try to explain everything, offering closed theories about what happens in the world.
Postmodernity or postmodernism?
The difference between both concepts is that the first refers to the cultural state and how the institutions and ways of life that were characteristic of modernity have been modified, giving rise to new processes and ways of life.
The second concept, that of postmodernism, refers to the new ways of understanding the world in terms of knowledge production
In other words, the first concept makes a clearer reference to changes in the social and cultural configuration; while the second refers to changes in the way of generating knowledge, which involves new epistemological paradigms that impact scientific or artistic production, and that ultimately impact subjectivities.
To put it even more briefly, the term “postmodernity” refers to a sociocultural situation of a specific era, which is that of end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st (dates vary depending on the author). And the term “postmodernism” refers to an attitude and an epistemic position (to generate knowledge), which is also a result of the sociocultural situation of the same time.
The beginnings of postmodernism vary depending on the reference, the author or the specific tradition that is analyzed. There are those who say that postmodernism is not a different era, but rather an update or extension of modernity itself. The truth is that the boundaries between one and the other are not completely clear. However, we can consider different events and processes that were relevant to generate important transformations.
1. Political-economic dimension: globalization
The term “postmodernity” differs from the term globalization in that the former accounts for the cultural and intellectual state and the latter accounts for the organization and global expansion of capitalism as an economic system, and democracy as a political system
However, both are related concepts that have different meeting points. And this is because postmodernity has begun in part with the process of political and economic transformation that has generated what we can call “postindustrial societies.” Societies where production relations went from being industry-centered to being primarily focused on technology management and communication.
For its part, globalization, whose rise is present in postmodernity, refers to the global expansion of capitalism Among other things, the latter has had as a consequence the reformulation of the socioeconomic inequalities displayed by modernity, as well as lifestyles strongly based on the need for consumption.
2. Social dimension: media and technologies
Those institutions that in previous times defined our identity and sustained social cohesion (because they made our roles in the social structure very clear to us with almost no possibility of imagining something different), lose stability and influence. These institutions are replaced by the entry of new media and technologies.
The above creates an important subjection towards these media, because they are positioned as the only mechanisms that allow us to know “reality.” Some sociological theories suggest that this creates a “hyperreality” where what we see in the media is even more real than what we see outside of it, which causes us to conceive the phenomena of the world in a very narrow way.
However, depending on how it is used, new technologies have also generated the opposite effect: have served as an important tool of subversion and questioning
3. Subjective dimension: fragments and diversity
After the Second World War, the era we know as modernity entered a process of breakdown and transformation that weakened the pillars of order and progress (main characteristics of scientific and social revolutions), so from then on criticism of excessive rationality expands as well as a crisis of the values that had marked traditional relationships.
This has as one of its effects a large number of devices for constructing subjectivities: on the one hand, an important fragmentation of the subjectivities themselves and of community processes is generated (individualism is reinforced and bonds and accelerated lifestyles are also generated. and fleeting, which are reflected for example in fashion or the artistic and musical industry).
On the other hand, it becomes possible to make diversity visible. The individuals then we are freer to build both our identity and our social articulations and new ways of understanding the world and ourselves are inaugurated.
That is, postmodern thought rejects the ideal of achieving a way of thinking that is as objective as possible and therefore adjusted to reality in its most fundamental and universal aspects. Priority is given to giving voice to alternative stories that explain facets of reality that are not the most common nor those that receive the most attention.
On the other hand, this rejection of narratives with a claim to universality has been criticized for being considered an excuse to legitimize relativism of all kinds, something that leaves out of the debate “popular knowledge” associated with non-Western cultures or foreign to the heritage of the Enlightenment: Chinese medicine, belief in spirits, radical identity movements, etc.
