Postmodernity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Postmodernity - Essay Example Talk about religion, culture, art and even technology and you are certainly confronted with both fundamentalists and a new wave of thinkers who will normally feel that postmodernism should be the accepted way of life (Anderson 2003). Well, it then begs the analysis of the whole concept of postmodernism to clearly see its true connotation and to draw lines between the term and the conventional modernism. Modernism, contrary to popular knowledge, has been in existence since somewhere in the late 17th or early 18th centuries (Chan, 2008). It is a period that radically transformed all manner of life in science, art, religion, culture etc. The ideas and thoughts propounded by postmodernists are normally subjects of much analysis. This arises out of the true nature of postmodernism. It has normally been seen that postmodernists are driven by that ultimate opposition and antipathy towards modernism. Whatever is conventional in the mindset of the modernist is therefore what the postmodernist seeks to prove wrong and nullify as old and traditional (Deely, 2001). A more recent trend seen is where postmodern fundamentalists have been constantly attacking and questioning some of the most celebrated knowledge in academic and professional realms (Eagleton, 2000). As a very special characteristic, postmodernism fundamentally relies on the voice of reason and the ability to inspire change through the avoidance of the bandwagon effect where humanity simply borrow from their past without much thought or ability to think and analyze what is good for them. With modernism, humanity evidenced the development of the Enlightenment era in which reason was used to establish fundamental truths about the world (Docherty, 2003). These truths have gradually been developed and have guided life for the past few centuries. Well, it has to be realized that postmoderns are normally against such guiding principles. To them, the concepts of morality and ethics, which are normally considered univer sal, are merely subjects of personal and subjective decision. In several instances, it can be seen that postmodernity tries to bridge the gap that is normally left with the flaws of modernism. In a critical perspective, postmodernism is not simply a way of life. On the contrary, the word is simply meant to address a wide range of social, economic, cultural and political changes that have lately inundated the world. It is the modernistic way of life supplemented with modern technology, globalization, individualism, feminism and multiculturalism (Gidders, 1999). On the cultural perspective, the move towards ethnic pluralism and relativism has made people to nostalgically think about their past cultures and what has been lost over time. Indeed much has been lost. On the social scale, the digital age has made the flow of information across the world as easy as possible. This has radically transformed lifestyles across many areas as new ways of life are adopted. Postmodernity encompasses that timeframe between the early 1980s to the present. It is a period that saw the emergence of a new economy-the postindustrial, which effectively replaced the earlier forms of life like aristocracy, working class and middle class (Zygmunt, 2000). Much of this era is however defined by the emergence of