The theories and theorists of postmodern thought and analysis came into modern culture with a sledge hammer and an arsenal of disdain for the preceding ideologies. They quickly contended that, “general human emancipation could not be gained through the Universalist strategies characteristic of both liberalism and communism”. Moreover, the age of the postmodern is the age of uncertainty. Unlike the theories before it in which nationalism, unity and a view of human oneness effected the political and cultural implications of the ages, the post modern movement strived for the respect of diversity between mankind and its creations. Postmodernism and its theorists attempt to ignore the implications of modernists ideas of our ‘progression’ and of our connected journey toward some utopian future; replacing them with not only a respect but of an appreciation for diversity, local differences and ultimately in the plurality of ways we as humans chose to live our lives. In defining the postmodern, Lyotard stated that the cultural and societal norms in which humans use to dictate their existent cannot be labeled as definitive rhetoric: “We cannot confidently declare one way of life or thought superior to another.” This idea of progress is hindered by the side effects it creates i.e. (damage to our ecosystem, weapons of mass destruction, etc).Through the lens of the modernist, the postmodernist attempts to violently shake off the old traditions en route to a new truly progressive model of variety. And in the struggle to achieve that, the idea of progression will have to dress its best. It must (through us) learn that progression has many limbs; that it isn’t a universal idea but varies from culture to culture, it will have to stand up to the age’s, past the smoke of the Industrial Revolution, and through the destruction of two world wars, and it will have to meet Postmodernism.
Work Cited
Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.
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