INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY FOR THE HUMANITIES AND DEVELOPMENT

REPORT
Understanding Postmodernism: Philosophy and Culture of Postmodern

Prepared: Leyli Allaberdiyeva, student of

International Management 2B

Supervisor: B. Karliyev

Ashgabat 2024
Abstract: Though the term postmodernism was first used in the 1870s, it was not
widely used until the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. People
who hold to postmodernism do not like to be classified, and therefore it is unlikely
they will use the term to refer to themselves. But since there are now so many
postmodernists in our culture, we should all have a working understanding of their
worldview. Postmodernism is the idea that individuals have both the intelligence
and the right to decide for themselves what truth is. In the past, truth was a clearly
defined fact that was generally accepted by each generation. Postmodern
individuals see the definition of truth as less clear. As postmodern people search
for truth, they base their conclusions on their own research, individual
experiences, and personal relationships instead of on the truth accepted by their
parents, government, or church. This does not mean postmodernists do not believe
in truth; it just means they define truth for themselves.

Keyword: Postmodern; Philosophy; Cultural-sterile; Cultural-liberate; Social

Science

Introduction
Postmodern people are quite comfortable with the concept that different
people will come to different conclusions about the same subject and all of them
have discovered the truth, even if such truths contradict each other. For most
postmodern people, the concept of absolute truth does not exist. It has been
replaced with a more personalized sense of truth that may vary from person
to person.
It can be difficult to describe how postmodern people think because they do
not like to be categorized. However, careful observation of their behaviors,
combined with listening to what young people say and write, offer a glimpse of
postmodernists' common characteristics. Dr. Earl Creps is the director of the doctor
of ministry program at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield,
Missouri. He writes extensively on postmodernism. He has discovered:

“The average person influenced by postmodernism may never

have heard a lecture or read a book about it. Nonetheless, the
traits that embody the philosophy are all around us: the centrality
of community, the primacy of experience, the subjectivity of
truth, the complexity of human perception, the fragility of
progress, the unreality of absolutes, the enormity of the spiritual
[and] the plurality of worldviews.”

Other writers have compiled similar lists of postmodern traits that frequently
appear in the next generation. If business, government and religious leaders wish to
effectively engage postmodern people, they will have to deal with these common
traits.
Postmodern people can be any age, but typically, the younger people are, the more
likely they are to have a postmodern worldview. Dr. Jan W. van Deth, a political
science professor at the University of Mannheim, and Elinor Scarbrough, a senior
lecturer in government at the University of Essex and co-director of the Essex
Summer School in Data Analysis and Collection, have studied postmodernism
extensively. They have presented a number of papers and edited a book on the
subject. Based on their studies, they conclude that "postmodern
orientations are most common among young people and the well-educated."

There is no set age at which individuals suddenly decide to become postmodern.

Instead, postmodern tendencies are more like a graph in which the younger a
person is, the more postmodern his or her worldview is likely to be. This
connection between age and postmodernism comes from a past when people had
access to a limited amount of information, so it was harder for them to question
truth. Because of this, older generations often believed what they were told
because they did not have access to information that would lead them to think
otherwise.

With the advent of technology, younger generations have become used to

collecting
information from a wide variety of sources, as have more-educated people. Even
though much of the information collected may be inaccurate, it still makes younger
generations question the validity of what others have told them. Instead, they want
to discover truth for themselves. This desire to discover one's own truth is the
essence of postmodernism.

If business, government and religious leaders want to reach the next generation,
they are going to have to discover ways to help young people discover truth for
themselves. Young people are not going to just accept a government official,
business leader, or priest's word on any particular issue. Young people want to
delve deep into their own study of whatever subject is being discussed. Though
this may frighten some leaders, many leaders enjoy the discussions that arise from
such deep study. For those leaders able to embrace questions, the next generation
will be a exciting addition at the cultural table.

Discussion

Philosophy of Postmodernism

Postmodernism marked a radical shift in emphasis from Modernism and it became

a visible happening in Literature, Art, Philosophy and Architecture. One of the
things that characterize postmodernism is the breaking down of ground between
high culture and low culture. Postmodernism is oriented towards the
democratization of collective consciousness and also postmodernism signifies the
triumph of individuality. There are many writers, thinkers and
artists who have expressed the ideals of Postmodernism.

In this article, I would like to develop my own linguistic, and philosophical tools
for the analysis of Postmodernism. Using these tools, I would like to embark on the
following fields: that is politics, culture, aesthetics and philosophy.

How can the analysis of Postmodernism be applied to Politics? Politics is moving

towards a situation which can be defined as Geo-Political, ruptures and raptures.
How can Geo-Political-Rupture be countered politically? Now what is Geo-
Political-Rapture? Geo-Political-Rapture is sustained democratic intervention in
the geopolitical climates by democracies of the World. I would like to use some
geopolitical examples to illustrate the concept of Geo-Political-Rapture. The case
of refugee migration from the Middle East to the shores of Europe is a poignant
example. Europe has been magnanimous in accommodating those refugees.
Another example of Geo-Political-Rapture would be sorting out environmental
issues.

The World is becoming a Global theater from promoting holistic

environmentalism.
Another example of Geo-Political-Rapture would be the bailing out of the
beleaguered Greek Economy by the European Union. Money should attain the
LAKSHMI provision (Indian Goddess of Wealth) of creative-cathartopia (from
catharsis and utopia). The flow of money should become egalitarian and
democratic. When more and more people of the Globe become satiated with
Economic self sufficiency, the benefit would directly accrue as tangible material
benefits for corporations and business houses.

Culture of Postmodernism

Postmodern culture is a far reaching term describing a range of activities, events,

and perspectives relating to art, architecture, the humanities, and the social
sciences beginning in the second half of the twentieth century. In contrast to
modern culture, with its emphasis on social progress, coherence, and universality,
postmodern culture represents instances of dramatic historical and ideological
change in which modernist narratives of progress and social holism are viewed as
incomplete, elastic, and contradictory. In conjunction with the end of modernist
progress narratives, an insistence on coherence gives way to diversity and the
dominance of universality is subverted by difference within a postmodern
condition. Additionally, postmodern culture stands for more than the current state
of society.

Postmodern culture is characterized by the valuing of activities, events, and

perspectives that emphasize the particular over the global or the fragment over the
whole. This reversal of a modernist ideology necessitates a valuation of variation
and flexibility in the cultural sphere. Primarily through the writings of Jean
Francois Lyotard, whose seminal book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge (1984) remains the definitive exposition of the term and its
significance to society, postmodern culture has come to be identified with a radical
critique of
the relationship between the particular and the universal in art, culture, and politics.

The most visible signs of postmodern culture appear in art, architecture, film,
music, and literature after the 1950s. The most prominent stylistic features that
unite these diverse forums are pastiche, non representationalism, and non linearity.
In the art and architecture of postmodern culture, collage and historical eclecticism
are emphasized. The American painter Mark Tansey depicts historical scenes and
figures in anachronistic situations. His 1982 painting Purity Test
positions a group of „„traditional‟‟ Native Americans on horseback over looking
Smithson‟s 1970 Sprial Jetty, a temporal impossibility. In architecture, Robert
Venturi combines classical and modern architectural features, juxtaposing distinct
historical styles. Art and architecture within postmodern culture celebrate collage
and do not symbolize historical, thematic, or organic unity. Their postmodern
quality can be found in the artist‟s or architect‟s desire to abandon the
constraints of temporal, stylistic, and historical continuity.

In film, literature, and music representative of postmodern culture there is an

emphasis on non linearity, parody, and pastiche. Post modern film, such as the
Coen brothers‟ Blood Simple or Fargo, disrupt narrative timelines and emphasize
the work of parody. Quentin Tarantino‟s Pulp Fiction, for instance, „„begins‟‟ at
the end and continually recycles crime scene clichés throughout the plot. Similar
aesthetic principles are at play in postmodern literature in which the „„realist
mode‟‟ is thwarted in favor of the seemingly nonsensical. The Canadian writer
Douglas Coupland epitomizes this departure from realism. All Families Are
Psychotic (2001) depicts the surreal life of the Drummond family – a disparate
familial group brought together by the daughter‟s impending launch into space and
the financial woes of the father. In film and fiction the everydayness of life is
shown to be complex, parodic, and undetermined. The division between the so
called „„real‟‟ and „„unreal‟‟ is collapsed and vast excesses of postmodern
society are allowed to spiral out of control. Postmodern culture „„adopts a
dedifferentiating approach that will fully subverts boundaries between high and
low art, artist and spectator and among different artistic forms and genres‟‟ (Best
& Kellner 1997: 132).

While postmodern culture can be illuminated by reference to specific cultural

products, it is important to keep in mind the underlying philosophical logic driving
the phenomenon. Postmodernity as a reaction against a modernity, as Lyotard
observes, is grounded in the Enlightenment, with its confidence in the faculty of
reason to ascertain philosophical „„truths‟‟ and its dedication to the progress of
science and technology to enhance and improve the human situation. Taken
together, this confidence and dedication to a particular intellectual framework
produces monolithic accounts of the nature of reality and human kind‟s place
within it. The „„postmodern condition,‟‟ therefore, is a disruption in the claim of
totality found in these Enlightenment generated accounts. According to
postmodernists, the western worldview, with its commitment to universality in all
things related to being human, gives way under the weight of its own
contradictions and repressions.

The comprehensive grand theories or grand narratives, as Lyotard describes them,

subsequently fail in a postmodern era insofar as the plurality of human existence
emerges within a wider cultural space. Postmodern knowledge of the world, as
Lyotard explains, must take into account the multiplicity of experience or
„„phrasings‟‟ and the possibility of new, unanticipated
experiences or phrasings that will assist in making sense of reality in ways either
not permitted or not imagined by a modernist ideology. The content of knowledge
we presently possess is continually being transformed by technology and „„the
nature of knowledge cannot survive unchanged within this context of general
transformation‟‟ (Lyotard 1984: 4). Culture, as it
pertains to postmodernism, is more than a repository of data; it is the activity that
shapes and gives meaning to the world, constructing reality rather than presenting
it.

Postmodern culture, as a valorization of the multiplicity found in „„little

narratives,‟‟ exhibits anti modernist tendencies, with art and politics rejecting calls
to narrative totalization. Jameson (1984), referring to the social theorist Jurgen
Habermas, states that „„postmodernism involves the explicit repudiation of the
modernist tradition – the return of the middle class philistine or Spiessburger
(bourgeois) rejection of modernist forms and values – and as such the
expression of a new social conservatism.‟‟ While an emphasis on the particular
over the universal captures the revolutionary impulse found in the political and
aesthetic sentiments of Lyotardian postmodernism, it runs counter to a lengthy
critique of postmodernism by social theorists, mainly Marxists, who view this turn
to the particularity of „„little narratives‟‟ as a symptom of late capitalism, with its
valuation on proliferating commodities and flexible corporate organizational
models. The characteristics of multiplicity, pastiche, and non linearity,
while viewed as offering new aesthetic, epistemological, and political possibilities
by postmodern artists, architects, writers, filmmakers, and theorists, are understood
by those who reject postmodernism as examples of the „„logic of late capitalism‟‟
( Jameson 1984) in which commodities and consumers enter into rapid,
undifferentiated exchange in ever increasing and diversified markets.

Harvey (1989) argues that postmodernism is the ideological ally of global

capitalism, which is characterized in part by decentered organizational modes,
intersecting markets, and hyper consumerism. While social theorists such as Daniel
Bell, Philip Cooke, Edward Soja, and Scott Lash see postmodern culture as a
symptom of global capitalist ideology, others view it as
an extension or completion of the modernist project. Bauman (1992) notes that

‘‘the post modern condition can be therefore described . . . as modernity

emancipated from false consciousness [and] as a new type of social
condition marked by the overt institutionalization of characteristics
which modernity – in its designs and managerial practices – set about to
eliminate and, failing that, tried to conceal.’’
In this account, postmodern culture is viewed as having a continuity with
modernism and not necessarily an affiliation with a late capitalist mode of
production. Although the features of post modern culture are similarly described
and agreed upon by social and literary theorists from across the ideological
spectrum, the meaning of postmodern culture remains largely in dispute, with its
advocates seeing it as a new condition and its detractors seeing it as an accomplice
to late capitalism and conservative ideology.

In the few decades since its inception as a critical concept in the arts, architecture,
humanities, and social sciences, postmodern culture remains controversial. Artists,
architects, writers, philosophers, social theorists, and film makers continue to
explore its vast possibilities, however. Whether it is a new condition, an
emancipation from modernist false consciousness, a subsidiary of late capitalism,
or a indefinable Zeitgeist, the debate over postmodern culture will be a central
feature of intellectual life for years to come.

Next I would like to take the role of culture and its performance in Postmodernism.
I would like to categorize people into two classes, cultural-sterile and cultural-
liberate. Culturalsterile are people who are conditioned by the religious and
cultural mores of the society. They owe their dependence to a higher transcendent
power. They are feeble and are unable to take responsibility for the perfomative
strategies of creating the presence of meaning in their being. Culturally-sterile
people indulge in what is called by the existential philosopher Sartre as bad faith. I
have had an experience with a culturally-sterile on Facebook. When I challenged
her edifice of Christian Faith, she posted some rude comments on my timeline and
then abruptly cut me off. She did not even give me the democracy to express my
views.

Culturally-liberated people are self expressive and creative. The quintessence of

liberation in the Postmodern Era is through the Writing. Opportunities for self
expression are proliferating through the media on the net like WordPress, Blogspot
and Twitter. Writing in the postmodern era has shifted its roots from bourgeoisie
establishment-writers to a theater of mass spectacles. Writing is an art and a
therapy. I would like to say that the emergence of writing in the post-modern-era is
one of POLLENISSANCE (from Pollen and Renaissance). The
pharmacological tools of writing in structuralism-the Signifier and the Signified
are being used by the hoi polloi as strategies of liberation.
Now what is the place for Aesthetics in the Philosophy of Postmodernism?
Aesthetics from hoary times refers to the beautiful and in Walter Patter's phrase
means: 'art for art sake'. Within the Philosophy of Postmodernism, there are two
conceptions of aesthetics, and they are: Utilitarian Kitsch and Cathartic
Sublimation.

Utilitarian Kitsch as a conceptuality for aesthetics refers to finding an aesthetic

value in ordinary things of life. It could be an erotic foreplay of lovers or it could
be admiring a pretty bedspread. Cathartic-sublimation is a higher level of
aesthetics and occurs when emotions are elevated to a soul of existence along with
transference of understanding from an accepted norm of culture. I would like to
use literature as an example. When I read into a metaphor from a literary text, I
first dip into the semantics of meaning and then I enjoy the creation as work of art
and there I am filled with an emotional intellectualism.
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