Postmodernism: Encyclopedia II - Postmodernism - Postmodernism and its critics

Postmodernism - Postmodernism and its critics

The term post-modernism is often used pejoratively to describe tendencies perceived of as Relativist, Counter-enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relationship to critiques of Rationalism, Universalism or Science. It is also sometimes used to describe tendencies in the society which are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of morality. The criticisms of postmodernism are often made complex by the still fluid nature of the term, in many cases the criticisms are clearly directed at poststructuralism and the philosophical and academic movements that it has spawned rather than the larger term postmodernism.

The most prominent recent criticism of postmodern art is that of John Gardner. Gardner wrote that the classification "post-modern" / "modern" applied to the art of his time was an evasion, a stab at nothing - i.e., a move to elude the basic function of criticism, which, as Gardner called it, is to judge art's moral value.

Charles Murray, a strong critic of postmodernism, defines the term:

One example is the figure of Harold Bloom, who has simultaneously been hailed as being against multiculturalism and contemporary "fads" in literature, and also placed as an important figure in postmodernism.

Central to the debate is the role of the concept of "objectivity" and what it means. In the broadest sense, denial of the practical possibility of objectivity is held to be the postmodern position, and a hostility towards claims advanced on the basis of objectivity its defining feature. It is this underlying hostility toward the concept of objectivity, evident in many contemporary critical theorists, that is the common point of attack for critics of postmodernism. Many critics characterise postmodernism as an ephemeral phenomenon that cannot be adequately defined simply because, as a philosophy at least, it represents nothing more substantial than a series of disparate conjectures allied only in their distrust of modernism.

This antipathy of postmodernists towards modernism, and their consequent tendency to define themselves against it, has also attracted criticism. It has been argued that modernity was not actually a lumbering, totalizing monolith at all, but in fact was itself dynamic and ever-changing; the evolution, therefore, between "modern" and "postmodern" should be seen as one of degree, rather than of kind - a continuation rather than a "break." One theorist who takes this view is Marshall Berman, whose book All That is Solid Melts into Air (1982) (a quote from Marx) reflects in its title the fluid nature of "the experience of modernity."

As noted above, some theorists such as Habermas even argue that the supposed distinction between the "modern" and the "postmodern" does not exist at all, but that the latter is really no more than a development within a larger, still-current, "modern" framework. Many who make this argument are left academics with Marxist leanings, such as Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, and David Harvey (social geographer), who are concerned that postmodernism's undermining of Enlightenment values makes a progressive cultural politics difficult, if not impossible. For instance, "How can 'we' effect any change in people's poor living conditions, in inequality and injustice, if 'we' don't accept the validity of underlying universals such as the 'real world' and 'justice' in the first place?" How is any progress to be made through a philosophy so profoundly skeptical of the very notion of progress, and of unified perspectives? The critics charge that the postmodern vision of a tolerant, pluralist society in which every political ideology is perceived to be as valid, or as redundant, as the other, may ultimately encourage individuals to lead lives of a rather disastrous apathetic quietism. This reasoning leads Habermas to compare postmodernism with conservatism and the preservation of the status quo.

Such critics often argue that, in actual fact, such postmodern premises are rarely, if ever, actually embraced — that if they were, we would be left with nothing more than a crippling radical subjectivism. They point to the continuity of the projects of the Enlightenment and modernity as alive and well, as can be seen in the justice system, in science, in political rights movements, in the very idea of universities, and so on.

To some critics, there seems, indeed, to be a glaring contradiction in maintaining the death of objectivity and privileged position on one hand, while the scientific community continues a project of unprecedented scope to unify various scientific disciplines into a theory of everything, on the other. Hostility toward hierarchies of value and objectivity becomes problematic to them when postmodernity itself attempts to analyse such hierarchies with, apparently, some measure of objectivity and make categorical statements concerning them.

They see postmodernism, then as, essentially, a kind of semantic gamesmanship, more sophistry than substance. Postmodernism's proponents are often criticised for a tendency to indulge in exhausting, verbose stretches of rhetorical gymnastics, which critics feel sound important but are ultimately meaningless. In the Sokal Affair, Alan Sokal, a physicist, wrote a deliberately nonsensical article purportedly about interpreting physics and mathematics in terms of postmodern theory, which was nevertheless published by the Left-leaning Social Text, a journal which he and most of the scientific community considered as postmodernist.

Although Ken Wilber embraces many aspects of post-modernism, he distinguishes between a healthy form and an unhealthy 'extreme' form. Inherent in the extreme version is the irreconcilability of the performative contradiction. Wilber argues postmodernism must take the stance that its view is 'better' than what preceded it (modernity, Enlightenment, meta-narratives, positivism, etc.). This intrinsic and silent judgement that postmodernism imposes on its predessors is in itself not only a value judgement (a thing it often rejects), but a hierarchy in itself (a hierarchy of values). Wilber claims his recent work in integral theory addresses these performative contradictions, while retaining many of the important contributions of postmodernism. Wilber's approach is distinguished from other critiques by asking a different question. It does not ask whether postmodernism, or modernism, or any other system of thought as 'correct' or 'not correct'. Rather, it asks what are the emergent qualities of 'consciousness' that allow all of these systems of thought to arise in the first place? And, what important aspect of truth do they have to contribute?

In response to the critics of postmodernism, many people suggest that no "postmodern" ethos or movement has actually taken practical form, and that the term "postmodernism" has been coined by traditionalist intellectuals as a byproduct of their paranoia and resentments towards their less traditonal contemporaries.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Postmodernism and its critics", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki