Social Theory

Essay

Natalie Schuetz

Trinity College Dublin

SoSe 2008

Between modernism and postmodernism Enlightenment and Romance

(Seminar question: Does Gilroy successfully steer a middle way between modernism and

postmodernism?)

The term "postmodern" has become a popular label for something about the life and thought

of recent decades in the most developed societies. It both refers to phenomena in the real

world, and to an intellectual movement. Representatives of the postmodern movement not

only express conflicting views, but are interested in barely overlapping subject matters such

as art, history, economics, politics, methodology and literature. What the term

"Postmodernism" actually means, has been the subject of a lengthy debate ever since its

emergence.

For some critics, postmodernism connotes the final escape from the stultifying legacy of

modern European theology, authoritarianism, colonialism, patriarchy, racism and domination.

Others simply see it as an attempt by left-wing intellectuals to destroy Western civilization.

The fact that this movement has caused such a wide-spread debate and the term has been so

widely used only goes to show that "postmodern" has been attached to so many different

kinds of intellectual, social and artistic phenomena that it can be subjected to easy ridicule as

hopelessly ambiguous or empty. Which in return only shows that it is a mistake to seek a

single, essential meaning applicable to all the term′s instances.(Cahoone.2003:1)

When philosophers use the term "postmodernism" they usually refer to a movement that

developed in France in the 1960s, which could more precisely be called "post-structuralism",

along with subsequent and related developments. They have in mind that this movement

denies the possibility of "realist" knowledge, objective knowledge. They regard it as rejecting

most of the fundamental intellectual pillars of modern Western civilization. They may further

associate this rejection with political movements like multiculturalism, feminism, and the

critique of Eurocentrism, which regard the rejected notions as the ideology of a privileged

sexual, ethnic, cultural, economic group, and aim to subvert their privilege in favour of the

disenfranchised. However, it is important to mention, that not all the representatives who

engage in the postmodern movement can be politically characterised and certainly not all the

feminists or multiculturalists accept postmodernism (Cahoone.2003:1et seq.).

As far as any definition of the term "postmodernism" is at all possible, one could say that it

implies something about recent society since the 1960s which reveals a discontinuity with

earlier phases of the modern period, hence with the socio-cultural forms or ideas and methods

that are characteristic of the modern Western culture. However, postmodernism did not

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develop in times of crisis, rather the contrary: it was the relative stability and unprecedented

prosperity of the era that became the background for the Western tradition`s deepest self-

criticism. The discontinuity may, for some, signal the end of the modern but it might also

merely indicate a novel phase within the modern.

Therefore Gilroy might not so much steer a middle way between modernism and

postmodernism but rather suggest a new and modified approach of modernism. This will be

discussed later on.

According to this, postmodernism is the latest wave in the critique of the Enlightenment, the

criticism of the principles characteristic of modern Western society that trace their legacy to

the 18th century but it is important to add that postmodernism does not exhaust the criticism of

modern thought!

In order to understand the postmodern criticism of modernism, it is essential to examine what

exactly is meant by the terms "modernism", "modernity" and "modern".

"Modernity" has a fixed reference in contemporary intellectual discourse. It refers to the new

civilisation that developed in Europe and North America over the last centuries and has

become fully evident in the early 20th century. "Modernity" implies that this civilisation is

modern in the non-relative sense that it is unique in human history. Not even the harshest

critics of modernity deny its achievements of new technologies and modes of industrial

production that have led to an unprecedented rise in material living standard. What makes

modernity a controversy though is the question of the inner nature, the probable destiny and

the validity of this new way of life. The positive self-image that modern Western culture has

often given to itself is a picture born in the Enlightenment. It is a picture of a civilisation

founded on scientific knowledge of the world and rational knowledge of value, which places

the highest premium on individual human life and freedom, and believes that such freedom

and rationality will lead to social progress through virtuous, self-controlled work, creating a

better material, political and intellectual life for all.

Some critics see modernity instead as a movement of ethnic and class domination, European

imperialism, anthropocentrism, the destruction of nature, the dissolution of community and

tradition, the rise of alienation and the death of individuality in bureaucracy.

Despite the divergence among the usage of the term "postmodern" there is a commonality

centering on a recognition of pluralism and a new focus on representation. Postmodernists

sought a return to the true, authentic, free and integrated human self as the centre of lived

experience. They did not mean to abandon or reject the achievements of modernism such as

industrialisation, advanced technology and secularisation of states. Their idea was a

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