University College London
Discussion
Started 20 January 2025
Do you agree with the claim that postmodernism died in the 1990s? However, there are new ones about a mutated (applied/reified) postmodernism.
Taking a serious path in the 1960s, postmodernism is considered the main rival of liberalism after the collapse of communism. Unlike liberalism, postmodernism, which considers knowledge to be relative and the result of social-political dialogue, has been said to have actually died in the 1990s. On the contrary, there is an opinion that it mutated into a postcolonial and feminist concept. Do you agree?
Most recent answer
Dear David Lempert,
It is my pleasure to listen to your valuable ideas and academic outcomes. As a supporter of political realism, my approach to law (and also some sciences) is quite different from my colleagues. However, the thesis claimed by postmodernists that knowledge is not objective and produced by society (or various groups within it) sounds absurd. Firstly, how can we oppose the knowledge that 2x2 = 4? Is it subjective? Let's imagine, if the tribe X declared that 2x2 = 6, probably, postmodernists would accept it due to just production of society. Furthermore, if there is a problem in knowledge (I mean, the previous practice doesn't justify and resolve new problems), the only method is, again, to question and question repeatedly. Of course, 2x2 example is really primitive, however the clashes among modernists and post- ones may really cause harmful consequences in both law, and society's structure. To resolve the issues in the society regarding knowledge is not so difficult (at least mechanism), however I totally agree with your claim that there are other reasons which will result complete destruction of the Earth. Unfortunately most scholars (even including the presidents of the European Court of Human Rights) do not consider the main and supplementary factors directly impacting on the formulation of society and relationships (like Fukuyama's uthopia or Marko Bosnjak's excessively positive and hopeful speech related to the improvement of rule of law).
Kind regards,
Siyavush
All replies (7)
Karnatak University
Yeah, postmodernism died in the 1990s, but the rivalry thing is continuously going on Postmodernism often explores historical and political issues; of course, postcolonial and feminist concepts were muted.
1 Recommendation
University of Technology and Applied Sciences - Al Mussanah
I too think we are in a post postmodern time which is at times referred to as metamodernism where a synthesis of modern and postmodern aspects are identified and loosely called as contemporary art and literature. And, since meatmodernism is in its nascent stage, it is possible postmodernism has not died out completely, few traces are still noticed in art, film and literature.
1 Recommendation
Faculté polydisciplinaire Errachidia
"I've only just begun exploring postmodernism and poststructuralism, so my research is still in its early stages. From what I've seen so far, it seems that postmodernism has been on the decline since the 1990s, largely because it struggled to define a coherent political program, despite its ideas being influential in various fields of study. In contrast, poststructuralism remains a vibrant and relevant area of inquiry, with concepts like reception theory, the fragmentation of meaning, and the author's demise continuing to generate significant interest and debate. These topics are not only still current but also highly fashionable and widely discussed in academic circles. Finally, How to implement poststructuralism on Francophone literary works
2 Recommendations
University Etugen, MNG
Western thought often fixates on "-isms," with theorists defining themselves by dismantling the prevailing philosophies of their time. Eastern cultures, conversely, tend to embrace and build upon the wisdom of the past. This cumulative approach, where earlier ideas are absorbed, refined, and expanded, diminishes the need for rigid "-isms" and avoids declaring any particular school of thought as definitively dead or obsolete.
1 Recommendation
Université Moulay Ismail de Meknes
I think it's not about chronology, but about the perspective from which we see things. Postmodernism is not an intellectual movement that followed modernism, but a new complex vision. This vision has not ended, although it has some doubts. We should not speak of postmodernism at all, but in a historical and geographical context specific to each society and culture.
1 Recommendation
Dear Siyavush,
Thanks for raising this question because it is a way to force academics to actually look behind the meaning of jargon to understand real variables.
If your question is whether one form of academic jargon is being replaced by another and you want to study jargon and "newspeak" and how academics have to keep inventing words today to justify their work, even when they are not measuring anything and are avoiding anything that would change and improve the human condition, then of course you can see how these buzz words follow predictable waves.
I have actually analyzed "modernism" and post-modernism as it applies in my fields (it has different meanings in different disciplines) in a 2019 article of mine that you can find on ResearchGate: “Is Modernization Really Unique in the History of Human Development: (or Just Another Approach that will Self-Destruct)?”.
In my social science fields, this concept was being used to destroy comparative social science (something I also wrote about in several articles on "The Death of Social Science" in a special issue of the journal, Catalyst that you can find on my ResearchGate page). Post-modernism and modernism were being used in my fields to essentially erase historical comparisons and to make it possible to offer philosophical nonsense about human behaviors so as to reverse any real social progress or attempts at real change. The current buzz words about this are the "great singularity" or the "Anthropocene" or Huntington or Fukuyama's "The End of History".
The way you are describing post-modernism as a political ideology is really to equate it with the political ideology of "neo-liberalism" which is really a current buzz word replacing "corporatism" and "globalism/globalization" in a way that seeks to destroy cultural and environmental diversity to create an industrial monoculture ruled by a single interlocking elite. That goal and its manifestation in academia in a way that seeks to destroy social science has not really changed. But the global system is creating its own collapse for reasons that I have analyzed in different social science articles applying different methodologies from different disciplines to this problem ("The Logic of Cultural Suicide", "The Psychology of cultural suicide", "The Global Prisoners Dilemma of Unsustainability").
The recent Trump election and others elsewhere are indications of the failures of globalization and the battles we are now seeing between elites seeking control (now through various technologies) and mass publics. This is the structural socio-economic and political reality that is really behind these buzz words and that we need to focus on. There are historical parallels of social collapse that you can use for predictions and that will help you see beyond jargon like "modernism" and "post-modernism" that are designed to make reality invisible, so that prediction, and reform are impossible before it is too late.
Best,
David Lempert, Ph.D., J.D., M.B.A., E.D. (Hon.)
2 Recommendations
University College London
Dear David Lempert,
It is my pleasure to listen to your valuable ideas and academic outcomes. As a supporter of political realism, my approach to law (and also some sciences) is quite different from my colleagues. However, the thesis claimed by postmodernists that knowledge is not objective and produced by society (or various groups within it) sounds absurd. Firstly, how can we oppose the knowledge that 2x2 = 4? Is it subjective? Let's imagine, if the tribe X declared that 2x2 = 6, probably, postmodernists would accept it due to just production of society. Furthermore, if there is a problem in knowledge (I mean, the previous practice doesn't justify and resolve new problems), the only method is, again, to question and question repeatedly. Of course, 2x2 example is really primitive, however the clashes among modernists and post- ones may really cause harmful consequences in both law, and society's structure. To resolve the issues in the society regarding knowledge is not so difficult (at least mechanism), however I totally agree with your claim that there are other reasons which will result complete destruction of the Earth. Unfortunately most scholars (even including the presidents of the European Court of Human Rights) do not consider the main and supplementary factors directly impacting on the formulation of society and relationships (like Fukuyama's uthopia or Marko Bosnjak's excessively positive and hopeful speech related to the improvement of rule of law).
Kind regards,
Siyavush
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