Postmodernism

For this week's blog post on postmodernism I watched the above video; mostly I chose it because it seemed like it would be entertaining and funny, and also I love swearing. It also seemed like it was made by people who were about my age, and I thought I might be able to identify better with a perspective from my same age group.

Basically, the video begins by first realizing that a huge amount of people today are using the term "postmodern" without really understanding what the word means. I can agree with that, as it's one of those terms heavily thrown around during political debates and art gallery viewings. The host takes us back through some major periods in history to help us try to define whether or not that "postmodernism" is just the next era on the timeline, or if it's just a grouping of ideas or personalities.

Beginning with the "Classical" era, where humans were just emerging from pagan freedom into organized countries with religions and laws. Those societies embraced their relationship with nature and the world around them. Moving on comes next the "Neo-classical" era ("neo" meaning "new) in the 18th century where humans had made advances in science and writing and many other areas, but found themselves lacking a philosophical system. Many people romanticized the Greco-Roman period and tried to emulate it, one of the most famous examples being the United States' democratic governmental system based on Greek history of law. This period was later referred to as "The Enlightenment" which was basically the overall marriage of scientific breakthroughs, but with a soft spot in one's heart for nature and art.

Some of the best examples of these eras are seen in the art and architecture of the time (image source, and cool architecture resource)

After some time we begin to see the separation of the two things further and further until you have just the science lovers and just the art lovers, and the two do not mix well. The counter-culture to the Enlightenment was known as "Romanticism" and there was much argument over which areas of culture to focus on. Just as it seemed that Romanticism might win out and scientific advances would be thrown out the window - "Modernism" comes to the scene just after the shock of World War I. As the video put it: up until the war, most technology was used to help and benefit people, but now a great deal of it had been invented to hurt and kill others - there are men returning home from the conflict and not knowing how to process what they've been through. What follows these times is a boom of psychological and philosophical thinkers who try to make sense of the current world. Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, each had contrasting reasons for why they believed everything existed as it currently did. Their ideas gave rise to the average human to think more deeply about their socioeconomic standing, their religious attachments, and the political systems around them.

Post-modernism enters to "shake things up" where people had gotten too complacent with the madness or organizational systems around them. The video refers to post-modernism as the "rebellious child" of Modernism. Where Modernism likes to organize things into neat categories and structures based on similarity, the ideas of post-Modernism focus on the differences between things and people. They like to blur the lines, to abhor fact, and try to prove that there is no one way of thinking, or living, or being.

The example I think of when I try to define postmodernism is the punk movement. Not necessarily the punk music movement, though of course the fashion and ideals started with this new form of music. I think of the typical kid with a mohawk, studded jacket, baggy ripped jeans, chains, tattoos and eyeliner. Even aside from the look, it's the attitude they share that matters the most when it comes to this argument. I was once a part of this genre of people growing up (shocking I know!) who used to shop at Hot Topic and wear crazy stuff because I did not want to "fit in" with everyone else in society because I felt I was different than most around me.

(image source, and cool history of punk fashion)

The attitude of punk and sub-genres of punk (goth, emo, scene, hipster, whatever) is generally of "I don't accept what everyone tells me to be true - I find my own truth in my experiences." There's the whole, "You can tell me what to do, what to wear, where to work, etc" where people openly defy mainstream society. In turn, mainstream society sees punks as abnormal (the term "punk" itself meaning "degenerate" or even "criminal"), and is either afraid of them, or is angry with them for trying to go against the grain whereas most of them never saw a reason to be any other way than "normal." I, however, think it's a very important movement to question what is around you, especially where we live in a world of advertising and fake news.