Postmodernism

Characteristics

Post structuralism - rejection of structures

Argues that the idea of a definitive and comprehensive theory of society (Marx, Durkheim, Weber) is not possible

Challenges certain social structures and accepts individual's belief as true just like phenomenology

Diversity is the order of the day and we've entered an era in which anything goes

Rejects structures and tends to de-construct (eg: good vs evil, male vs female)

There is now a much wider variety of beliefs and most people are unwilling to accept that one set of ideas gives the absolute truth and all the others are false

Stresses the chaos and uncertainty in society, and argues that social structures like the family and social class are breaking down

These social structures are replaced by a whole range of different and constantly changing social relationships

Postmodernists argue it is nonsense to talk an institution called the family (eg: people now live in such a wide range of changing personal relationship)

Jean Francois Lyotard

Argues that postmodern culture emerged around the 1950's

Belief: "all cultures, ancient and modern legitimate themselves through the telling and re-telling and narratives, stories that give cultures purpose and meaning"

Replaced the grand narratives and leads to the death of meta-narratives (explanation of structural theories using of hard scientific truths)

Language games

One way people assert certain ideas to be true or right

Statements and utterances used in a way an individual is trying to get his version of what is true or right to be accepted

Believed that there is no basis for saying that some knowledge is untrue

Meta-narratives

Big stories that are largely based on storytelling

Invalid and it is difficult to distinguish between the true and untrue ones

Concludes that people should be allowed to tell their own stories and there should be no attempt to established the better stories

Diversity dominates as people lose faith in the search for one great truth that unites and justifies all knowledge

Jean Baudrillard

Pessimistic about the change societies have entered which is a new distinctive phase (dystopic)

Knowledge is central in society and tangible consumer goods are of less value

Society has moved away from being shaped by economic forces involved in exchanging material goods

The buying and selling of materials goods has been replaced by the buying and selling of signs and images

Famously asserted that the real no longer exists and we inhabit a society that is wholly made up of simulacra (stimulations) of reality that replace pure reality

Simulacra: Creating an image of something that does not exist or has not existed

Signs are used more than real life interactions

Hyperreality

The way that is used by an individual to know about other people's lives and it often gives a distorted view of the world

Signs are developed through the four stages

  1. Faithful image/copy
  1. Perversion of reality
  1. Masks the absence of a profound reality
  1. Pure simulacrum

Unlike Lyotard, Baudrillard sees humans as trapped in a type of powerless uniformity and not liberated by plurality and diversity

Attached special importance to the mass media and TV

Talks about the dissolution of life into the television and says TV watches us, TV alienates us and TV manipulates us and TV informs us

Primarily important and responsible for ushering in a situation where image and reality can no longer be distinguished