Postmodernity: what it is and what philosophy characterizes it

In order to explain and understand the social transformations that we are undergoing, in Western societies we have generated different frameworks of knowledge, which include concepts and different theories. This is how we have generated and divided the history of ideas from branches that generally go from the origins of Greek philosophy to the time current.

The latter, the current era, has been named in many and very different ways, among which is the concept of postmodernity. In this article we will see some definitions of this term, as well as some of its main characteristics.

• Related article: "The 6 differences between modernity and postmodernity"

What is postmodernity?

Postmodernity is the concept that refers to the state or sociocultural climate that Western societies are currently going through. The latter includes a subjective and intellectual dimension, but it also has to do with political and economic organization, as well as artistic activity. And it is so because all of them refer to the different phenomena that are configured in our societies, and that at the same time make our societies to be configured.

On the other hand, it is called “postmodernity” or “postmodernity” because the prefix “post” makes it possible to establish breaking points with the previous era, which we know as “modernity”. This means that it is not a question of modernity having ended, but rather that it has gone through: there are some global elements that have undergone important transformations, with which some local and subjective phenomena have also been transformed.

In addition, the use of this prefix also implies that postmodernity does not go against modernity, but that the stage of modernity is necessary in its synthesis, although it goes beyond this category.

The questioning of metanarratives

It must be borne in mind, however, that The concept of postmodernity originally referred to an artistic and cultural movement, more than political. However, it served as an inspiration for social movements that incorporated the questioning of meta-narratives. (explanations of the functioning of society with a claim to universalism) to his way of approaching the policy.

Furthermore, since it is such an ambiguous concept (because its nuclear idea is a type of radicalized relativism), there can be no consensus on what it means to be postmodern. This implies that beyond the critique of the concept of universal truth, there is not much else that the postmodern elements of society have in common; not even the idea that all narratives are equally valid is accepted by the entire postmodern movement.

So if there is one thing that characterizes the postmodern movement, it is questioning meta-narratives, which are something like the hegemonic ways of interpreting ideologies and ways of conceiving reality and historical events. From this philosophy, one tends to view with skepticism the ways of thinking that try to explain everything, offering closed theories about what happens in the world.

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Postmodernity or Postmodernism?

The difference between the two concepts is that the first refers to the cultural state and how institutions and ways of life that were characteristic of modernity have been modified giving rise to new processes and ways of life.

The second concept, that of postmodernism, refers to the new ways of understanding the world in terms of knowledge production.

In other words, the first concept makes a clearer reference to changes in the social and cultural configuration; while the second refers to changes in the way of generating knowledge, which involves new epistemological paradigms that impact scientific or artistic production, and that ultimately affect the subjectivities.

To put it even more briefly, the term "postmodernity" refers to a sociocultural situation of a specific era, which is that of late 20th century and early 21st (dates vary by author). And the term "postmodernism" refers to an attitude and an epistemic position (to generate knowledge), which is also the result of the sociocultural situation of the same time.

Origins and main characteristics

The beginnings of postmodernity vary according to the reference, the author or the specific tradition that is analyzed. There are those who say that postmodernity is not a different era, but an update or an extension of modernity itself. The truth is that the limits between one and the other are not completely clear. However, we can consider different events and processes that were relevant to generate important transformations.

1. Political-economic dimension: globalization

The term "postmodernity" differs from the term globalization insofar as the former accounts for the state cultural and intellectual and the second gives an account of the organization and global expansion of capitalism as a system economical, and democracy as a political system.

However, both are related concepts that have different meeting points. And it is so because postmodernity has started in part by the process of political and economic transformation that has generated what we can call “post-industrial societies”. Societies where the relations of production went from being centered in the industry to being mainly centered in the management of technology and communication.

For its part, globalization, whose peak is present in postmodernity, refers to the global expansion of capitalism. Among other things, the latter has resulted in the reformulation of inequalities socioeconomic conditions displayed by modernity, as well as lifestyles strongly based on need of consumption.

2. Social dimension: the media and technologies

Those institutions that in previous times defined our identity and sustain social cohesion (because they let us our roles in the social structure are very clear, almost without the possibility of imagining something different), they lose stability and influence. These institutions are replaced by the entry of new media and technologies.

The foregoing creates an importance attachment to said media, because they are positioned as the only mechanisms that allow us to know "reality". Some sociological theories suggest that this creates a "hyperreality" where what we see in the media is even more real than what we see outside of these, which makes us conceive in a very narrow way the phenomena of world.

However, depending on how it is used, new technologies have also generated the opposite effect: have served as an important subversion and questioning tool.

3. Subjective dimension: fragments and diversity

After the Second World War, the era we know as modernity entered into a process of breakdown and transformation that weakened the pillars of order and progress (main characteristics of scientific and social revolutions), so that from so Criticism of excessive rationality expands, as well as a crisis of the values ​​that had marked traditional relationships.

This has as one of its effects a large number of devices for the construction of subjectivities: on the one hand, an important fragmentation of the same subjectivities and of the community processes (individualism is reinforced and ties and accelerated and fleeting lifestyles are also generated, which are reflected, for example, in fashion or in the artistic and musical).

On the other hand, it becomes possible to make diversity visible. The individuals then we are freer to build both our identity and our social articulations and new ways of understanding the world and ourselves are inaugurated.

That is to say, from postmodern thought the ideal of reaching a way of thinking what is objective as possible and therefore adjusted to reality in its most fundamental aspects and universal. Priority is given to giving voice to alternative stories that explain facets of reality that are not the most common or receive the most attention.

On the other hand, this rejection of narratives with a claim to universality has been criticized for being considered an excuse to legitimize relativism of all kinds, something that leaves out of the debate "popular knowledge" associated with non-Western cultures or alien to the heritage of the Enlightenment: Chinese medicine, belief in spirits, radical identity movements, etc

Bibliographic references

• Baudrillard, J.; Habermas, J.; Said, E. et al. (2000). Postmodernity. Barcelona: Kairos.
• Baumman, Z. (1998). Viewpoint Sociology and postmodernity. Retrieved June 18, 2018. Available in http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1988.tb00708.x.
• Brunner, J.J. (1999). Cultural globalization and postmodernity. Chilean Journal of Humanities, 18/19: 313-318.
• Fuery, P. & Mansfield, N. (2001). Cultural Studies and Critical Theory. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
• Mansfield, N. (2000). Subjectivity: Theories of the self from Freud to Harroway. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
• Review Sociology (2016). From Modernity to Post-Modernity. Retrieved June 18, 2018. Available in https://revisesociology.com/2016/04/09/from-modernity-to-post-modernity/.