Postmodernism: An Understanding
...the individual we are not to give in to political devotion or genuinely being loyal to our community. For example, in it people were not classified into race, gender, or class. The belief and dependence that people had in God at that time was not mentioned, and in fact was encouraged to be kept private. In the constitution it is understood that people are to commit themselves to the government as an individual. It also says that people of all ethnicity have the right to be free and equal citizens. These are just a few examples of how individualistic we have become even as a country (Lawler, 5). Locke believes that the individual will never really achieve happiness. The individual’s life is turned into a never ending pursuit that eventually ends in death. The biggest problem of the modern idea of utopia is the reasoning. The individual begins with an infatuation with pursuing physical satisfaction, concentrating mostly on the end result. In all honesty, though, this school of thought is so focused on the pursuit that they forget to enjoy the happiness that may come along with the pursuit. The individual does look for the physical security and comfort, but as they achieve more they become more unhappy. The more free from chance the person is, the more the person experiences their existence as a form of chance, and the more the person is maddened by death (Lawler, 6). Postmodernism can be seen through people’s radical expressions of their attitudes. Human feelings and human art in the world itself have been exhausted. Humans are limited to themselves and lonely, because we are so focused on the “I” or “me”. There is no longer the emphasis on having firm values that there once was. We have learned to deal with improbability and senselessness through laughter and joking. Feelings are expressed through art’s content in that human action is no longer hidden, fact and fiction are lost into the odd and whimsical, and self-contradiction is of the norm. Postmodernism is also seen through art’s form. Shapes have grown simple and grotesque mixtures are common. The biggest part of this new rise of expression is the new expectations that it entails. A reader, viewer, or listener can no longer be shocked or surprised and should never expect consistency or a genuine meaning (Feeney, 3). Before we can understand culture we must first define it for purposes of postmodernism. McGowen defines it as a term used “to designate only that portion of social activity that manifests itself in the arts, in games, in festivities, and in other activities apart from the strictly economic, political or technical/scientific” (2). This dismantling of the community is not to be said was started with postmodernism. The idea was thought about before and goes back to the first settler setting foot on American soil. If anything the idea has merely expanded (Woods, 42). This postcolonial perspective compels people to think about the quickly dying community. Postmodernism also revives the early romantic vision of a unified world. What postmodernism makes most clear is the long overdue realization that the result of modernism’s abandonment of any kind of principle or rules has led to a universal agreement of all and a more tolerant look at differences (McGowan 2). It is thought that soon the people in this country will not be of one single ethnicity because of the intermarriage that is now tolerated between people of different ethnic backgrounds. People are no long taking into consideration the importance of the family due to this school of thought. It is less common for people to spend time together as a family, since the idea of community is no longer impressed into the minds of the young. Postmodernism also represents a decline in faith in the keystones of the Enlightenment. Now instead of believing in a higher being we have brought up some new beliefs of our own. The belief in the ultimate advancement of knowledge, and that we are the one’s that must achieve it. The belief in infinite moral and social advancement (Woods, 8). The belief in teleology, which is “the doctrine that there is design, purpose, or finality in the world, that effects are in some manner intentional, and that no complete account of the universe is possible without reference to final causes” (Knight). It also refers back to the stan...