Postmodernism lays special emphasis on identity and difference. Discuss.

 Departure From Modernism: Modernism, by respecting the role of reason, allowed society to seek solutions to many nagging problems which had been allowed to exist during medievalist. Furthermore, by respecting the individual, modernism also encouraged the formation of protective individual rights. But things went too far. Because modernism defines humanity in terms of the thinking self, it fails to understand the non-rational elements of human nature, including the spiritual. It also utterly fails to comprehend the limits of reason and objectivism.

In effect, modernism dehumanizes us by convincing us that we are only a small cog in a great mechanistic universe. And modernism leads to a breakdown in human relationships by exalting individualism and analysis. On the whole, modernism has kept us from a relational, holistic approach to life. Postmodernism seeks to correct the imbalances of modernism. It reminds us that we do not possess an unlimited potential to understand and change the world for our own purposes. Rather, we exist in the world and in relation to it Postmodernism is a reaction to modernism. It corrects problems from the past, but also over-reacts to those problems, leading to an exaggeration. So, the chief strengths of postmodernism are in what it corrects, and it’s chief weaknesses are in what it over-corrects.

Let’s look at an example. Under modernism, the prevailing theory of truth was known as the correspondence theory of truth. That is, something was felt to be true in so much as it corresponds to objective reality found in the world. The correspondence theory of truth caused people to believe that scientific truth equals absolute truth. Postmodernism corrects this by denying the equivalency between scientific truth and absolute truth. All scientific conclusions are now understood to be tentative simply because no one has ever made the infinite number of observations required to learn if there are any exceptions,

So, postmodernism corrects modernism by helping us to understand the limits of our reasoning ability and knowledge. But postmodernism then presses things too far.  Vhodshah am It adheres to a coherence theory of truth. That is, something is true for us only in so much as it coheres with our other perceptions about the world. But this new theory of truth makes science to be just a collection of independent research traditions, each having its own perspectives and language games. But if taken to the extreme, this can lead to the absurd.

Modernism began in the 1890s and lasted till about 1945. Postmodernism began after the Second World War, especially after 1968. Modernism was based on using rational, logical means to gain knowledge while postmodernism denied the application of logical thinking. Rather, the thinking during the postmodern era was based on unscientific, irrational thought process, as a reaction to modernism. A hierarchical and organized and determinate nature of knowledge characterized modernism. But postmodernism was based on an anarchical, non-totalized and indeterminate state of knowledge. Modernist approach was objective, theoretical and analytical while the post-modernism approach was based on subjectivity.

It lacked the analytical nature and thoughts were rhetorical and completely based on belief. The fundamental difference between modernism and postmodernism is that modernist thinking is about the search of an abstract truth of life while postmodernist thinkers believe that there is no universal truth, abstract or otherwise. Modernism attempts to construct a coherent world-view whereas postmodernism attempts to remove the difference between high and low. Modernist thinking asserts that mankind progresses by using science and reason while postmodernist thinking believes that progress is a only way to justify the European domination on culture.

Modernist thinking believes in learning from past experiences and trusts the texts that narrate the past. On the other hand, postmodernist thinking defies any truth in the text narrating the past and renders it of no use in the present times. Modernist historians have a faith in depth. They believe in going deep into a subject to fully analyze it. This is not the case with postmodernist thinkers. They believe in going by the superficial appearances, they believe in playing on surfaces and show no concern towards the depth of subjects.

Modernism considers the original works as authentic while postmodernist thinkers base their views on hyper-reality; they get highly influenced by things propagated through media.

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