Knowledge is the Enemy of Postmodernism

Knowledge is the Enemy of Postmodernism

Michael Drach   December 8
Philosophy Research Essay

Society currently exists within a sphere of   "reality" that can be classified as post-modern, or superseding the modern.   This is a social condition that has come under much scrutiny and criticism in recent years, and its very being has been the subject of a great deal of debate.   It is a very difficult concept to understand and classify, due to its endless interpretations.   However, there is a somewhat general consensus that is considerably easier to agree on.   As Dick Hebdige pointed out in the mid-1980's, the term "postmodern" now applies to just about everything we take for granted in society.   It can refer to things as specific as the decor of a room, or to the broad societal and economic shifts in the media.   Postmodernism can be defined, in the sense that this essay will focus upon, as an evolution of modernism, in art, science, and philosophy.   It is opposed to the Enlightenment, the period beginning with the Renaissance, and ending with the modernism of the early twentieth century.   According to Jean-Francois Lyotard, postmodernism is classified as "incredulity towards metanarratives." (Jameson 124)  

The "Grand Narratives," as they are also called, with their emphasis on artistic genius, reason, virility, and individuality, were the brainchildren of thinkers such as Marx, Freud, Kant, and Bacon.   In the postmodern world, their ideas are met with scepticism and extreme criticism, and replaced by a general preference for eclecticism, anti-historicity, cynicism, hyperreality, political correctness, reproducibility, and "zero-consciousness."   Postmodernism is marked by an ironic, apocalyptic stance that either predicts the End of an era, or the impossibility of an End.   While there are many different facets of postmodernism that can be looked at, the pressing question is whether this condition has an antidote.   The answer, of course, depends on whether one extols this situation or not....