PREFACE
Preface.
What follows is a brief, albeit (in my humble opinion) relatively comprehensive overview of Postmodernism. Keeping in mind that all people are fallible (and postmodernists doubly so) this is my own simplification of the multitude of events that transpired, to bring us to the current sociology, and ideologies prevalent in the era of late capitalism in industrialized nations, or what is more commonly referred to as Postmodernism.
Postmodernism, basically revolves around three basic principles; The post-Nietzscheian void, Simulacra, and Semiosis, and Anthropological Evolution. Which represent the past, the present, and the future respectively.
Fredrick Nietzsche was a pessimist philosopher who lived during the rise of the industrial age. His father, (who he never felt very close to) was a preacher. Young Fredrick after finish preparatory school at a blazing pace, went into the seminary to study religion, and become a preacher like his father. After his finished at seminary, he went on to study at University, and eventually decided to not become a preacher. He wrote many books, which seem very existential in retrospect, about the role of man, and his lot in life, and eventually came up with something that nearly resembled the death of god. It is not so much Nietzsche findings that are so important, as it is their ramifications. Before Nietzsche came around life in the western world (to a greater of lesser extent) revolved around some sort of Christianity. What Nietzsche did (along with imperialism, and the growth of trade) was show people that there were other options. Once that happened the world stopped rotating around Christianity, and started rotating around nothing- the Post-Nietzscheian void. What this did was allow the growth in validity, and prevalence of lots of little stories of everything. So now instead of six billion people orbiting one thing, we have an almost infinite number of satellites, with six billion people orbiting, and switching orbits, and flying off in all different directions.
Another important idea in postmodernism is that of replication, and association, or simulacra, and semiosis. Since the industrial revolution, the aim of production is to make things more easily, and more uniformly. Which is what we call the machine ethic. This machine ethic has been applied to almost everything you can think of, and as a result there are now numerous copies of all sorts of things, from hamburgers, to famous art reproductions, to even people. Madonna is a good example of this. There are copies of Madonna everywhere you look. She is all over television, magazines, the raido, the internet, books, newspapers, videos and dvds, mp3s, cds, stickers, you get the idea. All of these pictures of Madonna, these copies are called Simulacra, (or signs that point to the real Madonna). Because this simulacra of Madonna is so much more prevalent, and the fact that most of us will never actually meet Madonna makes (for all intents and purposes) the simulacra more real than the actual person. What this does is puts us in a state of hyper-reality. Because most everything that we see is simulacra, and not anything real.
Now lets say that someone is watching a Madonna music video on MTV. Theyíve just come back from church, and their mind immediately jumps from Madonna the sex goddess, to Madonna, the virgin mother. From there they think of Christ, and then Buddha, and the then to the Beatles, and then to England, and then to Tony Blair. This is an example of Semiosis, or a linking of signs which refer to other signs. Semiosis is a natural byproduct of living in a sign driven world. In which very few things are anything but a matrix of references to other signs which are in turn just more matrices of references, et cetra. Which also puts us in a state of hyper-reality where everything is not-quite-real.,
The last, and most easily grasped concept of postmodernism is concerned mostly with the future, (weather it be the very near future, or not) Man, as an animal has gone through some undeniable paradigm shifts in his course of existence. From hunter-gatherer, to an agrarian lifestyle. The most recent of which was the industrial revolution. (which actually happened quite some time ago) Postmodernism concerns itself mostly with the exchange of information, as a study of culture, and history. They also believe that the next revolution in the way we live our lives will be the electronic revolution, which no doubt has already started. There are many things that can be extrapolated to a greater, or lesser degree of success about such a shift in the human climate. Not least of which is the fall of the nation-system, and the rise of multinational corporations. Another social rights campaign may very well erupt after these multinationals seize control of most of our independence. The push into space exploration and colonization may very well be ramped up. A truly free trade will almost certainly come into being. A widening gap in the socio-economic classes is also very likely. The point of all of this being that the focus of commerce, and exchange will stop being on goods and services (due to the success of the machine ethic, and the overabundance of said goods and services), and move to information.
So in review, the past was the destruction of the cultural singularity by Nietzsche, the present is a state of hyper-reality, where we live and float in a sea of simulacra, and the future is the exchange of information.
copyright 2005