What Is Postmodern Culture Religion Essay

What Is put for fightd unexampled Culture Religion examineSome people see military postmodernist elaboration as lib durationting because it has miserable away from the limitations of modern culture. Others see postmodern culture as appearward and pastiche of the worst aspects of modernity. Before we lay around explore these cultural themes and what they nucleotide for, we must outset define them.For the purpose of this essay I leave al peerless not be going into much detail about the origins, features and differences when considering the notion of culture. But I will be focusing on the differences of modern-and post modern culture.To start with a simple definition according to Kidd (2003), culture mover the way of life of a group of people. The patterns of social governing body and the normal ways in which we atomic number 18 supposed to be crap in corporation touch tot onlyy aspects of our daily lives. For obvious reasons not all cultures ar similar, for examp le, just because social life, for us, happens to be structured in a certain way, does not mean that it has to be like(p) this, nor that it was like this in the past or even like this in other societies about the world (Kidd, 20035-6).The sociologist Raymond Williams (1983), in his book Key Words a diction of culture and society, saysCulture is oneness of the two or three around complicated denominations in the English langu grow. This is cut offly so because of its entangled historic development, in several European languages, entirely mainly because it right off come to be used for important concepts in several explicit and incompatible systems of thought(Kidd, 20039).Two of these incompatible systems of thought ignore be considered to be modern- and postmodern culture.Modernity concord to Kidd (2003), what we call modernity is usually associated with the era of industrialisation and the time when sociology was developed by its founders. Modernity-the period of the mo dern-comes from the Latin word modo, which instrument just instanter, and this key feature in the modernist spirit is the founders brain that life and society had changed. Their times their just now were totally opposite from those of the traditional preindustrial societies of the past (Kidd, 200385).Modernity can be characterised by the following(a) elements industrialisation urbanisation a rise in the importance of experience the growth of the manufacturing industry, secularisation (the decline of religion) the invention of more advanced engine room rationalisation (Kidd, 200385).Modernity was the age of science, sociologists and discovery, based on the look that piece could understand and control every matter. The world of record (uncertainty) was the slave and humans were now in charge. The mission statements of these scientists and sociologists were to find absolute legality, develop common and everyday laws, to control the present, to predict the coming(prenomi nal) and to control the shape and direction of the future (Kidd, 200385-86).Modernity was based on what is called the spirit of the Enlightenment- the eighteenth-century philosophical movement that turn to the importance of reason and the replacement of religion and superstition with science and rationality. According to Kidd (2003), Max Weber provided an excellent illustration of the modernists preoccupation with rationalisation in his sociology of music (1968, originally written in 1910-110). Weber saw the historical development of society as the development of rationality in all spheres of social life and social organisation. In this context rationalisation means the croaking down of an object of claim into constituent parts in order better to understand the whole. Rationality is thus seen as a fundamental part of the rise of both(prenominal) science and technology in the industrial era, and as providing the momentum for industrialisation itself a highly modernist calculate of social change.Weber illustrated the historical development of rationality with reference to melodious notation. For example in preindustrial traditional society, music was passed down the generations as part of folk culture. Songs were passed down by word of mouth and instrument do was the task of s pour downed people. With the onset of rationalisation there developed a concern to analyse what music actually was to break it down in order better to control it. Hence the creation of a universal system of notation, scales, tabs and so on. Just like the documentation and notation of music, the fashioning of music instruments became a matter of mass production. The rationalisation process was seen as helping people to control the world around them to seek out absolute true statement and to make order out of the chaos of nature (Kidd, 2003 86-87).postmodernistismIt is very difficult to define the term postmodernism in one nobble definition because it covers such a large academic field and so much has been written on the subject. Lets begin with a few short definitions and take it from there.Postmodernism refers to the intellectual irritation and cultural expressions that argon becoming increasingly dominant in contemporary society. These expressions questions the ideals, principles and values that move at the heart of the modern mental capacity. Post modernity, in turn, refers to the era in which we atomic number 18 living, the time when the postmodern outlook increasingly shapes our society. The adjective postmodern, then, refers to the mind-set and its products. Post modernity is the era in which postmodern ideas, attitudes, and values reign-when the mood of postmodernism is moulding culture. This is the era of the postmodern society. (Grenz, 1996 12-13)According to Klages (2003) Postmodernism, which became an atomic number 18a of academic study in the mid eighties, is a term used to define the era after modernity. The Premodern (medieval) age was l abelled the age of faith and superstition, followed by the modern age, the age of reason, empiricism and science. The postmodern age of relativity and, recently, the newest form of postmodernism, the age of holism and interdependence, followed. Respectively, the guiding metaphors are the created organism, the machine, the text, and the self-organizing system (de Quincy, 2002). Modernism has been introduced as a benchmark for the discussion of postmodernism, and two related terms, postmodern and postmodernist.One of the first writers to use the term postmodern was the American literary critic Ihab Hassan. In the second edition of his groundbreaking book from 1971, The Dismemberment of Orpheus Toward a Postmodern Literature (1982), he draws up a list of differences between modernism and postmodernism. This list tries to present the focus between modernism and postmodernism and the terms used. Although some(prenominal) of the categories pee remained highly controversial, it still is worth reproducing here as a guideline between the difference in mindsets between the two erasPostmodernismPataphysics/ dadAntiform (disjuctive, open)PlayChanceAnarchyExhaustion/SilenceProcess/ surgical procedure/HappeningParticipationDecreation/DeconstructionAntithesisAbsenceDispersalText/Intertext blandishmentSyntagmParataxisMetonymyCombinationRhizome/SurfaceAgainst Interpretation/Misreading manikinScriptible (writerly)Antinarrative/Petite histoireIdiolectDesireModernismRomanticism/SymbolismForm (conjunctive, closed) draw a bead onDesignHierarchyMastery/LogosArt object/ sinless workDistanceCreation/TotalizationSynthesisPresenceCentringGenre/ edgeSemanticsParadigmHypotaxisMetaphorSelectionRoot/DepthInterpretation/ drillSignifiedLisible (readerly)Narrative/Grande histoireMaster codeSymptomMutant polymorphous/AndrogynousSchizophreniaDifference-differance/traceThe Holy GhostIrony indeterminationImmanenceTypeGenital/PhallicParanoiaOrigin/Cause immortal the FatherMetaphysicsDeterminacyTr anscendence(Hassan, 1982 267-8 Malpas, 2005 7-8)According to Anderson (1996) we are living in a new world, a world that does not know how to define itself by what it is, but only by what it has just-now ceased to be. This view takes the position that the world has changed so drastically that confusion has taken over from certainty. The modernist world was fixed and it had a distinct character. The post modern perspective explains that the absolute uprightness and definite standards, that modernity held, has collapsed. In post modernity truth, certainty and reality are probationary and relativistic.This is the case according to Kidd (2003), not just for morality, but excessively for the friendship we have about the world around us. There are too more choices out there, all claiming to be the real discrepancy of the truth. Religion, politics, the sciences and so on all claim special access to the truth, but how can we tell which is correct? noesis has become a trade good and a form of power, rather than an absolute, a truth. Just as truth fragments into a plurality of truths, so the traditional means of identity shaping based on class, gender, ethnicity and so on has been replaced by an individual count for meaning, and life-style has become a matter of choice. Ultimately, uncertainty, confusion, ambiguity and plurality will be all that is left.The French thinker Jean-Francois Lyotard, in his book The Post modern Condition (1984 xxiv), defines postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives. What he means by this that in the postmodern age knowledge has become provisional and as humans we see the old claims to truth for they really are fictions, stories or narratives. Leyotard suggested that science and scientific knowledge have been exposed for what they are once powerful errors that are powerful no longer. Hope can no longer be placed on the highly modernist notions of circulate or reason since what claims to be knowledge depends on where one is , and how one chooses to see what is around one. There is no such thing as a single truth nothing more than a commodity. Knowledge can be bought and sold, and in the age of computer technology those who have the most knowledge have the most power (Kidd, 200390-91).According to Kidd (2003) a great deal of postmodern thinking is characterised by a belief called relativism. Relativism in postmodernism suggests that there are no absolute standards of truth, reality, morality and correctness, kinda everything comes down to a matter of choice. This concept of relativism is in direct resistor to the modernist thinking discussed in the Modernity section of this paper. The founders believed in progress, development and objectiveness but these are seen by postmodernists as nothing but stories, which in their time were powerful and shaped our thinking, but no longer.Critique of postmodernism temporary hookup post modernism in itself serves as a critique on the principals of modernism, we h avent explored any critique on post modernism yet.While many have embraced postmodern ideas, some have rejected them. According to Kidd (2003) the critics of postmodernism are concerned about the implications of these ideas for the future of sociology itself. If there is no such thing as truth, then what is the point of sociology trying to determine what the world is like?There are five main criticisms of postmodernism. First, according to Kidd (2003) is Norris (1992,1993), he considers that postmodernism is outlying(prenominal) too sceptical and relativistic to be of any use. Norris (1992) quotes an observation make by Tony BennettIf narratives are all that we can have and if all narratives are, in principle, of equal value as it seems they must be if there is no touchstone of reality to which they can be referred for the adjudication of their truth-claims then rational reflect would seem to be pointless.Secondly, according to Kidd (2003), Giddens (1990, 1991) notes with some c oncern that postmodernism does not ease up sociology a future. It denies the very Enlightenment spirit that led to the creation of sociology. For Giddens the postmodern denial of truth and reason leaves us with nothing upon which to gain knowledge and truth about the world.Third, according to Kidd (2003), many Marxists have showed that postmodernism may prophesy about the individual degagedom and liberation from the modernists past, but this freedom is an illusion since it is based on consumption. Given that consumption cost money, then surely some people are going to be more free than others? Postmodernism is said to provide a thinly veiled justification for the counterfeit motivations created by the capitalist economy these simply ensures more simoleons for the capitalists themselves and thus ensures the perpetuation of an exploitative society.Fourth, according to Kidd (2003), if morality is indeed recounting then this leaves us with no means of challenging, discriminatio n and prejudice in society.Finally According to Aylesworth (2005) the most prominent critic of postmodernism is Jrgen Habermas. InThe Philosophical Discourse of Modernity(Habermas1987), he criticises postmodernism at the level of society and communicative action. He defends modernists argumentative reason in inter-subjective communication against postmodernisms experimental, avant-garde strategies. For example, Habermans claims postmodernists commit a performative contradiction in their critiques of modernism by employing concepts and methods that only modern reason can provide.Which positions do I control with?To conceptualize these two culture phenomenas in simple terms it would seem that modernism tends to be much more conservative than the liberal postmodernism. I will explain my position using the controversial animated TV show, South Park as example, from the view point of the episode Im little bit country(Parker2003).This episode originally aired during the build-up to the20 03 U.S. assault of Iraq. The people of the town South Park are divided about the war. After splitting in two groups, both groups plan rallies one pro-war (conservative modernist), one anti-war (liberal postmodernist), both on the same day in the same street. They end up having a great argument during both rallies, and in the end they get into a huge fight where they begin to kill each other.Benjamin Franklin (one of the founding fathers)appears in the charracter, Eric Cartmans coma-dream and explains to him that the new country must not seem to be a war-monger to the rest of the world at the same time it cannot seem to be weak either. Therefore it must go to war, but allow protests. The United States will go to war on one hand, and use protest to oppose the war on the other. He refers to the this as saying one thing and doing another. He refers to this as having our cake and eating it too. Cartman wakes up from his coma and delivers this message to the two contend groups in the to wn, who sees the truth of that statement and then break out into song (South Park Studios2003).Thus my point is that we should apply both cultural phenomenas when living our lives but when doing so we should consider a rosy-cheeked balance between the two. It would seem unreasonable to consider that everything has an absolute truth about it, because people and things change all the time and not everything is unremitting and controllable as the modernists would like to believe. On the other hand everything cant be relative because there has to be absolute truth in world otherwise our lives would be uncertain in so many ways. For example all metals expand when heated is an absolute truth, when you climb of a 50 ft bridge, you are probably going to die. We need truth and freedom to coexist with one another, so if I have to label myself as a modernist or a postmodernist, then I am neither, I will take what I need when I need it .2501 words