What is Postmodernism?

An exploration of postmodern thought

I’ve talked about several books that we might consider “postmodern.” White Noise by Don DeLillo or The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, for instance. But what is postmodernism? 

Given its purposeful elusiveness, postmodernism can be somewhat difficult to define (one of the ideas inherent in postmodernism, in fact, is the notion that words do not have stable definitions), but let’s try our best.

For one, postmodernism is a response to the value system of modernity. The writing of the the modernist literary behemoths—Joyce, Eliot, Pound, to name a few—is often characterized by a quasi-indecipherable, intellectual style and addresses the harsh reality of a decaying, modernist society through themes such as alienation, absence, and longing. Postmodernism, however, does away with such themes and aspirations and seeks to eradicate the sort of system that had previously privileged the intellectual elite.

If modernism was the cry to be understood—a futile one, at that—then postmodernism doesn’t give a f*ck. The proliferation of profanity in the postmodern mind is another one of its hallmarks, emerging as an appeal to the common man, the Other who now holds just as much relevance in society and can no longer be repressed under an older hierarchical structure created by the modernists, whose meaning was meant to be deciphered only by a select few. Modernism’s cry to be understood fades into indifference, and in postmodernism, with the death of the self, the death of the author, there is no more importance placed on whether the author cares at all to convey a certain message. Modernism's fragmented self fades into a transcendent nothing, and with this nothing, meaning can be created by just about anyone in just about any way, for words are no longer marks of stability. 

Postmodernism thus breaks free of boundaries. In postmodernism, meaning lies in différance, a term popularized by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his seminal postmodern work Of Grammatology. If you know French, you’ll know that the word for “difference” is spelled différence in French, so why the spelling discrepancy? Well, for Derrida, différance is a play (Derrida liked those too) on the original différence that captures both the idea of “difference of meaning” and “deferral of meaning.” For Derrida, true meaning can only arise in deferral, and thus, the philosopher encourages us not to jump to conclusions in ascribing meaning to our language. Only in movement and in deferral can we eradicate the one sovereign meaning that reigns supreme above all Others. In postmodernism, the Other takes the forefront, creating a proliferation of meaning. Creativity is unleashed, and writing, through a newborn subjectivity, becomes unlimited by previous constraints of reason. 

This idea of the Other also makes a frequent cameo in postmodern theory as well. A key cornerstone of postmodernism thought is “binary opposition theory,” a term first introduced by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and later popularized by Derrida and his contemporary Claude Levi-Strauss. According to Derrida, we often obtain the meaning of a certain word in terms of binary opposition, and Derrida argues that one term often takes precedence over the other, creating a sort of intellectual hierarchy. For instance, in the binary of man/woman, man has always taken precedence over woman, and in the binary of light/dark, light has always taken precedence over dark. Derrida argues that this is an erroneous way of thinking, and his postmodern thought seeks to erode the hierarchies that prop up these binaries (Of Grammatology itself aims to undermine the speech/writing binary, arguing that writing is just as powerful as speech). Under the eradication of binary opposition theory, hierarchies fall away, and social structures are free to embody more potent systems of equality. 

Because it does away with the concept of the intellectual elite, postmodernism also strives to reach a wide audience and accomplishes this feat through the age of media, representation, and simulacra. The erasure of binary pairs—and the privileging of one pair over the other—allows a multivalent culture to thrive: no longer is there a superior understanding of race, culture, or identity. We face, instead, an era of inclusion, in which everyone is always interconnected through the age of the internet: suddenly, we are able to witness and appreciate life across the ocean and create for ourselves a mélange of ideas that would have never before been possible. The proliferation of culture allows for the rapid increase of ideas and objects at a speed that would never have been possible before the advent of technology. And while postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard, in his argument that such a trend inaugurates an order of simulacra that replaces the original real, approaches this era despondently and censoriously, others have argued that there is nothing wrong with this new understanding of reality—that, in fact, it promotes a liberation culture that allows new realities to emerge. What Baudrillard calls “the simulacrum” is simply a new layer of reality that is at first daunting yet later exciting, a new era where we are not bound by previous constrictions. Postmodernism grants freedom and embraces new possibilities through the birth of the Other. Postmodernism is infinite. 

Do I believe in any of this? Of course not. But it’s a cool intellectual thought experiment. 

By the way Jackie Derrida, I would not exactly characterize your writing as relevant to the common man, but nice try.