Pseudo-Modernism

Postmodernism was once thought as a defining movement, reacting against Modernism values in order to conduct the framework of 20^th century identity, society, culture, politics and intellectual thought. Jean- Francois Lyotard’s theory rejects the Eurocentric metanarratives and universal Truth replacing them with individual truths and localized narratives called Petits Rècits, in order to reject universal organization and reflect diversity and variety in human kind. Ideally, Postmodernism was “ the challenging of the very concept of any monological or univalent structure of significance” (Richard 355), which on the surface, abolished the privileged point of view to introduce and include a point of view derived from the heterogeneity of non-western cultures. Nelly Richard, author of ‘Postmodernism and Periphery’, appropriates postmodernism from the perspective of Latin America, and acts as a voice to all of the excluded territories. She critiques and explores the collapse of the universal center of culture, history and society and the contradictory and paradoxical admission of the ‘periphery’ cultures. The neglected cultures and identities which “offer us the chance to reconsider all that was “left unsaid” and to interject its areas of opacity and resistance with the potential for new, as yet undiscovered, meanings” (357). However, it is thought to be euphoric and idealist to believe the seamless transition, incorporation, and operation of the periphery and center. Instead, postmodernism “dismantles the distinction between center and periphery, and in so doing nullifies its significance” (356). No longer are the differences of each culture recognized and celebrated, but instead have become “indistinguishable and interchangeable in a new, sophisticated economy of “sameness”” (357). The peripheral cultures, like Latin America, which wanted to be included yet still identified as individual in the postmodernism ‘collage’, is instead thrown back into the game of defining a position of cultural identity in the universal identity, and a cultural location in the universal fragmentation.

Suffice it to say; when it refers to searching and defining identity, Modernism and Post Modernism do not differentiate in their outcomes. Neither of the theories is able to break away from the contemporary culture, society, history, art or criticism to create a future inclusive paradigm. Instead, as one person, as a culture and as a nation of the 20^th and 21st century’s we are still trying to combat the instabilities so that we can find value, place and importance of individual and cultural identity in art, art history, society and politics. A future Raymond Williams defines as “a modern future in which community may be imagined again” (Harris 20).

So, with all of that said it is up to our generation to break from the past and demand a new standard of acceptance, understanding, participation and knowledge as a new phase of society. We must be a part of the new ethos emerging, an ethos philosopher Alan Kirby defines as pseudo-modernism. As a generation defined by transformation, adaption and technology, we have the motives and tools that can change our world, as we know it. The only question left is…who will be the one to fight for that change?

Bio:

1. Richard, Nelly. “Postmodernism and Periphery.” Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Ed. Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. 351-359

2. Harris, Jonathan. “Criticism, Meaning and Interpretation: After the End of Postmodernism” https://elearning.ua.edu/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct?appforward=urw/lc743648806011.tp743702905051/startFrameSet.dowebct%3Fforward=studentCourseView.dowebct%26lcid=743648806011