In my Drawing 3 class, our first projects have been about the Body. To introduce us to these projects, our teacher had us read a couple of chapters in our textbook which gave an introduction to Postmodernism. While it primarily discusses that paradigm in the context of post-1980 art movements, there's enough of the underlying philosophy discussed there to give the average person an idea of what it's meant to be all about.

I've read some statements and philosophy refuting Postmodernism, and heard numerous preachers rail against it, but I always felt as though I was only getting part of the whole package. One of my classes last year dealt with the subject, but I never quite felt like I understood the whole circumference of the thing. So, in reading this introduction, I felt like I had finally been given the overview I'd really been wanting.

Here are the basic synopses, according to my notes:

Postmodernism cropped up in the 1970s but became more commonly heard about in the 1980s. It's a vague and open-ended term; one that seems to imply an opposition to some tenets of Modernism, including:
- Belief in social and technological progress;
- Faith that history unfolds in a rational, linear direction;
- Belief in individual self-determination

Postmodernists are described as being:
- Skeptical about "progress";
- Tending to be anti-elitist (for example, in art, embracing kitsch as readily as museum art);
- Of a mind that the forms of culture are hybrid, eclectic, and heterogeneous rather than pure and easily defined and contained;
- Believing that individuals are inevitably molded by their culture;
- Believing that we are all prisoners, to some degree, of identities constructed for us by artistic and popular media;
- Believing that the contemporary world is becoming increasingly more artificial because secondhand images in media now substitute for direct experiences and exert a more powerful influence on how we perceive and understand the world (more mediated images are manufactured illusions with no basis in reality - simulacra - and thus, no longer able to distinguish model from copy, we lose any sense of reality, leaving us only with 'irony', hyperrealism, kitsch, quotation, and appropriation)

Postmodernism includes the following studies/movements:

Semiotics - The study of signs. All artistic language - especially Abstraction, as a product of Modernism - is recognized as reflective of cultural conditioning. Thus, it is concluded that Jackson Pollock was wrong when he insisted that the artist can create unique, "authentic" art by doing loose, gestural, "free process", instinctive work. The painter becomes aware that his free-process gestures are supposed to be a sign of freedom, and thus gestures can no longer be made in an unselfconscious manner.

Poststructuralism - Adds the concept that the underlying structure of any symbolic system (called a "text" in general, but can refer to a language, a work of literature, a painting, a social system, etc.) is not fixed and permanent. Poststructuralist thinkers argue that any text can be shown to have internal contradictions and hidden ideologies. Jacques Derrida used deconstruction to analyze a text in terms of the underlying world view that gave rise to it, exposing contradictions and hidden biases in order to challenge the validity of the worldview as well as the text. Derrida also argues that meanings of texts are unstable because different readers bring their own worldviews to the reading, which skews interpretation. Thus, no text has any single, correct interpretation; meanings change with the reader, the time, and the context. Truth and reality are not as truthful and real as they may seem; in fact, there are many truths and many realities.

Feminism/Postcolonialism - In the art world, these are movements meant to challenge artists, art historians, critics, and audiences to consider political and social issues. Points out what it calls "The Gaze", which refers to how categories of people are stereotyped in visual representations by gender, race, sexuality, and other factors. Postcolonialists examine cultural interactions of all kinds (political, religious, philosophical, artistic, media, etc.) among people of different nations, regions, and communities. They look at the political, social, and psychological legacy of colonialism in particular locations, which oppress indigenous cultures and produce "hybridity", a mingling of peoples and cultures. Both Feminists and Postcolonialists challenge many core values of Western civilization, such as some of the ideologies, practices, and effects of capitalism (which centralizes power and money in the hands of a few and leads to poverty and oppression of many inside and outside the country) and Western dualistic thinking (arguing that the underlying logic is hierarchical and privileges one of the binaries as superior, relegating the Other to the margins as inferior: male over female, white over black, Western over non-Western, youth over age, order over chaos, etc.).

The Body - Finally, the topic I've been studying on is the subject of the body and its portrayal in art. Previous to the Postmodern movement, traditional Western art (at least as far back as the Greeks) has attempted to portray the soul within the body, or the body ensouled; the soul was the essential truth of human nature, and the artist was engaged in the portrayal of that essence. In the Postmodern outlook, there is no soul but only the body. We are bodies alone. The body carries visual signs of identity: gender, race, age, etc. Yet Western art is accused of focusing overmuch on the visual and ignoring that which is not visual. Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex) claims "One is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one." Sexual identity is said to depend primarily on cultural conditioning, not biology. At the same time, researchers in a wide range of fields from genetics to physical anthropology have proposed that some facets of sexuality are biological and not instinctual...

Makes me think of a song:

I see this ol' world is fast becoming a place
Meant only for survivors
Where the glands have replaced the heart and soul
And we act out our darkest desires...

- Daniel Amos, "Sins of the Fathers"

That's most of what I've got right now. Hopefully that didn't come out too obscurely for comprehension.

There are bits and pieces of this philosophy I can agree with, that make sense to me. Again, it's important to remember that Postmodernism is a critique of Modernism; it isn't necessarily "anti-Modernism" as much as pointing out flaws in Modernism and trying to move beyond those flaws to a deeper understanding of things.

However, it strikes me that there are significant issues with this paradigm.

First, the statement "all truth is relative," which many Postmodernists make, is itself a claim to absolute truth; thus, it's self-refuting.

Second, Poststructuralism seems to suggest that we are incapable of understanding the original, intended meaning of a text. But surely by studying the social/cultural mindset of the author's origin, we would be able to understand the author's text? This is one of the facets of textual criticism. When looking at, say, the Bible, we can't just "read it like you would read the newspaper." It's a collection of historical documents coming from ancient cultures, so in order to better understand, say, Paul's letters, we examine Hellenic Judean and Roman culture. (Granted, it doesn't hurt that God's words ring true through history, but then, you would figure that an eternal God who transcends time would be that way...)

Third, the worldview Postmodernism offers - and certainly in the way it's filtered down to the average layman - seems to me rather nihilistic and self-important. Putting aside the Jesus's assurances that this is not the case (given His references to the day of resurrection, and statements like Matthew 16:26, "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?"), if there is no such thing as the soul, then what ennobles a person, makes them worthy of dignity, or of life? The person's worth to society? What they can contribute to the "common good"? When someone can no longer contribute anything - say, they're mentally retarded or senile - doesn't this outlook favor the eugenic approach of euthenasia and abortion? When a person's worth is judged according to what they can contribute to society, doesn't the purpose of humanity become to serve the state? What role does compassion take, or does it even have a place in such a worldview? I'm reminded of a Kurt Vonnegut quote from The Sirens of Titan (which was mentioned in an anime seminar I was at over the weekend - I'll post about that later), which says something along the lines of "The only connection that people make is in how they use each other. If that sounds sad, think of how much sadder it would be never to be used by anyone." If this is the only form of love that a Postmodern people would be capable of - which really isn't love at all; certainly not as Jesus would call it - we may as well just be animals.

I happened to walk in on a conversation one of the manga writers who came to the school over the weekend was having with a student. In discussing religion, he said, "Who am I to tell someone else that their religion is wrong?" In reading about the questions of identity and interpretation that Postmodernism poses, I think I can understand how that question can legitimately be asked. I suspect that this isn't necessarily how he meant it, but in this particular case I think the essential flaw in his sentiment remains. His question assumes that his ego, his identity, is a significant factor in judging whether a claim to absolute truth is accurate or not - either he assumes that his identity will unalterably filter his understanding of another religion, or he believes that he has no authority or right to come to a conclusion and/or state it to another person. I don't think that a person's identity is warping enough to significantly influence the ability to make such a judgment; though it can be made very difficult by what people consider their identity, such as GLBT lifestyles, I don't think that's an insurmountable obstacle - there are those people who have jumped that particular hurdle. As for the second possibility, as a human being capable of observation and rational thought, I don't see how he would be denied the right to make the decision. Frankly, though, I think it's more likely he simply meant it in a relativistic manner - "There is no such thing as absolute truth," he asserted absolutely - that would allow him the luxury of not making a decision one way or another, thus sparing him a reason to be confrontational. It sounds considerate and nice - and indeed, he was a very nice guy - but it's intellectually lazy, if not dishonest.

There are numerous other issues with this I've read about, dealing with the moral and ethical problems such a mindset poses. A really good resource on the topic is Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted In Mid-Air by Beckwith and Koukl. However, this isn't so new as my art textbook would have me believe. Here's a quote for you:

"What a mighty number of spiritual weathercocks we have in this world now. We have men who in the morning hear a Calvinistic preacher, and say, "Oh, it is delightful;" in the evening they hear an Arminian, and they say, "Oh, it is just as good; and no doubt they are both true, though one contradicts the other!"

The glorious charity of the present day is such, that it believes lies to be as good as truth; and lies and truth have met together and kissed each other; and he that telleth truth is called a bigot, and truth has ceased to be honourable in the world!"

That's our old friend Charles Spurgeon, preaching in 1856. There really is nothing new under the Sun...

EDIT: I just happened across an essay that examines the problem of Poststructuralism by examining how the Supreme Court approaches the interpretation of the Constitution, and applies Scalia's approach to looking at the divide on how to read the Bible: hermeneutics or interpretation.