Question

what do you mean by postmodern period

Answer 1

We live in a postmodern world. Or, so we’re told. But what does this mean? On one level, postmodern is a word used to describe major changes in the underlying ways people think — especially the way people view truth and reality. Postmodern is a term of contrast which implies modern. But before modern, there was pre-modern. To understand postmodern, it helps to consider the main differences in the way each of the three “moderns” relate to truth and reality.

Pre-modern era was one in which religion was the source of truth and reality. God’s existence and revelation were givens in the culture. In the modern era, science became the source for truth and reality. During this period, religion and morality werearbitrarily demoted to the subjective realm. In the present, postmodern era, there is no single defining source for truth and reality beyond the individual. Postmodernism simply radicalized relativism and individualism and then applied them to all spheres of knowledge — even science.

In a postmodern world, truth and reality are understood to be individually shaped by personal history, social class, gender, culture, and religion. These factors, we are told, combine to shape the narratives and meanings of our lives. In this sense they are culturally embedded, localized social constructions without any universal application. Postmoderns are suspicious of people who make universal truth claims. Such claims of universal meaning are viewed as imperialistic efforts to marginalize and oppress the rights of others. The most important value of postmodernity is the inadmissibility of all totalizing ways of viewing any dimension of life. Postmodernity, as a worldview, refuses to allow any single defining source for truth and reality. The new emphasis is on difference, plurality and selective forms of tolerance.

Postmodern thinking is full of absurdities and inconsistencies. It is, for example, the worldview that says no worldview exists. It is an anti-theory that uses theoretical tools to neutralize all theories. It demands an imposed uniformity in an effort to resist uniformity. It employs propositional statements to negate truth based on propositional statements.