postmodernismMartin Heidegger and his vision of the end of metaphysics. According to
some postmodern thinkers, postmodernism represents the completion of
the Enlightenment project, whereas others claim that it is a reaction
against the position of the Enlightenment with its Cartesian and Kantian
perspectives.
Generally, the thinkers of the Enlightenment stress the importance of
liberty, equality, tolerance, and common sense. Along with a conviction
that a natural law prescribes the pursuit of pleasure, profit, and property,
there is a strong belief in the natural goodness and perfectibility of human
nature. Moreover, the period exemplifies a secularization of knowledge
and thought. A fundamental assumption of the Enlightenment thinkers is
that rational reflection is liberating.
In response to the Enlightenment intellectual thrust, postmodernists
are critical of the static world envisioned by its thinkers, stressing instead
becoming, contingency, relativity, chance, and difference. This impetus
rejects imitation of models or conforming to models. Postmodernists
acknowledge that there is no place from which one can begin and no
place at which one will arrive in the future. Within the world of flux,
there are no universal and timeless truths to be discovered because
everything is relative and indeterminate, which suggests that our knowl-
edge is always incomplete, fragmented, and historically and culturally
conditioned. Therefore, there can be no foundation for philosophy or any
theory, and it is wise to be suspicious of any universal claims to validity
made by reason. Moreover, there is no center of the individual, society,
culture, or history. There is instead a postmodern emphasis on pluralism
that is, for instance, expressed by artists deliberately juxtaposing differ-
ent styles from diverse sources in the way that the bricolage reconfigures
different objects or images. The postmodern use of irony exemplifies a
preference for aesthetic categories and a different style of writing that
attempts to extend itself to the very limits of human experience.
The postmodern period is characterized by discontinuity, irregularity,
rupture, decenteredness, and lack of hope for any type of utopia. There is
also no transhistorical value for many postmodernists because of the
death of God, an example of the postmodern iconoclastic spirit. Within
this type of context, anyone who can write can become a revolutionary,
although writing involves a wandering, erring, marginal lifestyle in which
one experiments with words and thoughts. According to some postmod-
ernists, this wandering, errant lifestyle is destined to end in decadence.
Among the experiments conducted by postmodern thinkers are a series
of experiments within time that emphasizes the present moment. Many
postmodern thinkers tend to problematize time because they are uncom-
fortable with the past that tends to embody the roots of logocentrism,