What questions do postmodern theories attempt to raise?

Question

Thanks to everyone for your answers. This was one of the questions from my final paper. I did the other 5 parts, but got stuck on this one=( Well, I already gave it in...

Answer 1

Perhaps for most people Baudrillard's 'work' on the nature of perception and reality, is most well known. But....

The problem with postmodernism is that its agenda has short-circuited before getting properly started. French postmodernism in particular has embarrassed itself by demonstrating that under its thin 'intellectual' veneer lies little more than trite observations. And the book *Intellectual Impostures* by Sokal & Bricmont, exploded it's pseudo-scientific/mathematical credentials.
I won't write it off entirely though; I'd like to believe that it is a methodology trying to find its way, but I'm not fully convinced. Before that happens, it will have to demonstrate that it is more than rhetoric and deliberately prolix writing.

Answer 2

PM is based in the idea that reality is veiled and we have no direct access to reality, so the best we can do is to take what we observe apart and see what it is made of , but unlike modernity , PM requires that the perspective of the person observing or experiencing be considered in the explanation or understanding of the topic. This allows us to ask questions such as what is society really and why does it not work according to modern scientific principles. Look at Picasso's work and you can see his attempts to illustrate reality from a individualistic position. Why are people evil. Science (modernity) would offer something like a defective gene. PM might suggest that no one is evil - their actions seem that way because those observing such 'evil' behavior do not have a complete picture of the motives and drives of the person being evil. Once such motives are known the evil is reduced to an act with special meaning. For example, greed is an evil thing - but what if greed is a reaction to a person's fears of having nothing or losing everything and being greedy is the only way they know to deal with the fear.

Answer 3

Postmodernity is a reaction to Modernity, which (in extreme cases) claims to be able to answer all cosmological, teleological, and philosophical questions. Modernity (and its proponents) thought it had all the answers to all human questions and problems. After World War One, however, Postmodernity arose when many of these philosophers realized that all of the "good" efforts to reform society still didn't stop the evils of the Great War. Postmodernity doesn't try to answer metanarrative questions--"What is the world about?" for example--but simply lets the interpreter apply truths to his/her own life.

Answer 4

The only people I've seen using the word "postmodern" are the leaders of the RRR Cult (pseudo-"Religious" Radical Right), and they always employ it derisively... as though it describes a society that has (very properly!) rejected their hateful and ignorant "values" toward personal liberties.

Other than that, I have no idea what "postmodern" (much less "postmodern theories") even means. Can you clarify, with Additional Details?

Answer 5

The truth writ in stone thousands of years ago in the scriptures.

Postmodernism is iether an attempt to break away from teh aforementioned only to find yourself sull circle at that which you sough to spurn, or ositively, the meaning of life, living, the longing of man to find reason or justification of his being...his creation...or thirdly the need to justify his anarchic, antisocial, deviant views, held whilst in the hands of hell, unti such a time he supplicates his spirit and receives enlightenment to deliver his soul from the darkness of ignorance and wilfullness...if only to gain his own soul and salvation..

Answer 6

I love all of this Social Theory...good luck on that final!!