Modernism and

Postmodernism

Nicolò Zentilin

Postmodernism

• is hard to define, it is a complicated term.• is a concept that apperas in a wide variety of discipliners or areas of

study.• is difficult to be located temporally or historically.• to start thinking about postmodernism is easier to think about

modernism. • there is nothing above us: there is no trascendent reality. • people are finite and limited in a particular space and time. • there is no way to have access to objective truth.• there is no possibility to really know anything.• society is based on pluralism and it is full of prejudices.• the concept of character is a myth, an illusion created to reinforce

the ideology of capitalism.

Modernism

• is the movement from which postmodernism seems to emerge.

• lasted from 1900 to 1930.

• is away from the apparent objectivity provided by omiscient third person narrator.

• has rejected the need of god’s existence.

• belives in some universal ethical standards.

• reason is sufficient to understand the nature of life and man.

• Poetry seems more documentary and prose seems more poetic.

Sameness between modernism and postmodernism

• Rejecting boundaries between high and low form of art: culture is only one.

• Rejecting rigid genre distinctions.

• Reflexivity and self consciousness.

Differences between modernism and postmodernism

Postmodernism:• reason can not lead through knowledge and truth.• knowledge is interpreted as a kind of colonialism to attack other people. • it celebrates the idea of fragmentation, incoherence, chaos and disorder.

Modernism:• reason is sufficient to know the truth.• knowledge is important to be knowledgeable in general and to become an

educated person.• it celebrates the idea of unity, coherence, rationality and order out of

chaos.

Modernism and Modernity

• Modernism generally refers to the broad aesthetic movements of the twentieth century.

• Modernity refers to a set of philosophycal, political and ethical ideas which provide the basic for the aesthetic aspect of modernism. “Modernity” is older than “modernism”.

The basic ideas of the Enlightenment

• The basic ideas of Enlightment are similar to the ones of Modernism. • There is a stable knowable self that is conscious, rational and

autonomous.• Reason is the highest form of mental functioning.• The mode of knowing produced by the objective rational self is

science.• The knowledge produced by science is truth and is eternal.• All human istitutions and practices can be analyzed by science.• Reason is the ultimate judge of what is true.• In a world governed by reason the true will always be the same as

the good and right.• Language must be rational and trasparent.