Postmodernism

[theFijian]

This is the first time I've poste in this forum so apologies if this topic has been done to death already.

Just what is Postmidernism? I have some ideas in my head about what I think it is. For example, it could be classified as the rejection of absolutes. This could be in terms of Truth, Morality, Knowledge etc.

In the arts it could be defined as a rejection of traditional mediums, forms, constructs ie. post-rock music - rock music which departs from traditional riff-based, 4-beats to the bar guitar music and uses broken up song structures, uneven rythms etc.

This is very rough as I've really only begun to address the issue myself.

Can I have your thoughts, opinions etc?

Also , know any good online resources on Postmodernism?

cheers,
Andy

 

[Volos]

I can give you my simplistic understanding of what post modernism is. I have never run across a terribly good definition of this philosophy but in the simplest terms:



Modernism began about the time of the renaissance. It grew out of science and the idea that the universe and everything in it could be studied AND understood and thought this study TRUTH will be knowable. The Christian Church strongly opposed Modernism because it removed mysticism and mystery from religion and the concept of God.

Post modernism while ill defined is an understanding that science and knowledge has limits there are things that cannot be known and TRUTH is dependant on any number of variables the largest of which is the context in which one is claiming truth. Modern Christians oppose post modernism and defend Modernism just as strongly as their ancestors opposed Modernism. The problem currently is that if one declares the truth unknowable or worse declares truth as a patter of context then the Churches claims to truth become true only in context of the Christian Religion making Christianity no better (and no worse) than any other religion.



Post Modernism does not reject truth or morality or the like but recognizes that these things have meaning only in context. While absolute truth may exist, there is no way to know absolute truth. Declaring one’s belief to be absolute truth fails in that it cannot be shown to be truth, only belief.



The concept of post modernism also suffers because it is a philosophy as well as a separate concept of art, architecture and music as well.

 

[Arikay]

www.wikipedia.org would be my first stop as they have many good articles. But I like the simpsons definition of "poh-moe," "weird for the sake of weird."

 

[Blissman]

The interesting thing about the relationship between science and the church is that science often finds disturbing insights in to reality which conflict with the church, seemingly anti-church. These very disurbing facts end up serving the faith. For example, Gallalo went on trial for blashpeme (punishable by death) for saying that the the universe did not revolve around the earth, rather the earth revolved around the sun (along with other planets) which (implies) the sun revolved around?? How DARE he say that! The Church had omnitheopocentric truth, and man was the Center of the Universe because it was God, Man and of course, Church, almighty Church. To believe that the earth was not the center of the universe would destroy Christianity! Of course it didn't destroy Christianity, for it humbled man before God. Gallalo had distubed some men who had claimed to be the authority of the voice of God.