Editing Postmodernism (section)

== Historical overview ==
Two broad cultural movements, modernism and postmodernism, emerged in response to profound changes in the Western world. The [[Industrial Revolution]], [[urbanization]], [[secularization]], [[Technological change|technological advances]], two [[world war]]s, and [[globalization]] deeply disrupted the social order. Modernism emerged in the late 1800s, seeking to redefine fundamental truths and values through a radical rethinking of traditional ideas and forms across many fields. Postmodernism emerged in the mid-20th century with a skeptical perspective that questioned the notion of universal truths and reshaped modernist approaches by embracing the complexity and contradictions of modern life.{{sfn|Best|Kellner|1991|p=2}}<ref>{{Cite book |title=A Dictionary of Sociology |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-19-968358-1 |editor-last=Scott |editor-first=John |edition=4. |series=Oxford Reference |location=Oxford |quote=Postmodernity, in whatever guise it appears, thus implies the disintegration of modernist symbolic orders. It denies the existence of all 'universals', including the philosophy of the transcendental self, on the grounds that the discourse and referential categories of modernity (the subject, community, the state, use-value, social class, and so forth) are no longer appropriate to the description of disorganized capitalism.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Herman |first=David J. |date=1991 |title=Modernism versus Postmodernism: Towards an Analytic Distinction |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1772982 |journal=Poetics Today |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=55–86 |doi=10.2307/1772982 |issn=0333-5372 |jstor=1772982}}</ref>

The term "postmodernism" first appeared in print in 1870,{{sfn|Welsch|Sandbothe|1997|page=76}}{{sfn|Hassan|1987|pages=12ff}} but it only began to enter circulation with its current range of meanings in the 1950s—60s.{{sfn|Brooker|2003|p=202}}{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=4}}

=== Early appearances ===

The term "postmodern" was first used in 1870 by the artist John Watkins Chapman, who described "a Postmodern style of painting" as a departure from French [[Impressionism]].{{sfn|Welsch|Sandbothe|1997|page=76}}{{sfn|Hassan|1987|pages=12ff.}} Similarly, the first citation given by the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' is dated to 1916, describing [[Gus Mager]] as "one of the few 'post' modern painters whose style is convincing".<ref>{{cite web |title=postmodern (adjective & noun) |website=Oxford English Dictionary |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/postmodern_adj?tab=factsheet |access-date=9 February 2024 |date=2006}}</ref>

[[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal]] priest and cultural commentator J. M. Thompson, in a 1914 article, uses the term to describe changes in attitudes and beliefs in the critique of religion, writing, "the ''raison d'être'' of Post-Modernism is to escape from the double-mindedness of [[Modernism (Roman Catholicism)|modernism]] by being thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology, to [[Catholic]] feeling as well as to Catholic tradition".{{sfn|Thompson|1914|page=733}} In 1926, [[Bernard Iddings Bell]], president of [[Bard College|St. Stephen's College]] and also an Episcopal priest, published ''Postmodernism and Other Essays'', which marks the first use of the term to describe an historical period following modernity.<ref>{{cite book |title=Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary |date=2004}}</ref>{{sfn|Madsen|1995}} The essay criticizes lingering socio-cultural norms, attitudes, and practices of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]. It is also critical of a purported cultural shift away from traditional Christian beliefs.{{sfn|Bell|1926}}{{sfn|Birzer|2015}}{{sfn|Russello|2007}}

The term "postmodernity" was first used in an academic historical context as a general concept for a movement by [[Arnold J. Toynbee]] in a 1939 essay, which states that "Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914–1918".{{sfn|Toynbee|1961|page=43}}

In 1942, the literary critic and author H. R. Hays describes postmodernism as a new literary form.<ref>{{cite web |title=postmodernism (n.) |website=OED |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/postmodernism_n |access-date=8 February 2024 |date=2006}}</ref> Also in the arts, the term was first used in 1949 to describe a dissatisfaction with the [[modern architecture|modernist architectural movement]] known as the [[International Style (architecture)|International Style]].{{sfn|Connor|2013|p=567}}

Although these early uses anticipate some of the concerns of the debate in the second part of the 20th century, there is little direct continuity in the discussion.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=19}} Just when the new discussion begins, however, is also a matter of dispute. Various authors place its beginnings in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.{{sfn|Brooker|2003|p=203}}

===Theoretical development===
In the mid-1970s, the American sociologist [[Daniel Bell]] provided a general account of the postmodern as an effectively [[nihilistic]] response to modernism's alleged assault on the [[Protestant work ethic]] and its rejection of what he upheld as traditional values.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|page=30}} The ideals of modernity, per his diagnosis, were degraded to the level of consumer choice.{{sfn|Connor|2004|p=5}} This research project, however, was not taken up in a significant way by others until the mid-1980s when the work of [[Jean Baudrillard]] and [[Fredric Jameson]], building upon art and literary criticism, reintroduced the term to sociology.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|page=201}}

Discussion about the postmodern in the second part of the 20th century was most articulate in areas with a large body of critical discourse around the [[modernism|modernist movement]]. Even here, however, there continued to be disagreement about such basic issues as whether postmodernism is a break with modernism, a renewal and intensification of modernism,{{sfn|Connor|2013|p=567}} or even, both at once, a rejection and a radicalization of its historical predecessor.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|pages=4–5}}

While discussions in the 1970s were dominated by literary criticism, these were supplanted by architectural theory in the 1980s.{{sfn|Connor|2004|p=12}} Some of these conversations made use of French poststructuralist thought, but only after these innovations and critical discourse in the arts did postmodernism emerge as a philosophical term in its own right.{{sfn|Aylesworth|2015|loc=Introduction & §2}}{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}

====In literary and architectural theory====
[[File:Creeley.jpg|thumb|The poet Robert Creeley in 1972]]
According to Hans Bertens and [[Perry Anderson]], the [[Black Mountain poets]] [[Charles Olson]] and [[Robert Creeley]] first introduced the term "postmodern" in its current sense during the 1950s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Perry |title=The Origins of Postmodernity |date=1998 |publisher=Verso |pages=6–12}}</ref>{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}
Their stance against modernist poetry – and Olson's [[Heideggerian]] orientation – were influential in the identification of postmodernism as a polemical position opposed to the [[rationalism|rationalist]] values championed by the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] project.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=19}}

During the 1960s, this affirmative use gave way to a pejorative use by the [[New Left]], who used it to describe a waning commitment among youth to the political ideals [[socialism]] and [[communism]].{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}} The literary critic [[Irving Howe]], for instance, denounced postmodern literature for being content to merely reflect, rather than actively attempt to refashion, what he saw as the "increasingly shapeless" character of contemporary society.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|page=21}}{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}

In the 1970s, this changed again, largely under the influence of the literary critic [[Ihab Hassan]]'s large-scale survey of works that he said could no longer be called modern. Taking the Black Mountain poets an exemplary instance of the new postmodern type, Hassan celebrates its [[Nietzschean]] playfulness and cheerfully anarchic spirit, which he sets off against the high seriousness of modernism.{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=24}}

(Yet, from another perspective, [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'s attack on Western philosophy and [[Martin Heidegger]]'s critique of metaphysics posed deep theoretical problems not necessarily a cause for aesthetic celebration. Their further influence on the conversation about postmodernism, however, would be largely mediated by French [[poststructuralism]].{{sfn|Best|Kellner|1991|pages=22–23}})

If literature were at the center of the discussion in the 1970s, architecture was at the center in the 1980s.{{sfn|Connor|2004|p=12}} The architectural theorist [[Charles Jencks]], in particular, connected the artistic [[avant-garde]] to social change in a way that captured attention outside of academia.{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}} Jenckes, much influenced by the American architect [[Robert Venturi]],{{sfn|Bertens|1995|page=55}} celebrated a plurality of forms and encourages participation and active engagement with the local context of the built environment.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|pages=59–60}} He presented this as in opposition to the "authoritarian style" of International Modernism.{{sfn|Connor|2013|p=567}}

====The influence of poststructuralism====
In the 1970s, postmodern criticism increasingly came to incorporate poststructuralist theory, particularly the [[deconstruction|deconstructive]] approach to texts most strongly associated with [[Jacques Derrida]], who attempted to demonstrate that the whole [[foundationalist]] approach to language and knowledge was untenable and misguided.{{sfn|Best|Kellner|1991|page=21}} It is during this period that postmodernism came to be particularly equated with a kind of anti-representational self-reflexivity.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=70}}{{efn|The incorporation of deconstruction into postmodernism, while common in the U.S., was resisted in the U.K.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=15}} Furthermore, the more general category of poststructuralism itself was a largely American category, foreign to the disparate French thinkers upon whom it was imposed.{{sfn|Poster|1989|p=6}} }}

In the 1980s, some critics began to take an interest in the work of [[Michel Foucault]]. This introduced a political concern about social power-relations into discussions about postmodernism.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|pages=7,79}} This was also the beginning of the affiliation of postmodernism with [[feminism]] and [[multiculturalism]].{{sfn|Bertens|1995|pages=8,70}} The art critic [[Craig Owens (critic)|Craig Owens]], in particular, not only made the connection to feminism explicit, but went so far as to claim feminism for postmodernism wholesale,{{sfn|Bertens|1995|p=92}} a broad claim resisted by even many sympathetic feminists such as [[Nancy Fraser]] and Linda Nicholson.{{sfn|Bertens|1995|pages=190–96}}

====Generalization====
Although postmodern criticism and thought drew on philosophical ideas from early on, "postmodernism" was only introduced to the expressly philosophical lexicon by [[Jean-François Lyotard]] in his 1979{{efn|English translation, 1984.}} ''[[The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge]]''. This work served as a catalyst for many of the subsequent intellectual debates around the term.{{sfn|Aylesworth|2015|loc=Introduction & §2}}{{sfn|Buchanan|2018}}

By the 1990s, postmodernism had become increasingly identified with critical and philosophical discourse directly about postmodernity or the postmodern idiom itself.{{sfn|Connor|2004|p=4}} No longer centered on any particular art or even the arts in general, it instead turned to address the more general problems posed to society in general by a new proliferation of cultures and forms.{{sfn|Connor|2004|p=12}} It is during this period that it also came to be associated with [[postcolonialism]] and [[identity politics]].{{sfn|Connor|2004|p=5}}

Around this time, postmodernism also began to be conceived in popular culture as a general "philosophical disposition" associated with a loose sort of [[relativism]]. In this sense, the term also started to appear as a "casual term of abuse" in non-academic contexts.{{sfn|Connor|2004|p=5}} Others identified it as an aesthetic "lifestyle" of eclecticism and playful self-irony.{{sfn|Brooker|2003|p=203}}

===The "Science Wars"===
The basis for what became known later as the [[Science Wars]] was the 1962 publication of ''[[The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]]'' by the physicist and historian of science [[Thomas Kuhn]].{{sfn|Goldman|2021|p=208}} Kuhn presented the direction of scientific inquiry — the kind of questions that can be asked, and what counts as a correct answer — as governed by a "paradigm" defining what counts as "normal science" during any given period.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|p=201}} While not based on postmodern ideas or [[Continental philosophy]], Kuhn's intervention set the agenda for much of ''The Postmodern Condition'' and has subsequently been presented as the beginning of "postmodern epistemology" in the philosophy of science.{{sfn|Jameson|1984|p=vii}}{{sfn|Grant|2011|pages=95–96}}

In Kuhn's 1962 framework, the assumptions introduced by new paradigms make them "mutually incommensurable" with previous ones, although they may provide improved explanations of the material world.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|pages=203–06}}{{efn|By this Kuhn did not mean that scientific revolutions did not progressively reveal truths about objective reality, only that their lack of a shared vocabulary makes one-to-one comparison impossible, and so requires conceptual translation from one paradigm to another.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|pages=206–07}} In spite of Kuhn's own interpretation, ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was widely interpreted by its readers as undermining the basic objectivity and rationality of scientific knowledge itself.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|p=208}}}} A more radical version of incommensurablity, introduced by the philosopher of science [[Paul Feyerabend]], made stronger claims that connected the largely Anglo-American debate about science to the development of poststructuralism in France.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|page=218}}

To some, the stakes were more than epistemological.{{efn|Or financial: In the counter-culture in the 1960s, U.S. military spending on science – which, post-WWII, had been unquestioned – was again made an object of controversy.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|pages=198–99}}{{sfn|Grossmann|2021|p=55}} }} The philosopher [[Israel Scheffler]], for instance, argued that the ever-expanding body of scientific knowledge embodies a sort of "moral principle" protecting society from its authoritarian and tribal tendencies.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|pages=209–10}} In this way, with the addition of the poststructuralist influence, the debate about science expanded into a debate about Western culture in general.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|p=243}} 

The French political philosophers {{ill|Alain Renaut|fr|Alain Renaut}} and [[Luc Ferry]] began a series of responses to this interpretation of postmodernism, and these inspired the physicist [[Alan Sokal]] to submit a deliberately nonsensical paper to a postmodernist journal, where it was accepted and published in 1996.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|pages=244–47}} Although the so-called [[Sokal hoax]] proved nothing about postmodernism or science, it added to the public perception of a high-stakes intellectual "war" that had already been introduced to the general public by popular books published in the late '80s and '90s.{{sfn|Goldman|2021|pages=244–45}}{{efn|Their subtitles speak for themselves: philosopher [[Allan Bloom]]'s 1987 ''[[The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students]]'' and biologist [[Paul Gross]] and mathematician [[Norman Levitt]]'s 1994 ''[[Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science]].{{sfn|Goldman|2021|pages=244–45}}{{sfn|Grossmann|2021|p=55}} }} By the late '90s, however, the debate had largely subsided, in part due to the recognition that it had been staged between [[strawman]] versions of postmodernism and science alike.{{sfn|Grossmann|2021|p=55}}