Editing Postmodernism (section)

===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}}