Modernism as has been pointed out here can be an ambiguous term. However, I like it, because it helps us understand what postmodernism is. I like the terms because they help me see how I respond to the ideas contained within them, or even to see if I agree that certain ideas should be considered as belonging together. I see it as a step, maybe a crutch, to learning.
I was using modernism to define the 19th century movement of what you could roughly call scientific optimism. I would say that Darwin might be the name we would most associate with this movement, but he was one of many.
Modernism is characterised by the idea that through a careful, scientific approach, societal problems will be solved, civilizations will advance. Modernism glorifies the individual, the one (from the old the one and the many). It is secular.
Postmodernism is what is left after the collapse of modernism. It is not very optimistic. It is fragmented (the many). What Ivan has thoughtfully and elegantly written on his website
http://www.butchywaffers.com/foxexistentialism.html
about existentialism in particular could possibly be said of postmodernism in general.
I like to explain modernism and postmodernism by looking at the contrasting views of human evolution.
For the modern evolutionist, humans stand at the apex of the evolutionary scale. There is for the modernist a heirarchy of evolved plants and animals. Survival of the fittest is thought of in human terms.
By way of comparison, postmodern evolutionists would strongly reject the modern view of evolution as teleological, meaning having an endpoint or purpose.
The current postmodern view, by way of illustration, is evolution is not teleological but rather purposeless, or maybe I should say, purpose neutral. Humans in this context are no different qualitatively than dandelions, or snails, and evolution is simply a description of the process by which the planet's biological mass adapts to new environments and regulates itself.
Surrounded by purposelessness and increasing fragmentation of a world that science cannot control, the postmodern is left standing, bewildered, at the station, like the existentialist, like those Waiting for Godot.
More and better reflections regarding modernism and postmodernism can be found at:
http://www.mckenziestudycenter.org/philosophy/articles/postmod.html
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算了... 我还是自己研究一下
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