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3 page hand out:

**Handout** **Postmodernism**

**Good Luck…**

Randal Braun Laura Godfrey Betzaida Gomez Val Schmitz Amy Van Deuren February 4, 2011 __ Postmodernism: What is it? __

Postmodernism is not just a philosophical movement; it has influenced architecture, the graphic arts, dance, music, literature, and literary theory. As a general cultural phenomenon, it has such features as the challenging of convention, the mixing of styles, tolerance of ambiguity, emphasis on diversity, acceptance (indeed celebration) of innovation and change, and stress on the constructedness of reality (Beck, 1993).

Postmodernism (here out abbreviated to P.M.) rejects: (Gutek, p 123) 1. Metaphysical philosophies’ claims that there are universal and eternal truths and values 2. Enlightenment ideology’s claims that there is one method and approach to rationality 3. Modernization’s claims that it is the irresistible social and economic force of the future

__ Noted postmodern philosophers: __

//__Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924 – 1998)__////:// “The postmodern as a historical/cultural ‘condition’ based on a dissolution of master narratives or "metanarratives" (totalizing narrative paradigms like progress and national histories), a crisis in ideology when ideology no longer seems transparent” (Irvine, 2009)

//__Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004)__////:// Derrida & Deconstruction & Poststructuralism: Ancient Greeks believed one could find //logi or logos// (the rational principles of what makes things tick) because humans possessed a reasoning brain. According to Derrida, however, “what is assumed to be the principle of rationality in the universe…is not an objective reality but rather how philosophers represent it in their writings or texts.” (Gutek, p 126). Deconstruction, then, tries to different shades of meaning in addition to those in the canon by: 1. identifying the logo-centric principles that it embodies 2. tracing the origin and development of the meanings conveyed, with special sensitivity to justification by appealing to the logi 3. determining how the knowledge claims, meanings, and interpretations in a text affect our ideas, beliefs, and interpretations. “The aim of deconstruction is not simply to engage in language analysis but to understand how texts, rather than reflecting metaphysical principles, are historically and culturally specific constructions that involve political power relationships.”

//__Michel Foucault (1925 – 1984)__//: “…all persons and groups have some version of truth, or a clearer version of truth that gives them power in their relationships with others.” Truth-Power relationships will favor some groups over others- “regimes of truth” are created: ideologies, institutions, and practices evolve that allow some to control, govern, regulate, and even define others. Truth-Power Relationship & Education: Our known discourse currently: 1. all children have a right to an education that is excellent and no child should be left behind 2. an excellent education is one in which students achieve academically 3. academic achievement can be measured fairly and objectively through the use of standardized tests 4. these tests will identify the students who are achieving and those that are left behind 5. the tests will identify the schools that have a high record of academic success as well as those students who fail; schools with high failure rates can be remediated 6. if the remediation is not successful, students in these schools can transfer to successful ones.

//Richard Rorty (1931 – 2007)//:

//Fredric Jameson (b. 1934)//:

__ Terms and Concepts Associated with Postmodernism: __ // Please note: The list below is by no means complete. It is a small glossary of terminology that we uncovered in preparing this presentation. //

__Axiology__: “An area of philosophy concerned with the nature, types, and criteria of values and value judgments, particularly regarding ethics [what ‘should be’], or a branch of philosophy that seeks to explain how good something is or is not based on analysis” (Ely, 2005). Gutek (2004) states: Dominant groups seek to instill what they define as the rules of ethical standards into the general society through the agencies of informal education and through schooling. Often these rules are justification for the exploitation of less economically and socially favored groups (p. 132).

__Connectivism__: “The integration of priniciples explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories. Learning is a process that occurs within the nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual” (Siemens, 2004).

__Constructionism__: reality is //created// by the human mind, not //out there// to be discovered or uncovered.

__Critical Realism__: The belief that there is a reality independent of our thinking about it that science can study (Trochim, 2006).

__Diversity__: reality is culture dependent, it is neither eternal nor universal.

__Eclecticism__: Mixing forms and genres and “mixing styles of different cultures or time periods, de- and re-contextualizing styles in architecture, visual arts, literature” (Irvine, 2009).

__“Othering”__: Subordinating, marginalizing: For P.M, it is a dichotomy between the “Have’s” and the “Have Not’s.” Terminology such as “Other”, “primitive”, “Less technologically advanced” “Non-Western”…slant suggests favoring, or accepting the “Have’s” as the standard, or being higher & better than those that are the “have not’s” (Gutek, 2004).

__Positivism__: In its broadest sense, positivism is a rejection of metaphysics. The goal of knowledge is simply to describe the phenomena that we experience. The purpose of science is to stick to what can be directly observed and measured. Knowledge of anything beyond that (emotions, thoughts, etc.) is impossible because it cannot be observed (Trochim, 2006). Common in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, “the general belief that an ultimate reality exists beyond a human being’s subjective and often inconsistent abilities to know it….It was believed that individuals could discover this ultimate reality through scientific investigation and/or rational thought” (Ely, 2005).

__Post-Positivism__: A wholesale rejection of the central tenets of positivism. Post-positivists might begin by recognizing that the way scientists think and work and the way we think in our everyday life are //__not__// distinctly //different//. “Scientific reasoning” and “everyone else’s common sense reasoning” are essentially the same process. One of post-positivism’s most common forms is critical realism (Trochim, 2006). //See:// __Critical Realism__.

__Representation__: refers to the processes that individuals and groups “use to interpret and give meaning” to their experience, through language, stories, images, music, and other cultural constructs (Gutek, 2004). Gutek states: Teaching, especially in the transmission of the official curriculum, involves making representations to students through language to provide students with descriptions of reality. However, the official curriculum- the approved representations- is only one version of reality, usually that of a society’s dominant and controlling group (p 136).

__Subjectivism__: A form of post-positivism that embraces the belief that there is no external reality -- we're each making this all up! (Trochim, 2006).

__ Three Major Processes Shaping the Transition from the Modern World to the Post Modern World __(Anderson, 1990). I. Breakdown of Old Beliefs a. Premodern: Construction of reality occurred and was shaped slowly and invisibly. “What is true for me is true for everyone else in the world.” b. Postmodern: Social and physical mobility. People realized they had choices about which reality to accept. II. New Polarization a. Premodern: Politics and belief systems in left-to-right spectrum b. Postmodern: Old belief systems no longer account for all possiblities of thought and belief. III. Global Memes a. Premodern: Each culture had its set of replicating mental patterns (memes), which include songs, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes, fashion, crafting, arts, and architecture). b. Postmodern: transitioning to global culture. Culture “mash ups” and combining to produce a global “meme” or countless combinations of new and fresh ideas.

__ Postmodernism and Education __ Gutek (2004) in describing postmodernism in education contends that …public schools, like other institutions, are used to reproduce a social order that is patriarchal in that they favor men over women; Eurocentric in that what is said to be knowledge is a construction of white people of European ancestry; and capitalist in that private property and the corporate attitude are enshrined in the free market ideology (p 134).

Gutek (2004) shares thoughts on curriculum and instruction using a Postmodern framework:

The official curriculum either neglects or gives an officially sanctioned “spin” to how the experience of marginalized groups, especially African, Hispanic, and Native Americans; women; and gays and lesbians is represented…. A Postmodern curriculum should not be organized into discrete subject matter disciplines, separated by impermeable boundaries and guarded by experts. Arising in its local context, it should offer a fluid and flexible means of examining issues of personal and group identity, and social, political, and economic problems. It should encourage dialogues that question existing assumptions, particularly those contained in the officially approved curriculum. Recognizing that all societies and their institutions are made up of forces contending for power and control, the curriculum should make students aware that they live in an ideologically charged environment that requires them to become social critics and critical actors. The curriculum, like the school, should be transformed into an agency that empowers individuals, especially those who have been marginalized by the existing power structure (p 136).

__ Postmodern? Quotes: __

[One feature of postmodernism is] the disappearance of a sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social formations have had in one way or another to preserve….The information function of the media would thus be to help us to forget, to serve as the very agents and mechanisms of our historical amnesia - //Fredric Jameson//

For the time being we have to admit that we do not possess any general theoretical basis for physics which can be regarded as its logical foundation – //Albert Einstein, 1940//

A piece of knowledge is never false or true – but only more or less biologically and evolutionarily useful. All dogmatic creeds are approximate: these approximations form a humus from which better approximations grow….We know only one source which directly reveals scientific facts – our senses. –//Ernst Mach//

Post-modernism is arguably the most depressing philosophy ever to spring from the western mind. It is difficult to talk about post-modernism because nobody really understands it. It’s allusive to the point of being impossible to articulate. But what this philosophy basically says is that we’ve reached an endpoint in human history. That the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of frontiers of innovation are now dead. Originality is dead. The avant-garde artistic tradition is dead. All religions and utopian visions are dead and resistance to the status quo is impossible because revolution too is now dead. Like it or not, we humans are stuck in a permanent crisis of meaning, a dark room from which we can never escape. – //Kalle Lasn & Bruce Grierson//

References

Anderson, W. T. (1990). //Reality isn’t what it used to be: Theatrical politics, ready-to-wear religions, global myths, primitive chic, and other wonders of the postmodern world.// San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Beck, C. (1993). Postmodernism, pedagogy, and philosophy of education. //Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.// Retrieved from: []

Ely, M. C. & Rashkin, A. E. (2005). //Dictionary of music education: A handbook of terminology.// Chicago: GIA.

Gutek, Gerald L. //Philosophical and Ideological Voices in Education//. 2004. Pearson Education. Boston.

Imbruglia, N. (2010) //Torn.// Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV1XWJN3nJo

Irvine, M. (2009). The postmodern, postmodernism, postmodernity: Approaches to Po-Mo. Retrieved from: www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/pomo.html

Lasn, K. & Grierson, B. (2000). A Malignant Sadness. //Adbusters// 30. Retrieved from: http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Postmodernism.htm

Siemens, G. (December 12, 2004). //Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age.// Source unknown.

Trochim, W. M. K. (2006). Web Center for Social Research Methods (2000). Research methods knowledge base: Foundations; Philosophy of research; Positivism & Post-Positivism. Retrieved from: https://blackboard.nl.edu/webct/urw/lc5122001.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct