Postmodern

Postmodernism , or postmodernity , is one of the main concepts of modern social theory, describing the incomplete historical period from the moment of the beginning of erosion of the foundations of industrial society ^[1] .

Postmodernism is associated with the denial and overcoming of the social organization inherent in the society of the so-called era of modernity or modernity ( German Moderne , English Modernity , French Modernité ), emphasizes the gap with modern time. The term "modern era" does not have an exact connection with a specific historical period and has often been used to describe various time periods. At the time of the Enlightenment, the emerging industrial order, which was opposed to feudal societies, was called modern. Some authors attributed the beginning of the Art Nouveau era in Europe to the end of the 17th century, others, such as A. Toynbee , to an earlier time (up to the 14th century). Similarly, it is difficult to distinguish the postmodern period, sometimes it is widely considered ^[1] .

The concept was introduced into scientific circulation in the mid-1950s. Earlier, Toynbee (1939) associated postmodernity with the period after the First World War, and then (1946) attributed its occurrence to the 1870s. P. Drucker and C. R. Mills used the alternative term “post-modern order” in the 1950s. Subsequently, the concept of “postmodern” began to be used in studies of culture and society (the works of C. Jenks , L. Fiedler, J. F. Lyotard , J. Baudrillard , I. Hassan and others in the field of architecture, art, literature, social psychology, linguistics and symbolic systems) ^[1] .

In modern sociology, some features of the modern era, such as dynamism, an orientation toward constant social change ( A. Turen ), are also transferred to postmodernism, which, accordingly, is seen as a time of dynamic growth of diversity and pluralism in society and culture. Postmodern involves the rejection of the dominance of totality and uniformity, from the priority of the economic principle of utility; recognition of the alternative to social progress ; a decrease in the role of mass social movements; the emergence of new values, motives and incentives oriented to culture, and not to material production, which is regarded as the production of symbols or signs (J. Baudrillard) ^[1] .

Supporters of postmodernism consider it a post-economic era in which the previous forms of industrial society have been overcome: mass consumption and commodity industrial production, Fordism; man is no longer regarded as an integral element in the system of economic production. Proceeding from these premises, the postmodern era is often credited with the growth of internal human freedom, overcoming alienation , and some liberation of the individual from the power of economic and political structures. If modernity is dominated by European culture, then in the postmodern era there is a decline in the models of the nation state and a rejection of Eurocentrism ; postmodern has a global scale ^[1] .

Three stages of criticism of the concept of postmodern are distinguished. Initially, from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, there were attempts to replace “postmodern” with the term “modernization”; from this point of view, modernization was a process of building a postmodern society. In the future, the concepts of modern and postmodern were identified, as a result of modernity it was limited by time until the end of the 19th century, modernism by the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Postmodern began to be seen as the final period of industrial society. Finally, it was proposed to abandon the concept of postmodernity in favor of “radical modernity” ( E. Giddens ), the new constitution of modernity (B. Smart), or the ongoing modernity - “modernity-for-itself” ( English modernity for itself ) ( Z. Bauman ) ^[1] .