"Post-modernism is the new black"

The title of this post comes from the title of an article that appeared in the last edition of The Economist in 2006. It was published under the heading "Shopping and Philosophy". The subtitle of the article was "How the shape of modern retailing was both predicted and influenced by some unlikely seers".

Jean-François Lyotard is the philosopher The Economist identifies as most responsible for predicting the rise of postmodernism. He disliked the mega-narrative and generalities that modernism offered and saw the emergence of a more culturally eclectic world attitude. He equated postmodernism with a kind of 'eclecticism' and said that "eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture; one listens to reggae, watches a Western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games". I think he was also speaking to the paradoxical, schizophrenic nature of globalization and it eclecticism, where the world is simultaneously becoming united and interdependent on one level while independent and fractured on another.

I never thought much about post-modernism until I read that article. I was trying to figure out what was meant by "postmodernism is the new black". I figured it out. Black is supposed to be 'cool'. So postmodern is the new cool, the new 'with it'.

The Economist article talked about postmodernism in retailing. It's about retailing catering to niche markets within a mass market. It's about retailing being constantly innovative and supper agile. Whereas 'modern' retailing catered to a homogenous market, postmodern caters to a fractured, splintered market within the larger market place. It is more exotic. In other words, the postmodern consumer market is far more diverse and multitasking and thus more sophisticated. The article points to the Selfridges, a London department store, where this model of retailing began. Because this retailing proved so successful for Selfridges - it revived Selfridges and saved from bankruptcy - it has been adopted by department stores elsewhere.

Retailing is not the only aspect of postmodernism. It also applies to architecture. Modern architecture, also know as the international style, is generally a sleek glass box building. Much of today's new architecture has been labeled postmodern, buildings designed by the likes of Foster, Libeskind, and Gehry. There is a deconstructionism about the buildings these architects built, as though a modern building has been disassembled and put back together differently, rejecting the modern design. It is a reinvention of the modern and assembled differently to reflect the changing times of more diversity and input in society.

I would thing the difference between the two architectures is the same in philosophy. Postmodern thinkers are those who grew disenchanted with modernism, which seemed to say everything had to be uniform and the same. Postmodern thinkers are deconstructionists who, unlike the moderns, are not accepting carte blanche that the world has one basic narrative but multiple narratives, exactly what Lyotard thought.

To me postmodern means that there are parallel worlds coexisting, held together by an overarching, not completely absolute world but one constantly consummating itself. I get the sense that the modern world was more absolute, whereas the postmodern world isn't. The postmodern world is more flexible and diverse. The modern world thought narrowly whereas the postmodern world things broadly and outside the box. The postmodern world is not afraid to be different and 'push buttons'.

The modern world was more socially conservative. The postmodern world is more socially liberal. The world became postmodern in the sixties, during the social upheavals that occurred then, which demanded social change. Ironically, the modern world didn’t like change whereas the postmodern world embraces and relishes it.

Many believe that the postmodern world and all its variables will not last because it has no center, the argument being that if the center doesn’t hold things fall apart. Today’s world, though, has evolved into many power centers, the reason being that in the past a concentration of power often lead to tyranny and authoritarianism. As The Economist article suggested, postmodernism’s mission is to “emancipate the individual from the control of the state or other authority, through thought and through economic power”.

In some circles postmodernism is viewed as distructive and chaotic, disrupting the order. Ironically, though, its chaos creates and preserves order and the whole, as shown by the example of Selfridges. Globalization is a postmodern phenomenon that also creates a chaos but at the same time it preserves order by embracing it instead of shunning it. Postmodernism, like globalization, is an agent of blending.

Postmodernism is a social revolutionary done insinuatingly, stealth like, not done through the dramatic and distructive social upheavals of the past. It is a social revolution that occurs constantly, not in fits and starts like others before. The Frankfurt School of philosophy, in the 30s, had its postmodern seers. When one member asked, “who in the future will replace the proletariat as the agents of revolution” another answered in very postmodern manner: “a coalition of students, blacks, feminist women, homosexuals, and other socially marginal elements”. The Economist might have added that consumers with their demands, needs and aspirations, will also be part of this ongoing revolution.