Eli5: What is modernism and post-modernism?

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Eli5: What is modernism and post-modernism?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Modernism is like when you decide to make a cool new drawing or story that’s different from what everyone else is doing. You want to try something new and show your own ideas. You might use bright colors, strange shapes, or tell your story in a way that’s different from what people are used to. Modern artists and writers did the same thing, but on a bigger scale, and they did it in the 20th century.

Post-modernism is like when you take all the things you know about drawing or storytelling and you mix them together in a silly way. You might make a drawing that’s part bird, part dog, and part spaceship, or tell a story where a princess meets a dragon who likes to eat tacos. Post-modern artists and writers did the same thing, but with ideas and styles from lots of different times and places. They wanted to show that there’s no one right way to do things, and that different ideas can be mixed together to make something new and interesting.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Modernism is like when you decide to make a cool new drawing or story that’s different from what everyone else is doing. You want to try something new and show your own ideas. You might use bright colors, strange shapes, or tell your story in a way that’s different from what people are used to. Modern artists and writers did the same thing, but on a bigger scale, and they did it in the 20th century.

Post-modernism is like when you take all the things you know about drawing or storytelling and you mix them together in a silly way. You might make a drawing that’s part bird, part dog, and part spaceship, or tell a story where a princess meets a dragon who likes to eat tacos. Post-modern artists and writers did the same thing, but with ideas and styles from lots of different times and places. They wanted to show that there’s no one right way to do things, and that different ideas can be mixed together to make something new and interesting.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Modernism is a way of thinking and creating things that started around 100 years ago. People who were modernists wanted to do things in new and different ways that hadn’t been done before. They liked things to be clean and simple, and they thought that art, music, and literature should be more abstract and less realistic.

Post-modernism is a way of thinking and creating things that started after modernism. People who were post-modernists thought that modernism was too strict and not creative enough. They wanted to do things in even newer and more unusual ways, and they didn’t believe that there was just one “right” way to do things. They thought that art, music, and literature should be more playful and less serious.

So, to put it simply: modernism is about doing things in new and different ways that are clean and simple, and post-modernism is about doing things in even newer and more unusual ways that are playful and less serious.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Modernism is a way of thinking and creating things that started around 100 years ago. People who were modernists wanted to do things in new and different ways that hadn’t been done before. They liked things to be clean and simple, and they thought that art, music, and literature should be more abstract and less realistic.

Post-modernism is a way of thinking and creating things that started after modernism. People who were post-modernists thought that modernism was too strict and not creative enough. They wanted to do things in even newer and more unusual ways, and they didn’t believe that there was just one “right” way to do things. They thought that art, music, and literature should be more playful and less serious.

So, to put it simply: modernism is about doing things in new and different ways that are clean and simple, and post-modernism is about doing things in even newer and more unusual ways that are playful and less serious.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine you’re sitting in a car. There’s a fly buzzing in the car. How fast is that fly moving?

Well, to your senses, he’s only going a very slow speed. You could flick your hand and be faster than him. Surely he’s going slow, right?

Well, modernism argues “Not exactly. He’s in a car going 60 mph, so he’s actually going super fast! There are all these things about the movement that you can’t immediately sense, but if you study them (i.e. look out the window), you will find them.”

Postmodernism says “Well, in that case, it’s not just the speed of the car. Really, the earth is rotating at some absurdly fast speed. And that earth is also orbiting the sun, moving at some absurdly fast speed. And that solar system is on the spoke of a galaxy, rotating around some center. Everything is relative!

…But hear me out. The Universe is also constantly expanding. There is, truly, no ‘boundary’. Really, truly, there is no actual speed of ‘zero,’ all things are just moving relative to each other.’ There is, really, no objective measure of speed.”

And so, postmodernism, argues, is that the case for truth. If you keep looking to find ‘truth,’ you’ll keep needing to define larger and larger contexts, until one day you realize, it’s all just context. There is no ultimate truth.

At least, that’s how I understand it. You all have such a different way of explaining it that I’m thinking this might not be the accurate way of seeing it.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine you’re sitting in a car. There’s a fly buzzing in the car. How fast is that fly moving?

Well, to your senses, he’s only going a very slow speed. You could flick your hand and be faster than him. Surely he’s going slow, right?

Well, modernism argues “Not exactly. He’s in a car going 60 mph, so he’s actually going super fast! There are all these things about the movement that you can’t immediately sense, but if you study them (i.e. look out the window), you will find them.”

Postmodernism says “Well, in that case, it’s not just the speed of the car. Really, the earth is rotating at some absurdly fast speed. And that earth is also orbiting the sun, moving at some absurdly fast speed. And that solar system is on the spoke of a galaxy, rotating around some center. Everything is relative!

…But hear me out. The Universe is also constantly expanding. There is, truly, no ‘boundary’. Really, truly, there is no actual speed of ‘zero,’ all things are just moving relative to each other.’ There is, really, no objective measure of speed.”

And so, postmodernism, argues, is that the case for truth. If you keep looking to find ‘truth,’ you’ll keep needing to define larger and larger contexts, until one day you realize, it’s all just context. There is no ultimate truth.

At least, that’s how I understand it. You all have such a different way of explaining it that I’m thinking this might not be the accurate way of seeing it.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I think in come contexts, ‘modernism’ is a style of thinking that hinges on a belief that you can accurately and objectively categorise or mentally organise things in order to understand them. Two different modernist theories might disagree, but the thing they have in common is thinking that things or concepts can be concretely separated.

So some modernist ideas (regardless of whether they are true or not)

* Animals are truly divided into distinct species.
* There are 2 objectively different human genders determined by biological sex and they have no overlap.
* Karl Marx’s analysis of there being “capitalists” and “proletariat” is an economy is valid and accurate.

Post-modernism is when you start to doubt these sharp distinctions and assert (or perhaps realise/admit) that there is subjectivity to such things.

For instance:

* The concept of ‘species’ is merely a useful tool or shorthand, but not objectively real. It needn’t be abandonned but we shouldn’t be perplexed when it breaks down in some complicated cases.
* ‘Gender’ is a social construct that correlates to, but is not entirely determined by, biological sex (and indeed, biological sex is not neatly seperated either, as there is overlap and edge cases at the biological level).
* People can be a mix of both capitalist and proletariat (a homeowner who works for a wage, or a salaried person who owns a large share portfolio, etc), and the idea of ‘capital’ can extend beyond just the economic sort (such as scoial capital and perhaps other kinds), creating, at least, 2 or 3 spectrums of how one relates to capital. It may be useful to consider the interests of each extreme, but assuming they are always entirely separate is a mistake.

If you suport post-modernism then you might think that post-modernism succeeds in going beyond and fixing the modernist ideas. If you dislike post-modernism then perhaps you think post-modernism fails and introduces pointless faff and distraction and misinformation.

[I don’t know if my examples were the best ones, or are common ones found in liturature/research/politics/philosophy/etc, but I think they are ok examples of the pattern of thought.]

Anonymous 0 Comments

I think in come contexts, ‘modernism’ is a style of thinking that hinges on a belief that you can accurately and objectively categorise or mentally organise things in order to understand them. Two different modernist theories might disagree, but the thing they have in common is thinking that things or concepts can be concretely separated.

So some modernist ideas (regardless of whether they are true or not)

* Animals are truly divided into distinct species.
* There are 2 objectively different human genders determined by biological sex and they have no overlap.
* Karl Marx’s analysis of there being “capitalists” and “proletariat” is an economy is valid and accurate.

Post-modernism is when you start to doubt these sharp distinctions and assert (or perhaps realise/admit) that there is subjectivity to such things.

For instance:

* The concept of ‘species’ is merely a useful tool or shorthand, but not objectively real. It needn’t be abandonned but we shouldn’t be perplexed when it breaks down in some complicated cases.
* ‘Gender’ is a social construct that correlates to, but is not entirely determined by, biological sex (and indeed, biological sex is not neatly seperated either, as there is overlap and edge cases at the biological level).
* People can be a mix of both capitalist and proletariat (a homeowner who works for a wage, or a salaried person who owns a large share portfolio, etc), and the idea of ‘capital’ can extend beyond just the economic sort (such as scoial capital and perhaps other kinds), creating, at least, 2 or 3 spectrums of how one relates to capital. It may be useful to consider the interests of each extreme, but assuming they are always entirely separate is a mistake.

If you suport post-modernism then you might think that post-modernism succeeds in going beyond and fixing the modernist ideas. If you dislike post-modernism then perhaps you think post-modernism fails and introduces pointless faff and distraction and misinformation.

[I don’t know if my examples were the best ones, or are common ones found in liturature/research/politics/philosophy/etc, but I think they are ok examples of the pattern of thought.]

Anonymous 0 Comments

Wait. I thought modernism was pessimistic, the innate realization that neither God nor science would save us from our own faults, enhanced by the power of technology

Anonymous 0 Comments

Wait. I thought modernism was pessimistic, the innate realization that neither God nor science would save us from our own faults, enhanced by the power of technology

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