Postmodernity

Post-modernity


The term post-modernity refers to the ideas and theories which have emerged as a reaction to or as a rejection of 'modern', with the term referring to the period after modernism. Therefore, to understand post-modernity it is necessary to look at what is meant by modernity.   There is no singular definition of modernity, just as there is no singular definition of post modernity. Modernity may be argued as the embracing of the logical and the scientific; rejecting myth and superstitions. The term may be applied to different ideas and disciplines with the application varying in terms of the time. Theorists give different potential starting points for be beginning of modernity, for some the start it seen with the enlightenment and the industrial revolution where logical and science come to the fore and where there is the search for the truth and definitive logical answers. The concept of modernism has been well established and has developed differing strains over a long period of time, in subject areas as diverse as art and architecture to political and economic thought.
Post-modernity has emerged after modernity, and is a relativity new school of thought. The approach of the post modernists is that the modern theories are insufficient to fully explain the phenomena observed. For example, in political science there are two main schools of thought, realism and liberalism, the post modernists believe that neither of these schools of thought   was sufficient, but that there could be the existence of the competing thoughts that create conflict co-existing. Interestingly in post modernism, while the modernist theorist tended to look to the government as a reasoned structure needed to protect natural rights, the post-modernists see it as an institution that seeks to impose its will (Wenzel, 2008). While the modernists sought to use reason, post modernists may be seen as arguing that reason is not universal, and that in today's society reason it used as...