Joe, Post-Class, 1/24

So I am going through some old notes and new ones trying to make sense of our discussion this week, so I may end up answering my own questions here. Coming out of CMC 100 I thought I had a pretty clear idea of what modernism and postmodernism are and how they contrast with each other. However, after this past week, I am beginning to question how much I understand about the two. Hassan said that postmodernism (and I would say modernism as well) “suffers from semantic instability. “ Meaning that the “language and ideals are unstable.” In 100 we were given what seemed to me a pretty clear-cut definition of these two ideas. Modernism, we learned, asks what is essential and believes there are universal truths; there is still a real, or a set of values. Postmodernism, on the other hand, is the idea that everything is relative. Everything is constructed and there are no absolute reals. In discussing the public sphere we noted that it is modern; democracy is also modern. Propaganda, however, is postmodern. These binary oppositions make more sense to me, but perhaps I am missing something. I understand a few of the binaries we were given in class: Reading vs. Misreading, Form vs. Antiform, Purpose vs. Play. However, then there is the quote from Kant that throws me off once again: modernity is “humankind’s emergence from its own minority.” Does this refer to the pursuit of knowledge and purpose? If so, and if postmodernism hails technology and the aesthetic of speed, then modernism would by human nature lead directly to postmodernism; which it did. So where do we draw the line? I understand there will be shades of grey. I understand the idea of aura vs. era. Since these are ideologies and ways of thinking, there is obviously no way to tell concretely when one started and one ended. Regardless, why is there not at least a more clear definition, or set of ideals for these systems? These concepts just seem very broad to me, to the point that they don’t really mean anything at all.