September 2010 Archives

Joanna Johnson

September 23, 2010

Dr. Paul Hillmer

Honors 110

This Paper Has No Purpose: Postmodernism and the Point of the Seemingly Pointless

     If a person read the sentence, "This sentence serves no logical purpose," they would normally not think about it much afterwards. If the sentence is purposeless, then they assume there is nothing to be gained from it. When viewed from a different perspective, however, this sentence is very useful in assisting to explain the complexity that is postmodernism.

     When analyzing a word it is useful to break it down into its different parts. When broken down, postmodernism becomes post and modernism. Postmodernism, therefore means after modernism. At this point, it would be very difficult to proceed without first giving a brief definition of modernism. Modernism is a way of thinking and acting in which reason is greatly valued. Truth is thought to be all that is good, and is found through science. Science is supposed to lead to progress and, ultimately, a perfect world. The main components of modernism are science, reason, and order.

     Postmodernism is something that is very difficult to explain. It is, in almost every way, in stark contrast to modernism. It questions the existence of "truth", and disregards order. Postmodernism places particular importance on the people that are often over looked by the rest of the world. Postmodernism first came in the form of art and architecture. In postmodern art or architecture, not everything has to be logical or serve a purpose. Buildings don't have to be built in the most practical form, where only as much space as is necessary is used. Postmodern art doesn't have to express the same truth to every person. Postmodernism then proceeded into a way of thinking. One aspect of postmodernism is as follows:

One central theme of postmodernism is suspicion of what French sociologist Jean-Francois Lyotard calls grand narratives, the predominating epistemological and theoretical frameworks used to make both knowledge and truth claims. Theories or ideologies that claim to have universal application are perceived under postmodernism as reflecting the arrogance of a hegemonic and totalizing world-view. Postmodernists interpret these grand narratives as merely stories and suggest that truth claims cannot be universalized and are more appropriately understood and developed within a local context (Postmodernism).

Postmodern thought argues that there is not one correct meaning to anything, but many different meanings, which are relative to the individual person and situation. In postmodernism, it's not so much that "anything goes", as much as everything goes. A current example of postmodern thought is the idea that, in religion, it does not matter what a person believes as long as he or she believes it, because everyone will go to heaven anyways. This idea emphasizes the notion that truth is relative, and what's true for one person isn't necessarily true for another person.

     The sentence "This sentence serves no logical purpose." is a very postmodern sentence. This sentence could be interpreted different ways. Some people, when viewing this sentence, would assume that it has no purpose whatsoever. Others would argue that, although it has no logical purpose, it can still have other purposes. When viewed in a postmodern light, this sentence can be very purposeful, despite what seems to be implied from the sentence itself. It does not serve a logical purpose, but it still serves many relative purposes. In postmodernism, logic is no longer necessary for something to be valuable. Some possible ways that this sentence could be valuable include to a person who uses it to describe postmodernism. It could also be found very useful to someone who wants to declare the purposelessness of an adjacent sentence. This sentence could inspire a person who identifies their life with it. These are just a few of the many possible uses of this sentence.  This sentence also, from a postmodern point of view, shows one of the shortcomings of modernism. A person thinking in modern thought can find no reason in this sentence, and applying science to it does not improve the sentence in any way. Experimenting cannot give this sentence more purpose. Modernism has no place for this sentence. Postmodernism, on the other hand, is all about the things that modernism rejects. This sentence would be defended along with the marginalized of society. Another aspect of postmodernism, the belief that what one experiences becomes one's reality, is portrayed in this sentence. Because all that one knows about this sentence is that it says it serves no logical purpose, that can become reality to the reader, and, whether or not the sentence had a purpose originally, it no longer does to that person. For the postmodernist, it is indeed quite okay if for the sentence to serve no logical purpose. Whether or not the purpose is logical has no effect on validity or the sentence itself. It can still be functional with logic, for reason, order, and science are not what is important. To the postmodernist, value lies in how an individual interprets things, and not majority rule. The purpose of the sentence, then, is up to the reader's interpretation.

     Postmodernism is a subject that is often viewed with disdain. It is a concept that is difficult to explain, and is therefore challenging to understand. The sentence "This sentence serves no logical purpose," however, is very useful for attempting to describe postmodernism. It is limited, and cannot explain everything, but it is still very useful.

Works Cited

"Postmodernism." World of Sociology, Gale. Farmington: Gale, 2001. Credo Reference. Web. 24 September 2010.

     As humans, it is impossible for us to have a complete and accurate view of history. We were not created to be simply libraries of information that merely hold facts without interpreting them. We were created unique and subjective. It is impossible for us to completely separate facts and opinions, or even different types of facts. Our brains connect everything together, and that is where new ideas come from. The subjectification of history therefore, is the foundation of our future. A complete and accurate account of history would be unimaginably useful, because it would give us so much more information to make connections with. This is only available, unfortunately, in an ideal world. This does not mean it's not something we should strive for, though. It is kind of similar to how we strive to be perfect and holy, even though we will not accomplish that here on earth. Even though we can never, here on earth, fully accomplish our goal, we accomplish a lot more by trying for it then by accepting defeat. There are many challenges we have to overcome, though, in striving towards an accurate and complete view of history.

     One obstacle that we face trying to interpret history is portrayed in Woodward's "On Believing What One Reads: The Dangers of Popular Revisionism". In this article, Woodward discusses how people change history for their own benefit.  This is often done by withholding history that doesn't agree with one's position. The withheld information is then replaced with newly created information that supports the opinion. This is seen throughout history. One example is during WWII. The Nazis had a lot of propaganda that was used to keep the public on their side. I saw many of the examples of this at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Propaganda isn't limited to "extreme" parties like the Nazis, though. Propaganda is everywhere. We are surrounded by it all the time. From news articles to TV advertisements, everyone is interpreting history to support their own opinion.

     Another issue that gets in the way of knowing the complete and accurate history is discussed in Becker's "What is Evidence". History is a very broad subject. It includes everything! Even what we consider the present is the past by the time we consider it. Every person has history, and every view of history is slightly different. Keeping this in mind, it is difficult to decide what history is the most relevant and what history is the most useful. This would also raise the question, what person gets to decide what's relevant. Also, the past, the present, and the future are so intimately related, that if we took away one, the others would immediately cease to exist.  Therefore, the past is always changing because of the present. The future is similarly always changing because of the future. Then, just to make things more complicated, the present is so narrow, that the present is constantly becoming the past, and the future is constantly becoming the present. History is so huge, and time so complex, that it difficult to wrap our human brains around.

     In light of these issues, trying to use the past seems like almost a hopeless cause, but I propose that it is still a cause worth pursuing. We can learn from the past, even with these challenges. The first and most important step to discovering the truth in history is to pray about it. If we ask God to give us wisdom and discernment and to show us what we can learn from the past and show us the truth, He will answer our prayers. Jeremiah 33:2 -3 says, "'this is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it--the Lord is his name: "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."'" We have access to the only source that has the entire complete and accurate history of everything, why would we not use it! We also need to remember that we do not necessarily hold the truth. Therefore, we need to try to not inadvertently deceive others. We are certainly entitled to our opinions, and also to expressing our opinions. Before we use history as evidence, though, we need to try to find the original people's motivations. We need to make sure we look at context and not just at the information itself.

     God has given us a great blessing in history. We do not fully understand this gift now. One day, though, in heaven, we will be able to see the full beauty, and understand the full magnitude and truth of the past. How I look forward to this day!