What is next after post-modernism?

I have my opinions on this, and have thought a lot about this, but I was curious if anyone else had an opinion----what do you think is man's next philosophical step after Postmodernism?

Let me explain:

You see, philosophically, The Age of Reason, was that age when the philosophy that governed our culture began to break away from the binding ties of religion. Man began to believe that rationalism and science had all the answers, and that man's progress would be, not by the hand of God, but by the hand of man himself, and the advancement of science. Utopia was in our future, as long as man could rationally and scientifically advance himself to it.

Even before the horrible events of World War II, and the state-slaves of Stalin came to be, philosophers, artists, and the like, began to realize that science wasn't the answer to everything, and that the age of reason had taken man's 'center' away from him. Thus Modernism evolved, which largely represented an extension of the rational objectivism of the age of reason to a new stage of sterile symbolism of scientific progress, but leaving man to search for meaning without a center point to his sense of being. I think Pink Floyd's movie, The Wall, is a good example of this Modernistic view of the New World that the Age Reason, taken to its limits, could create according to Modernism---a modernistic and surrealistic machine based soulless society where man himself is reduced to nothing more than a slave to a largely automated state. Thus modernistic buildings were the epitome of the modern age, but without any life---cube like cement and glass structures---hence the center or, we could say the soul, was removed.

Post-World War II and the dawn of the Nuclear Age, and we were still on that same path. Read National Geographics from the 1950's about the miracle of radiation and you would be surprised of some of the things we were planning----in hindsight it is pretty funny. Te beats started explore and question Modernism, but I do believe that it was the hippies that saved us from a far worse fate had rational-objectivistic trends come to fruition. They brought humanism and soul back into the mix. They were clearly a reaction to Modernism, and thus the first representatives to postmodernism, though postmodernism itself was still in the cultural womb so to speak, and not yet recognized.

In the postmodernistic world, we have not found that center. The breakdown of culture and the loss of that center---like a Picasso painting---lead into a further fragmentation of society. On the one hand man appears to be freer. For example, rather than being tied to a national, or international fashion standard, people are more free to choose their own fashions, and have a global market to buy from available at their fingerprints on the internet. On the other hand they are more susceptible to manipulation by giant corporations in hidden and almost undetectable ways than ever before. Social relationships are no longer physical as much as they are on-line. It is a world where the unreal has become real. And in an attempt to replace that lost center, culture grabs from every little fragment of what was once centers from around the world. Whereas modernism tried to deny or ignore the past, postmodernism tried to grab from the past---this is the new age: suddenly you can find a ceremony, place, or person who incorporates Native American spiritual ceremony with those of Tibetan Buddhists, Hindu's, Christians, etc, and turns it all into something based on Wicca or new age shamanism---the mix is almost infinite.

But the postmodern age applies the past, in a hodgepodge collage-like fashion in a way that is actually a parody or pastiche of the past, onto the modernistic soulless structure left over from modernism. Man may have searched out meaning in the past, before Modernism had cleansed it from our souls, but it is easy to argue that postmodernism had cheapened it, undoubtedly through the nihilism that modernism and the failure of the Age of Reason had left mankind.

Postmodernism itself is so fragmented, that it is hard to define what is good about it, what is bad about it, and even what it truly means----it basically is that disjointed, web of the modern day world we live in. Even the Occupy Wall Street people seem so disjointed to much of the establishment that tries to figure them out, because they themselves are a product of postmodernism, as is this current financial crisis we are experiencing. The corporate, and private greed, that includes even your next door neighbor who found he or she could flip houses, or sell mortgages and make a lot of money up until late 2007 is part of this postmodern ethic, and is responsible for where we are today.

So what do you think comes next as modern cultures guiding philosophy? Despite those moments when humanism was brought back into the mix (such as with the hippy movement, of which the focus on the individual was also very postmodernistic), modernism and postmodernism has brought us further and further into a soulless plastic society. Where do we go from here?

 

While Modernism and postmodernism are most obvious in art and architecture, it is still the philosophy of our current state. artists and the like just pick up onit earlier than society as a whole.

 

The new dark age.

 

Eventually chaos and destruction.

 

Let's hope so. I'm utterly sick of this ridiculous way of living.

 

Very interesting----such dark views. But that is not surprising. After all, modernism and postmodernism reflect that unprecedented nihilism that Nietsche predicted to befall mankind. please tell more...

 

I'm not a nihilist-just an observer of humanitys foibles. You'd (or I'd)think by this day and age justice ,equality and fairness for all humans would be the order of the day. Not so much. Empathy and understanding are in short supply, as will the means to survive will be, unless pure understanding concerning population growth and resources are finally faced without the "wild west" mentality of get it and get as much of it as you can,without regard for an end game.

 

First things first: define terms.

My definition of Modernism/postmodernism(why isn't postmodernism capitalized?) is that the "modern"(hence Modernism) project(circa 1600 to 1945) has been to try to find "the answer"/"the truth" for all; and that the postmodern project is about getting past(i.e. "post") this failed project and just finding what fits for the individual.

Does this definition sound right/wrong/maybe to you?

 

Very good LAGoff. Modernism and Postmodernism are somewhat hard to define, because there are numerous definitions to them, and even different people refer to different times with it, but that is a good definition. I did not capitalize Postmodernism, because it was late at night when I wrote this, and I probably was not even consistent on capitalizing Modernism.

When I think of Modernism, I think it had the strongest expression/hold on society from the early 1900's into the 1960's even the 1970's. But it can be traced back into the 1600's I suppose. But I clearly use Modernism as the response to the Age of Reason, or the Age of Enlightenment, which primarily developed in the 1700’s.

1945 is a good point to end Modernism, as that was clearly a point when the horrors of World War II told the philosophers and others that "Hey, this isn't working." But rational objectivism still had a strong hold on Western culture well after the war. I think the cold war and the almost fascist-like patriotism of America and the Socialism on the other side of the iron curtain during the 1950’s were clearly of Modernistic culture. I believe there were modernistic artists well into the 1970’s, and we didn’t see the downfall of the science of Marxism until the 1980’s. Some of the more well-known French Postmodern philosophers were Marxists who became disillusioned in the late 60’s and 70’s.

Yes, through Modernism we tried to find the answer/truth for all. The center that we lost was the spiritual center that the Age of Reason, took away, coincidentally by the discoveries of people that were mostly very spiritually minded. And even today this Modernistic concept that human nature can be shaped and that all humans can be raised to a point of equal fairness, justice, and happiness through objectivistic science still controls social policy in a Modernistic fashion (It is also an aspect of postmodernism, but here I am speaking in a wholly Modernistic sense. The best example of this is the recent extensive use of surveys in the corporate world (surveys have always been used, but this is different). Thanks to some idiot professor, corporations have been using surveys in an attempt to create 'raving fan' customers, and provide incentives to employees. The result though is that what they measure is very intangible, and incentives are unjustly paid out, usually to those who figure out how to cheat and beat the system. You may think it sounds bad for people to cheat, but the system itself is so unfair that people use cheating just to protect what incentives they have (i.e. they feel they don't have a choice). Meanwhile, many other employees who are honest and good workers, are hurt not only by the system, but by those that cheat, while those that aren’t very good workers, even though they may not cheat, are still unjustly rewarded because of the unfairness of the system).

As I said earlier, I believe the first Postmodern group of people were the hippies. 1945 to the 1980's were pretty much a transition stage from Modernism to Postmodernism. The definition and description of Postmodernism came in the late 1960's (I believe, I'm not going to look for the date right now). But the Beatniks had already started questioning things, and the hippies followed them, starting in San Francisco years before the concept of Postmodernism was actually identified.

Your definition of Postmdernism is very good as well. It is about getting past the failed project of Modernism, and it involved a search back into the past for lost values, but with the focus on the individual. But for most of Western culture, this search through the past was still strained through the Age of Reason and Modernism, and so it became a parody of the original. The reason is that, as hard as we try, we still live in a rationally-objectivistic world, and that will taint whatever values we try to revive from the past.

Take us hippies for example. In the 1960’s and 70’s, we rejected the religious simplicity of our parents, just as we rejected their 9-5 workday-Thursday night-pinochle/bridge-party-cocktail-party-weekend-status quo lifestyle (see I can talk just like a Merry Prankster), and reconnected to the universe in a spiritual way that their parents could never understand. It was sincere and meaningful, but in terms of the past, it was a parody. Drug use is a great example: while psychedelics were instrumental in opening up that spiritual connection, we used this gift of nature without the values and understandings of the age-old cultures that included hallucinogenics in their spiritual practices. The result was, we abused drugs, and a sacred gift of nature became a demon. I am not condoning drug use, but I would say that there are people who would benefit spiritually from the use of mescaline for example, especially with the proper cultural and spiritual values that accompany mescaline in traditional indigenous spiritual practice. But for most of us, mescaline is no different than meth ‘under the law.’ They’ll both put you in prison. Another great example is Timothy Leary’s reinterpretation of The Book of the Dead for the hallucinogenic experience. I don’t think it is a misguided book per se, it may be very useful, but it is certainly an example of the hodgepodge eclectic collection of things from the past applied to the present that is typical of Postmodernism.

You also mentioned the focus on the individual. Today’s culture emphasizes the individual more so than any other culture since the early hunter-gatherer cultures. Benjamin Franklin and his buddies were impressed by the power of the individual and the political system of the Iroquois Confederacy (except of course for the power that women held in Native American society. Who would ever want to give Colonial American Women power… LOL). They then wrote up a concept of modern day democracy that gave a new level of power to the individual. But it was still more a concept that was easy to believe in, because we are all, after all, individuals. Individuality by today’s standards was long kept at bay by the institutions of the state.

But today, individualism is more than just a concept, Society has become largely wrapped around the individual. Today, if you log on to the internet, you can explore, interact, buy, sell, do just about anything that involves your job, your hobby, curiosity, perversion, personal need, friendship need, intellectual pursuit—from around the world, all as an individual. If I want a different perspective on the news, I speak, read and write Japanese, so I can log into a Japanese newspaper and read about it from their perspective. I understand a fair amount of Tagalog, and a lot of the Philippine news is in English anyway, so I can read into the perspective from there. A number of years ago, when the Nepalese Royal Family was assassinated, I read about it firsthand in their English newspapers. It was an incredible story of intrigue, involving an evil uncle who tried to frame his nephew the crown prince. It was better than a tv series as the story unfolded each new day straight out of their newspapers (even when our press barely mentioned it). Or think of all the people who post their ideas, artwork, and photos on this site. Never before could we express our individuality; who we are; why we are; to so many people without much effort. For us baby boomers, we didn’t have this huge world opened up to us as kids, as hippies, even for a good part of our adult life.

But this too is part of the fragmentation of society. Most of us have more online friends than we do friends in the real world. More and more people seek love on the internet, than in the real world. Eventually, most of them make the real world connection for love, and the web is just a stepping stone, but undoubtedly, there are those who are so socially inept in real world terms, that the only love they ever receive is online. Manipulation, scams, panics, misinformation and other problems are more easily disseminated, or acted out. Then there are all the big picture problems with the world.

The modernistic man ruled over his world and universe. We landed on the moon, and in time we can conquer any distance and world according to Modern thought. Just like science fiction, which is different from fiction and fantasy in that being based in science, it represents a potential future. But a man lords over his universe as well as he lorded over other men: we have poisoned and dirtied our world so bad that it literally threatens our existence.

The lack of a center or soul in Modernism, has been replaced in Postmodernism with an eclectic pastiche of the past, but this in turn grates on the traditions that are still the basis of Western culture, namely Christianity. Christian ethics, values, and philosophy, with or without God, continued to shape Western thought. Christianity itself probably found itself more comfortable with the atheism or agnosticism of Modernism, but Postmodernism is another story. And while the liberal, and even center factions of the Christian world, have slowly gone with the flow, the more fundamentalist factions see Postmodernistic forces as the devil at work. Add to this all the ‘signs’ of what is happening, and how they relate to all the predictions from around the world. 2012 is just around the corner. But you know, what is really predicted is change.

And the Cartesian rationalism, or the rationalistic-objectivism, whatever you want to call it, that has shaped our bureaucracies as much as our factories is a logical conclusion that grew out of Christian philosophy and its focus on the masculine (which relies on the masculine aspect of the psyche, i.e. rationality, objectivism, linear thought, etc). Take spirit out of the equation, and you have that dark lifeless metallic archetypical symbol of a futuristic automated fascist society.

I haven’t shared my views of what I think is next after Postmodernism in this particular thread yet. But I want to hear everyone’s views for a bit first. I will tell you that I am optimistic. But I won’t judge any of you on your views. After all, no one knows the future (Well, I do. Under the full moon I sacrificed a goat, cut out its entrails, and divined the future. SO I know what will happen. …Just kidding, but see how Postmodernistic I am in pulling something from an eclectic past and parodying it? Far out.)

 

those are very long posts. im too drunk for this right now. but i've heard people say we're in the Information Age. but how the information is used and what it'd come to is real question for me.

 

I think that wanting to craft an answer that applies to everyone and everything is a valid and overwhelming urge in man. I also think that wanting to craft an answer that just applies to you is a valid and overwhelming urge too.

I don't think they can sanely be separated, because they seem to be yin/yang.

 

Ok---I do have to correct myself, I got to thinking about it and checked on it, and the term Postmodernism was used as far back as the 1870's though then it was used to refer to art, after impressionism which is a Modernistic art form. In 1917 it was used to refer to a future age when man falls into the decadence and nihilism that Nietzsche predicted (yes, that is where we are at), it was also used in 1926, and 1939.

But a current definition/recognition of Postmodernism is the period of social change since the 1950's and that is what I am referring to.

 

Where did you get this from? I don't recall it.

 

Tribalism. What you believe will soon become much more important (socially) than what you know. Everyone is coming under increasing pressure to conform to the views and values of their relatives and friends. Facts are being treated casually; as a commodity of low value.

This trend started with cable TV, and exploded with the internet. Now it is being accelerated by the collapse of the concepts of job security and lasting careers.

Network television used to be a socially unifying force in most wealthy countries. You could have any opinion of what you were seeing and hearing, but most of us were seeing and hearing a lot of the same things, which was the starting point for a lot of conversations. Before that, radio served the same purpose, and newspapers before that. Now we can all get our information and cultural input entirely from different sources, leaving us with almost nothing in common with other groups with different interests and values.

One of the earliest signs I noticed was that stand-up comedians started having trouble with jokes that were built on pop culture references. No matter who or what they talked about, suddenly a big part of their audiences was out of the loop because they had no previous exposure to the topic.

Economic changes have erased the sense of community and belonging that people once felt at work. Most jobs are now transient, so workers make less of an emotional investment at work. They have to try to fulfill that need in other ways, such as hyperfocus on family.

The internet revolution will take a long time to fully play itself out, but in the younger generations, you can already see a number of cultural and religious fragments that have almost no connection or interaction with other groups or with mainstream society, whatever the hell that means anymore. I don't know anything to call this other than tribalism. This is what the first European visitors to America found; a large number of unique, homogeneous societies that had very little interaction with each other, and little interest in expanding their horizons.

The thing that bothers me most about tribal cultures is that independent thinking is not valued, and often not even tolerated. That isn't too terrible if you are free to join the group that fits you best, but that isn't always the case. It's also harder to run a national democracy shared by many groups that don't understand or respect each other. And the de-emphasis of factual knowledge and liberal arts education is troubling, on many levels.

The best part of this trend is the diversity and number of cultural and social options it presents to those who are able to freely choose who they want to associate with. Strong, spiritual connections to like-minded people is so much better and healthier than suburban alienation, unless that group is drifting away from reality.

 

I enjoyed reading your post.I'm thinking about it.Firstly I would like to question the assumption that rationalism,objectivism and linear thought are solely aspects of the male psyche.The female psyche contains much rationalism,objectivism and linear thought - thank God!I am not saying that this is YOUR assumption,rather you may be presenting the construct of a patriarchal rationale.While I take it that we would both agree that we would both like to see more of those qualities associated with the female psyche,I think that separating such qualities into male and female is divisive and defeats the purpose.
Postmodernism is a useful term to describe many aspects of contemporary society.However it should be remembered that it was originally a term used to describe a new movement in the Arts,including painting,writing and film.We should be wary of applying this as a blanket term to describe everything about the contemporary world.What happened was that critical and cultural theory in literature and philosophy started to merge with political theory,so that something from the Artworld could then be taken to describe conditions in the real socially existing world of wider human culture.I say this because I think that while useful,I don't think Postmodernism is a sufficiently adequate term to describe the current situation and the massive changes we have seen in technology,global communications,globalisation,the environment issue and the complete death of a practical Marxism.(Although this still exists as a critical tool in DESCRIBING First World Capitalism.)

 

Ok Walsh, are you making me dig into my office and look for my Nietzsche books? Do you know what my office looks like? There are books stacked behind books, My desk is half-buried behind books, There are cupboards of books I can’t even get into, because there are piles of books in front of them… (actually I am serious. When I need a specific book, I might ‘almost’ remember where it got put, but things shift around, and it can take quite a while for me to find them. One of these days I hope one of my sons will move out, and I can then expand my office). I have a hard time with Nietzsche, I like his philosophy on many grounds, but his writing is the style of that typical uptight German, that has everything in a box---and yet he tries to break free of all that. When I read him, I have to bounce back to other sources to continuously remind myself that he is actually against that strict god-fearing German way of thinking of the late 1800’s into the mid 1900’s. I believe he specifically states this prediction of Nihilism in ‘The Gay Science,’ or ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra.’ Or perhaps ‘The Antichrist.’ The only book I have readily visible is Ecce Homo, which also has one on Morality in it. I have only read a little of that one. I think I know where my copy of The Antichrist is, but others are buried. I do have the book From Aristotle to Sartre, which I just checked and it states this. You can also read about it in Wikipedia under Nihilism, and probably under Nietzsche.

Ok Fairlight, I wouldn’t have told you where my post is if you were just going to come on here and disagree--------JUST KIDDING!!!

I am not saying women are not objective and rational. I think you understand that I am using traits that psychologists have associated with what they label as either the masculine or feminine side of the psyche, but each of us have these sides of the psyche, and men and women equally share them. Whether this is a definition defined by a patriarchal system, is hard for me to say. The first time I saw it used was in a well-known book from the 70’s that goes through various schools of thought regarding consciousness. A more recent book is titled, The Alphabet and the Goddess. In my own research, I have found what I interpret as the rise of rationalism and objectivism being closely connected to the rise of the male god, the opposite of this I agree with psychologists to be intuition. Whether it is the masculine side of the psyche vs the feminine side, or the conscious mind vs the subconscious, I cannot say for sure. Either way it represents a duality, and I see dualities, particularly this one breaking down, as well as the masculine/feminine duality. But I will also add that I find it indicative that in recent history, as we have seen a new rise of the feminine (e.g. womens lib movements, neo-paganistic search for the goddess, etc), that we have also seen a rising focus on those same characteristics labeled as the feministic side of the psyche.

That’s a tough one though. It could be merely a deeper connection to our subconscious minds. Indigenous people tend to be more intuitive and they have a more healthy connection to their intuitive side, as well as non-linear languages. Do you have any references or studies that specifically question such classifications? I believe Feminists have used this classification as well (I think I have seen such writings in a book that is a compilation of articles and writing on the shadow, titled, Meeting the Shadow). I never thought about it as divisive in that it is not intended to say women are one way and men are another, as we all have both aspects of the psyche. But from a Jungian standpoint, the idea is to achieve a harmonic balance to the psyche, through individuation, or becoming whole.

As far as postmodernism applying to society as a whole or as society’s new metaverse (though Jean-Francois Lyotard would say it is the rejection of any metaverse), that is another tough one. There are a lot of opinions out there. Some say that Postmodernism is only one of several things going on within our culture. Others say that Postmodernism does represent our current epoch, and that it is an eclectic mix of people who are traditional, modernistic, Postmodernistic, and so forth. I understand that you would therefore hesitate to use it as a blanket term.

Yes, Postmodernism was certainly a term used for a style of art and architecture. But I feel that the arts, including film and literature, often represents a reflection of, or an expression of, the collective unconscious, much as a dream is a reflection or expression of the individual unconscious. Such art does have a message to tell us—a message that is intricately connected to our state of being, just as a dream is (yes I know, some psychologists state that dreams are random and any supposed message is coincidence, but I disagree). I also referred to early instances of the label of Postmodernism in Post 12 that were not art connected.

Obviously postmodernism might mean something fairly different in the US, from what it means in post-Communist Russia where consumerism and ethics are significantly different. It would mean something different in Communist China. There all kinds of cultural currents: The first world countries are rapidly moving towards what Toffler calls the 3rd Wave, while third world countries are differentiated between 1st wave (agricultural societies) and 2nd wave (industrial societies). But I have lived almost 2 decades in Asia in both the first world (Japan) and the third world (Philippines), and have travelled all over Asia, and elsewhere. In America and Asia I worked in the financial markets, but I have also spent a lot of time with Native Americans, as well as with indigenous communities elsewhere. I was not one of those hippies that went off the grid, but rather one of those hippies who agreed with Jerry Rubin at the end of the 1970’s and became a yuppy in the 80’s, but never stopped being a hippy. And I have observed the world make a lot of changes.

I believe that times are changing. This is a period of Kαιρός (kairos), a time when change is in the air, just as when a front blows in. It is not like everything will change next year, but there are things happening that reflect a transition into a new cultural epoch. The 3rd Wave does not work as a good label, because that is what Alvin Toffler sees us heading into. I see these changes as being as significant as any of the other major turning points in mankind’s history. And these changes are clearly connected to aspects of Postmodernism (take for example, deconstructionism). In all my experience and observation over the years, I agree with those who use Postmodernism as a blanket term, in part because it is so eclectic, and the definitions they use as such, make sense in America, Japan, Philippines, and many other places. But for want of a better term, the guiding philosophies, personas, metaverse—whatever you want to call it—of our culture today cannot continue. Change is inevitable.

 

Wow, Karen_J, that is very good, and very observant! In case people haven’t noticed, she has added on to her post. She describes a lot of features of Postmodernism, as she sees them playing out into the next epoch. I see a similar theme in her views to Alvin Toffler, and his concept of the Third Wave.

I am not knocking all the doomsayers, like I said, none of us know what the future holds, and it could be apocalyptic, or decay, or utopia. But Karen does not necessarily paint a utopian picture.

She speaks of the fragmentation of Postmodernistic society to continue into a very fragmented society based on tribalism. In a similar vein, Alvin Toffler sees even national borders breaking down into what are more cultural boundaries than actual political borders, and particularly (and ideally) in an economic sense. In other words, we would not have to have people sneak across the border, because 1.) there would be more economic stability on the other side of the border (from such factors as technology and the web leading to more localized industry, etc) and 2.) since the borders are no longer political, there would one day be no need to sneak across. In the 1980’s he predicted today’s issues with anti-immigration, saying that this would happen as the old order tries to maintain control. People always resist change into the new wave. But I’m getting off topic.

One aspect of Postmodernism, is a stronger focus on the individual. Karen points out how that actually backfires with people flocking together into their own spheres of interest, and inevitably this will change their own perception of the world, from that of others in each of their own spheres of interest. No wonder the tea party is getting so crazy, and I can’t figure out how they can be so… you know…

I don’t think Alvin Toffler pictured the 3rd Wave as so fragmented, but this is a good argument for a difficult to govern-fragmented-society as she speaks of in her last paragraphs.

I would like to add a little about my impressions of tribal society. I spend a lot of time with Lakota (Sioux), particularly in a spiritual sense. I have spent time with other tribal people here in the US and elsewhere as well. My impression is that the tribes who are planter-society based tend to place more emphasis on the group, have stronger taboos, and have more of a semblance of institutional structures. Whereas tribes that are more hunter-gatherer based have a stronger influence on the individual. A good example is the spiritual relationship of the individual to the spirit world. I would not define native spirituality as a religion, but as a spirituality, because of its lack of institutional structure, and its strong emphasis on the individual’s experience with spirit. But in the plains tribes. such as the Lakota, there is a stronger emphasis on the individual through the vision quest, than you have with the Hopi, or the Pueblo Indians, who rely more on the group experience of the kiva.

In fact, attending Lakota ceremonies, particularly with the same lodge community and an extended collection of lodge communities, I found that the combination of sweat lodges, vision quests, sun dances, house ceremonies, and other ceremonies create a loving bond of individuals, that we hippies never had in our own communal experiments. We were doomed to failure because it was always a collection of individuals being forced into a group dynamic. It seems to me, and I have witnessed this, that the Lakota embraced individuality as a group, and these ceremonies were a big part of that. (It is not paradise, and they have interpersonal problems and fighting too. But it seems to me that these problems are the greatest outside of the lodge community where they work in their various foundations, Indian centers, and other institutional structures, not to mention being immersed in white society, and suddenly you have the back biting, fighting, and other dysfunctional relationships, and this in turn spills over somewhat into the lodge communities.)

My point is that tribalism does not have to be oppressive of the individual. In fact the impact of the internet, which gives more power to the individual, may actually fragment society down to the individual and thereby create more focus on the individual in the future of such a tribalism as Karen speaks of.

In the past, we did have a common source of information, and therefore we had a common perception of the world as a nation, or culture. If we were misinformed it was as a common people (which is why slavery, witch hunts and other black marks had wide acceptance at one time). In Postmodernism, Karen has pointed out that this common perception, misinformation, whatever, has broken down to smaller groups (and this could continue to be a feature of our future). Is it possible though that it could break down small enough that the individual achieves greater independence?

Some schools of Postmodernistic thought, such as Deconstructionism speak towards a break down of binary opposites--in traditional language: duality. So here we are speaking of the in-group and out-group, or Us vs. Them. In group-ethic oriented societies (which I believe tend to have a longer, and often more recent, planter-society history) the in-group out-group structure can get very complex, but in a hierarchical manner, such as with the Japanese. But in a post-postmodernistic society as Karen describes this same in-group out-group mentality could easily break down, not only the influence of the individual, but society as a whole.

Or could the break down of duality save the individual, and society?

If we use Postmodernistic lingo to describe this, it is because traditionally societies had a unifying myth, (in Postmodernese, a Metaverse) that provided a center to the culture. This is the center that Modernism referred to as having been lost through the Age of Reason. Postmodernism tried to fill the void by bringing back all kinds of myths, but it still rejects a Metaverse. Everyone has there own little myths that define their meaning, and yet they are removed from the original context, and a parody of the original, so there is no unifying force to back the tribalism of such a future. Unless this changes, Karen makes a good point about a possible future.

I will touch more on this when I share my own views.

 

I have never seen a societal trend that was entirely positive or negative, so I think it's important to try and see both sides of everything.

There will always be cynics watching every trend, looking for opportunities to manipulate others to benefit themselves at any cost. They tend to move more decisively than those who always look for opportunities to make the world a better place.

Why? Because technology has made it possible. "Because we can" may sound like an overly glib answer to the question of why the masses do anything that they do, but I frequently ask myself how often we truly make choices, and how often we simply do whatever is possible at any given moment. As a society, we may be giving ourselves too much credit for decision-making processes that are mostly on autopilot.

We're getting there. In many parts of America, maybe most parts, we have already developed cultural borders that divide urban and suburban (liberal) from rural (conservative). Obviously, such a patchwork pattern cannot be converted into conventional political borders. In some respects, these lines can be more significant than the vast ocean that physically separates the US from China.

Yes, this is actually a move away from individualism and its associated alienation. It's a backlash.

He couldn't have fully foreseen what the internet has become. I don't think anyone could have predicted it. Its capabilities and impact have been such a radical shock to the status quo, almost overnight, by historical standards.

Right. A postmodern tribe can be empowering of the individual, if that is an integral part of their value system. An obvious example would be an academic peer group within a liberal university.

I don't think we will ever fragment all the way down to the atomic level of one person, because of our hard-wired need for social contact. We will always influence each other. As long as you feel a strong need to have some human connections, you will have to take some steps to make yourself acceptable to somebody.

Maybe that is in fact what took place in the Age of Reason, but I have always considered the legitimate center of Modernism to be Reason itself, along with its companion concepts of knowledge, education, and (maybe to a lesser extent) pragmatism. That has always worked for me, and it doesn't have the look or feel of a traditional or tribal myth from my vantage point.

Yes, I know that having pragmatic thoughts and feelings about pragmatism is circular reasoning! :rofl: Don't shoot me for it! At least I'm being honest!

To live up to its name, the goal of Reason should be to place something at the center of society that isn't a myth, to whatever extent that is possible. I still respect that goal, and see power in it for positive change.

If you want some true optimism here, it has long been my hope that we could somehow learn to use the best and most useful parts of all these diverse schools of thought as needed, and communicate them far beyond the boundaries of academia, to the betterment of as many individuals as possible. It's a nice dream.
:sunny:
Could that be the shape of post-tribalism? Or will we go to the opposite extreme and ride a downward spiral to a point where we will have forgotten what we could once accomplish through broader communication and accountability?

 

That is true on the fragmentation down to the indiviual. It would be like trying to live without a shadow. In fact the shadow is formed through a process of seeking acceptance to others, initially your parents, by the ego. All people have a shadow, and that can never change. I see the shadow and the ego shrinking to a more normal size in relation to other complexes and archetypes of the psyche, but it cannot disappear. (Though this is the goal of Western duality--destroy the perceived evil in favor of the good (the ego ideal), which is impossible). We always need human contact.

You are right in that modernism placed reason at the center---where the metaverse or unifying myth of traditional society was myth, and where modernism rejected myth, there are philosophers that say that reason is that metaverse. Postmodernism tried to go a step further rejecting all metaverse, including reason, rationality, and objective science, because of the potential horrors that objective science without any spiritual values could wreak on earth (such as World War II). SO Postmodernism tried to replace it with many myths from all over.

But actually you are heading down the path of my reasoning, including your last 2 paragraphs, but I said I am not going to share my views yet---so I will leave it at that. Oh no----I said too much! So forget all that! ....errr, uhhhh... ...oh yeah: Or am I? LOL

 

I'm a worthless letch. Is that modernism? Then I have to believe that this will to Power is the wrong consideration of intellectual self-love. Is a letch (a real one, I say) well explained by the clever reversal for the being of the will to Truth? The shadow is not now. I should be arrested by the free speach society.