Postmodernism in the 1970s?

Question

Why is postmodernism significant in 1970's and how does it affect the society today?

Answer 1

That is when it began it's influence; the 70's. It affects society today by holding objectively deduced phenomenon in relativistic regard and proposing an incoherent, false view of the world in it's place.

Answer 2

errgh thats a huge question. Firstly, whats your definition of postmodernism. Are you talking about the art/literary/architectural movement or the philosophy of the social sciences related to literary theory and poststructuralism?

see here

http://english.ucsb.edu:591/transcriptio...

if the former then it was the cultural and artistic elements referred to in the above article. As far as social theory goes, it was probably Leotards article 'the postmodern condition'.

To get a handle on what effects Pomo has had, you need to get a sense of what modernism 'is'.

Basically postmodernism was a reaction to the modernist construct. In a lot of senses, it has radically shaken it up, particularly through the 80-'s and 90's to a point where accepted 'truths' about art and history have been largely demolished.

One really good example is of the literary canon. 20-30 years ago there was a pre-defined set of 'literary classics' for 'western society;' that were taught in schoiols and universities. Today, there is no 'canon' as such, and what is taught is the interests of power and knowledge that having such a anon served. We now think critically about the cultural biases of these works and how they have excluded many types of human existence. Before postmoidernsm, these works were regarded as 'truths'.

The same can be said for art and architecture.

The fundamental difference that can be seen now is that people think more critically about their position in the world, what constitutes a 'good life' and about what constirtutes 'legitimate power'.

I hope this isn't too waffly. As I said its a very big question. There's no way of answering it without doing quite a bit of reading Im afraid.