GHASSAN ALSERAYHI
 MSc. Arch, M. Arch, B. Arch, Assoc. SCE

ARCHITECT + EDUCATOR + RESEARCHER
From Postmodernity's Relativity
to Pseudo-Modernity's Self-Centric Truth


  "Where is God? I will tell you! We have killed Him, you and I! We all killed Him! But how did we do this?  How could we have drained the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the horizon? What did we do when we detached the Earth from its sun? Where does it head now? Where do we head? Away from all suns? Aren’t we plunging continually? Isn’t there still up and down? Aren't we straying towards an infinite nothing?" With these words, Nietzsche announced the "Death of God" in his book "The Gay Science", the God of modernity, paving the way for postmodernity. This is Nietzsche's world; a postmodern world without constants, centrality, or boundaries, nothing beyond the immediate material, no ethical system can rule, for man is an instinctual being like the rest, and all beings are part of the material nature in which all are subject to the "will to power." While Karl Marx believed that class struggles drive and shape the course of history, and Sigmund Freud saw instinct and the conflict of desires in the "unconscious" as the engine of history, Nietzsche saw the "will to power" as the force driving history. Perhaps the complete break from all constants was because Nietzsche himself believed that Western modernity is but a "disguised metaphysics", an illusion in which man is deified instead of God, and Western civilization becomes the absolute. Perhaps also, what most distinguishes postmodernity is that it arose as an antagonist to modernity. While modernity focused on presenting grand narratives based on Enlightenment and rational foundations, postmodernity doubted all grand narratives, considering what humanity deems as universal knowledge to be merely theses influenced by their contemporary historical and local context. Truths vary across ages and societies, or rather, as Nietzsche says: "There are no facts, only interpretations." Hence, the demolition of grand narratives and the abandonment of essentialism and objectivity thrust us into the seas of relativity, pluralism, deconstruction, and nihilism.

The German thinker Raoul Eshelman says in his book "After Postmodernity: Essays on Performatism and Applications in Narrative, Cinema, and Art": "Postmodernity presents a meticulous trap regarding meaning. Any attempt one makes in the quest for meaning is in vain, as every sign promising some genuine knowledge is embedded within contexts that necessitate the definition of even more signs. In his attempt to define himself through meaning, the postmodern individual drowns in a flood of intersecting references that are expanding more than ever. Yet, even if one clings to form, the outcome will not be any better because postmodernity does not see form as a remedy for meaning; rather, it's a trace that leads us backward to already existing, semiotically charged contexts. Every attempt to solidify meaning unravels through overlapping forms. Every usage of a form is connected to pre-existing meanings, and every approach to originality brings us back to another sign. The journey of someone searching for meaning ends where it began: the vast expanse of postmodernity that stretches indefinitely."  

Perhaps the tight exceptional trap that Eshelman speaks of is most evident in Derrida's deconstructive project, which adopted radical skepticism in the semantics of texts, entirely undermining the idea of stable meaning. A closer look at deconstruction clarifies that any literary, political, economic structure, etc., is constructed and preserved by exclusionary actions. Meaning, while creating something, you will inevitably exclude what does not align with it. These exclusionary structures become oppressive, and oppression becomes one of their consequent results. Derrida insists that what gets suppressed and oppressed will return to destabilize the construct, regardless of how secure it seems. This is the philosophy of postmodernity where settling on a meaning becomes challenging. This is the fragmented postmodern world where our vulnerability in the face of the relativity of everything appears in the form of self-mocking consciousness and a satirical mimicry of the world and reality around us.

In this world, Jacques Derrida, the foremost philosopher of language in postmodernity, sees the truth as scattered fragments, stripping the centrality of reason of its sanctity. Michel Foucault perceives philosophy as merely an attempt to diagnose reality and to think about the unthought-of in it to understand the true constitution of phenomena and the reasons why certain subjects dominate at specific historical periods. Foucault does not promise us anything about the truth but only offers a "genealogy" or "lineage" of phenomena. Jean-François Lyotard dismisses all the grand narratives built on the foundations of rationality and enlightenment. The postmodern world, in which Jean Baudrillard consistently emphasizes the "death of reality" and the assassination of meaning and the disintegration of its producing sources. It's a world of infinite nothingness, as Nietzsche heralded in his book "The Gay Science."

Are we witnessing a shift to a different world based on different intellectual models, new powers, and different contemporary cultural and social patterns? What can the theories established by Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, Deleuze, and all poststructuralist theorists offer us? Eshelman believes that the last fifteen years have seen the rise of a state in the humanities called 'post-theory'. From here, Eshelman announces the death of postmodernity, trying to formulate a term that fits the new stage 'post-postmodernism'. All poststructuralist theories that emerged in the post-colonial phase could not keep up with the 'changing modernity' referred to as globalization. Eshelman mentions in his book 'The End of Postmodernity' a series of changes in literature, cinema, architecture, politics, and art that clearly indicate that we have left the postmodern era. Eshelman calls this new era the age of 'Performatism', where models of philosophy, art, cinema, and literature take a curve of transcendence beyond material reality and return philosophy towards monism, away from the inflation and fragmentation inherent in the postmodern model. In the same context, Kirby states in his famous article 'After the Death of Postmodernity' that: 'Postmodernity died and was buried, and a new model of power and knowledge formed under the pressure of new technology and contemporary social forces'.

Kirby's intriguing article talks about the end of postmodernity and the emergence of literary, artistic, and political applications established in a different reality and based on different intellectual models. Kirby asks readers to look at the market for cultural products, such as books, lectures, or seminars. Where is the postmodern cultural production? Are any of the theories of Derrida, Foucault, or Jean Baudrillard still dominating the intellectual scene now? These theories have retired and are now only discussed among academics. Similarly, producers of readable, visual, and audible cultural materials have abandoned producing materials related to postmodernity. Kirby believes that the feeling of the futility of theories led to their death. The transition from 'postmodernity' to 'after postmodernity' is most evident in the field of literature due to changes in writing methods and the themes of the novels themselves. For instance, when considering a postmodern novel like 'Waiting for Godot' by the existentialist Irish writer Samuel Beckett, which is one of the most important literary works of the 20th century, the text and contemporary texts do not know anything about rock music, television, modern technology, communication and media, mobile phones, email, the internet, computers in every home, or even landing on the moon, which is now taken for granted. Novels like 'Waiting for Godot' or '1984' by Orwell have become very old and appeared in a different reality amidst a different cultural model.

Alan Kirby posits that "post-postmodernity" prioritizes the receiver over the writer, potentially democratizing culture. However, this shift may also suggest the superficiality of modern cultural products. Kirby believes this change transcends mere cultural style, indicating a profound alteration in our understanding of power, knowledge, and reality. Technological advancements since the late 1990s have dramatically reshaped the dynamic between the writer, reader, and text. Contemporary culture, saturated with passive consumption from screens, has given rise to "false modernity," where audience participation, though seemingly active, remains constrained. Examples include viewer-driven TV shows, interactive news programs, and computer games. The internet epitomizes this phenomenon, with transient content like that on Wikipedia or social media, highlighting a facade of active engagement and content creation.

At the core of the internet lies the ability for anyone to create content, like blogs. While postmodernity involves traditional consumption of media, pseudo-modernity emphasizes interaction—connecting, browsing, downloading. This creates a generational divide: those born post-1980 see themselves as autonomous and expressive, whereas they perceive postmodernity as elitist and stifling. In contrast, individuals born before 1980 often view the postmodern era as intellectually and creatively richer, while seeing contemporary content as superficial. Pseudo-modernity, a term coined by Alan Kirby, suggests a paradox: advanced technology platforms showcasing trivial content. This isn't just a cultural shift; it represents profound changes in our notions of power, self, and reality. Unlike postmodernity's existential questions about truth, pseudo-modernity places the individual at the center of truth creation. This self-centric perspective supplants postmodernity's fragmented identity, emphasizing a singular, powerful ego. Eshelman's term "performance" aligns with this, both depicting humans striving for unity in a fragmented world. The result? A barrage of nostalgic media online and on TV, beyond mere childhood memories. In this post-postmodern world, individuals are encouraged to believe they are the sole creators and arbiters of truth, epitomizing the notion of "the author is dead." Now, everyone feels they are the author.

In the postmodern landscape, marked by rapid technological advancements in communication which Marshall McLuhan dubbed the "electronic village", there's a transformative shift in how information and images shape our minds and perceptions. This postmodern age sees our beliefs continually being molded by a deluge of societal information. Philosophers Rainer Funk and Herbert Marcuse have pinpointed the pivotal role of imagination against this backdrop. In his seminal exploration of the postmodern individual, "The Ego and We: Psychoanalysis of the Postmodern Man," Funk delves into how postmodern culture and its economic shifts affect the human psyche. He argues that the inherent human capacity for imagination, if unexercised, wanes. As technology compensates with an abundance of external images, it simultaneously curtails genuine imaginative power. Without this internal imaginative prowess, pillars of culture like art, literature, and even hope might cease to exist in the postmodern narrative.

Marcuse, on the other hand, posits that the postmodern industrial society limits artistic imagination while amplifying scientific and technical creativity. For him, the postmodern context necessitates a rejuvenation of imagination, which can liberate individuals from the societal norms of the age. While valuing imagination's transformative potential, Marcuse underscores that in the postmodern world, imagination should be anchored in reality, not detached fantasy. In essence, the postmodern society, characterized by technological rationality and materialistic objectives, produces a one-dimensional human experience. As technology and data-centric institutions dominate, rejuvenating the human imagination becomes crucial. In the postmodern age, there's an urgent call to empower individuals to engage with their social reality
innovatively, fostering creativity, and reclaiming their intrinsic human essence.





Bibliography
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